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Kaine Inches Ahead In Va. Race, Poll Finds
To do that, the poll suggests, he will have to shed the impression among a majority of voters, and especially independents, that he has run the more negative campaign. And he will need to do so in a political environment that has been poisoned by the sagging ratings of Bush and the ethical accusations lodged against others in the Republican Party.
"They do have a bit of wind in their faces," Kaine media strategist David Eichenbaum said of the Virginia Republicans. "It's a rare break that we Democrats are enjoying right now."
Death Penalty Ad Backlash
  Jerry W. Kilgore trails by three percentage points in a new Washington Post poll, but his spokesman says the Republican candidate is in the lead. (By Gerald Martineau -- The Washington Post) |
There are some bright spots for Kilgore in the poll, which is based on interviews with 1,004 likely voters from last Sunday through Wednesday. The number of people who believe Kaine is too liberal has jumped nine percentage points, to 40 percent, since the September poll. And more people believe Kilgore would hold down taxes, if elected.
"I've been disappointed with Warner's spending, and I'm just afraid that Kaine is just going to be more of the same," said Greg Drauch, 41, a computer consultant who lives outside the Capital Beltway in Fairfax County. "It's the increased taxes. It's what I think is the poor spending of it." In 2004, Warner won legislative approval to raise taxes and increase spending on education and other public services.
Kilgore appears to have won over some voters who don't see Kaine as a viable stand-in for Warner. "I think I'm going to go back over to [the] Republicans this time," said Richard Green, 67, a retired banker in Manassas who voted for Warner in 2001.
Kilgore's overall decline coincides with a backlash from his intensely emotional television ads about the death penalty.
The Republican unveiled the ads Oct. 11, and almost 80 percent of those surveyed said they have seen them. Both sides said the ads had the potential to reshape the governor's race. In one, the father of a murder victim accuses Kaine, a lawyer, of representing his son's killer. The distraught father says Kaine would have refused to send Adolf Hitler to death row.
The new poll shows that most voters agree with Kilgore's support for the death penalty. Even so, voters overwhelmingly say the ads were unfair, and they blame Kilgore for launching mean-spirited attacks. Two-thirds say Kilgore has conducted a negative campaign, and 55 percent believe Kilgore would "say anything" to get elected.
"Kilgore has not conducted himself during the campaign in a way that I would like him to conduct himself," said Kate Spears, 41, a federal worker in Springfield who calls herself an independent. "It's the ads that he's run. It's the misleading. It's the attacking."
As attorney general, Kilgore pushed for the state's "Stand By Your Ad" law, which requires candidates to appear in all their ads, acknowledging that they approved them. The poll results and interviews with voters suggest that the requirement has hurt Kilgore.
"I had a visceral reaction to Kilgore's ads," said Tom Evans, 55, a health care consultant from McLean who describes himself as a Republican and says he is voting for Kaine. "Take all that together, it just gives me a bad feeling."
More than half of independent voters say Bush's support for Kilgore makes them less likely to vote for the Republican candidate.
