McDonnell Is NOT Ahead 55-40

As I posted on DailyKOS yesterday, there’s something odd about the SuveryUSA poll for Virginia’s Governor race. Regardless of how you feel about the political environment or how Deeds is approaching the campaign, the numbers just don’t add up.

They say 14% of Obama voters and 9% of McCain voters will switch parties this fall. My quick math yesterday predicted that such a race would be a dead-heat, with a small edge for Deeds of less than 1 point. SurveyUSA instead insists that it will be a 15-point blowout, because they predict this November’s voters will be 52-43 McCain (and 5% presumably new voters) instead of 53-46 Obama like last fall.

How can we see a 16-point swing in political fortunes in a state that is only becoming more Democratic with each passing year?

Here’s last year’s results:
Obama – 1,959,532 (52.63%)
McCain – 1,725,005 (46.33)
Other – 38,723 (1.04%)

If we kept McCain’s votes constant for McDonnell, the only way McCain can get 52% of the total vote is if Obama loses over 500,000 voters and new voters consist of about 100,000 people. Roughly. What that requires is Obama’s support to drop 27% before McCain even loses a single voter.

How likely is that?!?

I’m not expecting the race to be easily won by Deeds, and McDonnell could well be ahead among Independents and overall. But I seriously doubt he has a 55-40 lead at this point in the campaign.