Kaine/Allen Senate Race: Close

If Virginia is the new bellwether state -- and this blogger believes that it is -- then the Kaine/Allen Senate race should be one of the most closely watched races. I still cannot fathom why Jim Webb, who always harbored the ambition to be the Daniel Patrick moynihan of the senate, would turn tail and vacate that seat when Democrats need him most. It is baffling, especially considering that -- looking at how competetive Tim Kaine is -- he might have won.

For someone that has shown such courage on the battlefield, Jim Webb -- who was once my hero -- is a bit of a political coward, a girly-man. And tim kaine, who seemed a lightweight in 2008, is becoming something of a serious party loyalist. From PPPolling:

"PPP's newest poll on the Virginia Senate race finds the same thing pretty much every survey on it for the last year and a half has- an extremely close contest with little movement. Tim Kaine leads George Allen 46-44 this month, just one point different from late April when Kaine was ahead 45-44.
Independents are giving Kaine his slight lead. Allen actually has his party a little bit more unified around him, taking 87% of Republicans to Kaine's 84% of Democrats. Allen's 65% showing in the primary was a little bit less than expected, but he's not having any trouble getting the base in line. But Kaine's ahead 45-37 with independents, and that's allowing him to have the overall advantage.

"Kaine's proving to be better liked by voters. He has a +5 net favorability rating at 43/38. Meanwhile Allen comes in at a -3% spread with 39% rating him positively to 42% with a negative opinion.
One thing that's been surprising in each of our last 2 polls is Allen getting 18-21% of the black vote.

That's astonishing considering Allen's racist past. More:

"It seems unlikely he'll be able to get that much in the end (although he did get 15% in 2006 according to the exit poll) but it might help explain why Kaine's not shying away from appearing with Obama in public. Also, although there aren't a lot of undecideds, it's worth noting that they support Obama 41-29 in the Presidential race, so it wouldn't hurt Kaine to try to grab onto those coattails.

"We also took a look ahead to next year's race for Governor. The most likely scenario would seem to be Terry McAuliffe for the Democrats against either Ken Cuccinelli or Bill Bolling for the Republicans."

More here.