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Republicans need to gain 40 seats in November’s midterm elections to win control of the House of Representatives. Ten percent of that goal is in Virginia, where targeted incumbent Democrats Rick Boucher (VA-9), Gerry Connolly (VA-11), Glenn Nye (VA-2) and Tom Perriello (VA-5) are being challenged by House of Delegates Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, Keith Fimian, Scott Rigell and Virginia Senator Robert Hurt, respectively. Connolly, Nye and Perriello all are freshmen and Perriello may be the number one GOP target in the entire country given his razor thin victory in 2008 and the 5th’s generally conservative leanings (Charlottesville Daily Progress). Perhaps no House win pleased liberals more.

Now, according to a poll released yesterday by SurveyUSA for Roanoke television station WDBJ, Representative Perriello may be toast (see American Prospect’s Tapped Blog and the Washington Post’s Virginia Politics Blog). It shows the 5th to be a blowout already: Hurt up by a 58-35 margin (see National Review Online’s Campaign Spot Blog).

While many GOP House candidates are polling well, few have the numbers that elicited a “WOW” from NRO’s Jim Geraghty. Of course, polls this early can mean anything and the pros will say SurveyUSA is not a top tier pollster on the lines of Mason-Dixon or Rasmussen Reports. But, SurveyUSA was the first to poll Virginia last summer (51 weeks ago, to be exact) and it had all three statewide races right from the beginning to the very end, including double digit leads when all the more “reputable” polls showed it closer. In fact, one political pro told me the SurveyUSA results were “embarrassing,” but the only people embarrassed last November were the doubters and the Democrats.

The numbers are even more astounding considering a hard fought Republican primary, a Libertarian candidate and some TEA Party dissatisfaction with Senator Hurt. (SurveyUSA breaks down its research here.) It admits it has factored Republican turnout to be much greater than Democrat turnout (not surprising since when comparing the U.Va. student drop-of from 2008, where Perriello benefited from a large Barack Obama student turnout, to 2009). However, SurveyUSA says even if it factors in a 50-50 Republican-Democrat turnout, Hurt still wins by 11 points. At this point. (Which would allow the GOP to focus on the other three seats.) But, if the trend holds, it’s a remarkable sign for House Republicans — and one down and 39 to go.

Annotations & Elucidations 

No Obama Affect

Looks like there won’t be much of an Obama affect in Virginia. Despite at least a month of radio ads, two weeks of television ads, two appearances by Veep Joe Biden, and now a second campaign stop (not to mention all that DNC cash) for Creigh Deeds, four more polls (Rasmussen, SurveyUSA, Public Policy Polling and VCU’s Commonwealth Poll) show not just a McDonnell landslide, but an unprecedented GOP landslide sweep. (The only other GOP sweep in Virginia history, in 1997, featured a close lieutenant governor’s race won by John Hager over L.F. Payne.) Not that Obama seems to care. His speech in Norfolk was less than Obamaesque and not particularly rousing on the senator’s behalf, with deprecating humor about not wearing his tie straight and something about his hair. It seems the best the POTUS could do was call him “not slick.” About the last question that remains is whether the pending landslide will result in appreciable Republican gains in the House of Delegates. 

Meanwhile, the media hits keep coming from our Annual Gala Monday night. See the national attention we received from CitizenLink.org in our top story below.

News:

*Gov. Mike Huckabee Speaks at Virginia Gala (CitizenLink.org)

McDonnell’s lead grows (Public Policy Polling Blog)

VCU poll gives Bob McDonnell healthy lead (Decision Virginia Blog/NBC12.com)

Polls: Big GOP lead in Va., N.J. tight (Politico.com)

News7 Poll: Republicans hold double digit leads in statewide contests (WDBJ-TV/WDBJ7.com)

Virginia Governor: McDonnell Stretches Lead To 13 (RasmussenReports.com)

Polls: Big GOP lead in Va.; N.J. race tight (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot)

Deeds reaches for ‘Obama energy’ (Washington Post)

Obama rallies for Deeds in Va. (Washington Times)

At Norfolk rally, Obama urges backers to boost Deeds (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Obama makes pitch for Deeds at Norfolk rally (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot) 

Attorney general rivals are worlds apart despite geographic ties (The Daily Press)

GOP adds $40,000 to Gear’s re-election effort (The Daily Press)

Valentine, Garrett rack up campaign donations (Lynchburg News & Advance)

Your voting history could end up in the neighbor’s mailbox (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot)

Diradour drops bid to challenge Cantor (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Hate-crimes bill spurs some worry from religious groups (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot)

National News:

Debating gay marriage (Washington Times)

Annotations & Elucidations 

The Debate/Mason-Dixon Edition

The news is almost all campaign, with several national articles (including the New York Times, which has two pieces — one specifically on Virginia, in the News section, and one on Virginia and New Jersey and their national implications, in National News) continuing to shine the national flood lights on the commonwealth. Tonight is also debate night, the first live televised one. Will Democrat Creigh Deeds apologize for his negative campaign? Will he finally explain his transportation and tax increase plans (his last attempt at explaining the latter was called “embarrassing” today by his patron, the Washington Post, and now has been turned into a new ad, which will begin running tonight).

Now the Dems, including DNC Chairman Tim Kaine, are targeting Senator Ken Cuccinelli. He began an ad they say is unfair and misrepresents Democrat attorney general candidate Steve Shannon’s position on the special session that remedied a Supreme Court decision that would ceased prosecutions on drunk drivers and drug offenders. Hmmm. How do you misrepresent Shannon’s view? Calling it a “political stunt” is pretty hard to misinterpret.

