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Poll: Kaine, Allen Tied in Virginia Senate Race

By Julie Sobel // September 27, 2012 | 6:00 p.m.

After several polls showed Tim Kaine edging George Allen in the Virginia Senate race last week, a new poll Thursday shows a dead heat. Each candidate clocks in at 44 percent in the Suffolk University/WWBT-TV survey.

A Quinnipiac/New York Times/CBS News poll of the race released last week gave the Democrat a 7-point lead, 51 percent to 44 percent. A Washington Post poll released the same day put Kaine's lead at 51 percent to 43 percent. And a Fox News poll gave Kaine a 47 percent to 43 percent lead.

A NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist survey released the previous week had both candidates at 46 percent support. And most of the polls of the race over the last year have showed a neck-and-neck contest.

Fifty percent of respondents said there isn't a benefit to having a divided government (one party controlling Congress and the other controlling the White House), while 34 percent said there was some benefit.

"Cross-over voters beware: This poll finding raises the stakes for Obama-Kaine or Romney-Allen in a commonwealth that could tip both the red-blue coloring of the electoral map and the Senate majority," said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston. In the presidential race, President Obama edged Mitt Romney, 47 percent to 45 percent. The Suffolk/WWBT-TV poll was conducted Sept. 24-26 and surveyed 600 likely voters, for a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4 percentage points.