So says veteran pollster Whit Ayres this weekend on Fox News, when he predicted that Gillespie’s “great campaign” would close the gap with Mark Warner. Gillespie’s latest ad show us why:
Warner really is a blank check for President Obama…anything Obama wants, his Virginia Handmaiden delivers. In a bit of confirmation for Ayres, Roll Call has now elevated Warner to the list of top 10 most vulnerable incumbent Senators.
This campaign is about to get real, folks.
3 comments
I am still waiting for Ed to renounce slating, and stand up for the Republican Creed. As of now, because he has taken no stands to indicate otherwise, his RINO ranking is 99 and 44 percent pure. Hoping he will come out strong with some real principles, but so far, crickets.
MC, Ed was against slating, is against slating and never condoned it..
Real Politics RPC poll average for the Virginia Senate race as of 1 Sept. 2014 puts Warner (D) 52.0, Gillespie (R) 33.3 or Warner up +18.7 points. This is a slight improvement for Gillespie +2.3 points from early in the year 1/23/14 but by no means a major launch. I’m not sure I would call Dr. Whit Ayres over in Alexandria a veteran pollster, his firm Ayres, McHenry & Associates is more of a public affairs, strategy research firm. He has been fairly successful though at clubbing the Tea Party as I believe Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are both major clients. I just don’t see a clear path to election for Gillespie running in effect against the incumbent Obama hiding in the WH in an off year election when he will NOT be on the ballot. As bad as he and his policies are ( and they are very bad) this just historically has not proven to be a winning political strategy. I guess we will see at the next polling cycle but Gillespie desperately needs a Scott Brown moment.