But the big news was the release of Mason-Dixon’s first poll this campaign season. Mason-Dixon is the gold standard in Virginia political polls. The last poll it conducts, the Sunday before each election day, has never predicted the wrong winner, so it is awaited with baited breath. Its 2009 debut has all three Republicans leading: Bob McDonnell up by eight for governor, Lt. Governor Bill Bollingup by 13, and Cuccinelli up by seven. Not to be outdone, however, is SurveyUSA, which conducted another poll last week for WDBJ-TV in Roanoke and WJLA-TV in Washington (its fourth consecutive weekly poll). It was mostly drowned out by the Washington Post poll results, which showed all three Republicans up by nine. SurveyUSA has the three Republicans up by 11, 17 and 10, respectively. Details on everything mentioned above, and more, are below.

News:

Mason-Dixon Poll: McDonnell up by 8 points over Deeds (Richmond Times-Dispatch/Lynchburg News & Advance) 

Mason-Dixon Shows McDonnell by 8 (Washington Post Virginia Politics Blog)

Poll: GOP’s Bolling, Cuccinelli lead (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Virginia: 4 Weeks Until Votes Are Counted, Republicans Remain Poised to Win 3 Top Statewide Contests (SurveyUSA.com)

Results of SurveyUSA Election Poll (SurveyUSA.com)

Va. Candidates Meet Tonight in First Live TV Debate (Washington Post)

Debate a major moment in Va. governor’s race (AP/The Daily Press)

Two State Races May Put Lens on Obama (New York Times)

GOP Launches New Ad on Deeds and Taxes (Washington Post Virginia Politics Blog)

Cuccinelli Airs New Ad; Shannon, Kaine Protest (Washington Post Virginia Politics Blog) 

Kaine says Obama supporters key for Deeds (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Biden calls Virginia race winnable for Deeds…. (The Shad Plank Blog)

Debate in House race heats up over transportation question (Lynchburg News & Advance)

8th District candidates debate in Roanoke Co. (Roanoke Times)

Sexually explicit novel pulled from Roanoke school libraries (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

National News:

Democrats May Lose Two Governors Races (Reuters/New York Times)

McDonnell Holds GOP Comeback Hopes in Virginia; Dems Hope Deeds Bet Pays Off  (PoliticsDaily.com)

House Votes to Add Sexual Orientation to Law on Hate Crimes (Washington Post)

Analysis:

Republican sweep looking likely in Virginia (Josh Kraushaar/The Scorecard Blog Politico.com)

Two polls on Virginia’s statewide campaigns were released within the last 48 hours: one, by the Democrat leaning polling firm, Public Policy Polling, and one by SurveyUSA for Roanoke television station WDBJ-TV. It is interesting to note that the PPP poll has received exponential media coverage, lasting well into the second day after it was released. The SurveyUSA/WDBJ poll was released last night but is hardly causing a blip on the Mainstream Media’s radar screen.

The most likely explanation is that the SurveyUSA/WDBJ poll seems out of whack when compared to other polls. While many have the governor’s race in a four to seven point range, in favor of Republican Bob McDonnell, the SurveyUSA/WDBJ poll shows him up by double digits, as it does his running mates Lt. Governor Bill Bolling, running for re-election, and Senator Ken Cuccinelli (R-37, Fairfax), running for attorney general. Still, that’s never stopped the notoriously out of proportion Washington Post polls from getting top billing across the state. 

In what has gone practically unmentioned in the frenzy of the tightening of PPP’s poll, however, is that it also shows Lt. Governor Bolling and Senator Cuccinelli leading by eight and nine points, respectively. So, we have a Mainstream Media cherry picking news even from the one poll on which it has focused. Not only that, but by its own admission, the PPP poll’s “internals” do not show bad news for McDonnell. Among the fndings (see PPP Blog here):

52% of voters say they’re very familiar with the thesis and McDonnell actually has a 55-41 {lead} with that group, reflecting the fact that Republicans are more engaged this year and following the campaign more closely. Deeds is up 56-41 with the 29% of voters who claim moderate knowledge of the thesis.

(Does this mean conservative voters are more informed, or just that they don’t watch MSNBC?)

In another blog post,PPP’s Tom Jensen writes that Democrat candidate Creigh Deeds leads among voters who were undecided a month ago by 35-32 percent, and lists this as an advantage for him. But it’s within the margin of error and not enough to close the gap.

Back to SurveyUSA. Here’s a link to its methodology and complete statistical breakdown. It survey 1,000 Virginians, 886 of them registered to vote, and filtered its responses to the 631 of them determined to be likely voters this November.

What a 24 hours for Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell: First, as reported in the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot’s Pilot on Politics Blog yesterday, a poll by the whack job leftist blog Daily Kos, conducted by Research 2000, has McDonnell up over Democrat Creigh Deeds by a 51-43 margin (see poll internals, here).

This is on the heels of polls this week by WDBJ-TV/SurveyUSA that showed him up by 15 percentage points and Public Policy Polling (another liberal pollster) that showed him up by 14 percentage points. (These two polls also show Republicans Lt. Governor Bill Bolling and attorney general candidate Ken Cuccinelli leading their Democrat opponents by double figures.)

Then, McDonnell was selected by House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) to give the Republican response to President Barack Obama’s weekly radio/Internet address. In it, McDonnell puts some realism into the hype of yesterday’s unemployment report (the rate went down, but 240,000 more jobs were lost) and spoke plainly and practically about the dangers of government takeovers of the energy (so-called “cap-and-trade”) and health care industries, as well as enabling union dominance at the expense of employee freedom (“card check”); and a how dynamic society free of unnecessary government regulation and litigation can create a prosperous economy. 

Bob McDonnell points to positive policies that unleash freedom and creativity; “cap-and-trade” would put 1,500 Virginians out of work at the MeadWestvaco Plant in Covington.