Poll: McDonnell still up, Deeds gains ground

Republican Bob McDonnell maintains a lead over his Democratic rival in the latest poll of the 2009 governor's race, but Creigh Deeds has sliced in half his deficit from an early August poll.

An analysis released Tuesday by Public Policy Polling showed McDonnell with a 7-point (49-42 percent) advantage over Deeds.

Last month, a poll done by the firm indicated that McDonnell was ahead of Deeds by 14 points.

Conducted by a North Carolina-based company that leans Democratic, the poll attributes the shift to growing interest in the race among Democrats and negative attacks on McDonnell.

The poll surveyed 596 likely Virginia voters Aug 28-31 and has a 4 percent margin of error.

Some of the data was gathered after news broke about McDonnell's 1989 master's thesis that advocated a conservative social agenda in government.

McDonnell has since renounced some of those writings, but media coverage of the paper he penned as a 34-year old graduate student has caused his campaign headaches in recent days.

The poll released Tuesday isn't the only one to show McDonnell atop Deeds -- results from several polls publicly released this summer have reflected that trend.

In the other statewide races, the poll shows Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling's lead over Democratic challenger Jody Wagner narrowing to 46-40; and state Sen. Ken Cuccinelli, R-Fairfax, with a 48-35 advantage over Del. Steve Shannon, D-Fairfax, in the attorney general race.

Also Tuesday, McDonnell and Bolling unveiled a piece of an education plan the men said would annually pump $480 million more into classrooms without raising taxes by rerouting state budget dollars away from bureaucracy costs.

The plan was denounced by the Deeds campaign and the Virginia Education Association, which issued a statement calling it a "re-tread of an idea that has been soundly rejected in states across the country both in the forms of legislation and ballot initiatives."

-- Julian Walker

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