Thursday, February 9, 2012

Obama leads GOP candidates in Virginia

President Barack Obama

edged out Mitt Romney in a hypothetical general election match-up in Virginia, according to a new poll.

It is the first time the president led the former Massachusetts governor in the Super Tuesday state among registered voters in a Quinnipiac survey during this election cycle.Obama captured 47% to Romney's 43%, a wider margin than the two percentage point difference in the December results. But Romney fared better than his GOP rivals in the likely swing state.

Obama led Newt Gingrich 51% to 37%, Rick Santorum 49% to 41% and Ron Paul 47% to 40%.

The Republican White House hopefuls will first face each other on March 6, when Romney is favored to capture the state's 36 Republican delegates. Gingrich and Santorum failed to qualify for the ballot and Romney bested Paul among likely GOP primary voters 68% to 19%.

Sen. John McCain won the state's 2008 GOP primary with 50% of the vote to former Gov. Mike Huckabee's 40.7% and Paul's 4.5%. But then-Sen. Barack Obama went on to win the state in the general election with 52.63% of the vote to McCain's 46.44%.

Wednesday's poll also indicated the Senate battle is still neck and neck with former Democratic governor and Democratic National Committee Chair Tim Kaine capturing 45% support and former Republican governor and Sen. George Allen with 44% among likely voters.

The poll questioned 1,544 registered voters between Feb. 1 and Feb. 6 with a sampling error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. The Republican primary results included 546 likely voters with a sampling error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.

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