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Poll: Sen. George Allen Trails in Virginia Race
Republican Sen. George Allen – a potential presidential candidate in 2008 – has fallen behind Democratic challenger James Webb in his re-election bid in Virginia. Webb, who trailed Allen by more than 10 percentage points in late July, now leads Allen 47.9 percent to 46.6 percent, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/Zogby poll. The lead is "small, but we’re very encouraged,” said Webb campaign spokesperson Kristian Denny Todd. "The more people come to see the real George Allen, the more they don’t like what they see.”
Story Continues Below Allen’s plunge in the polls follows an embarrassing incident during an August 11 campaign stop in Breaks, Va. Allen referred to Webb campaign worker S.R. Sidarth, a Virginia native of East Indian descent, as "Macaca” and said: "Welcome to American and the real world of Virginia.” "Macaca” is a genus of monkey, and is sometimes used as a derogatory reference to dark-skinned people. Video of the incident was posted on the Internet, and Allen later apologized. The Zogby poll "falls right in line” with two other polls, said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
He referred to the Rasmussen poll, which showed that the gap between Allen and Webb had narrowed from 11 points to five from mid-July to mid-August, and a SurveyUSA poll that had the gap shrinking from 19 points to three since late June, according to Virginia’s Daily Press. Allen’s campaign manager Dick Wadhams sought to downplay the surprising turnaround. "We’ve always said that it was going to be a competitive race,” he said. "There’s still a lot of campaigning to do.” Overall, the Wall Street Journal said Zogby’s polling shows that if the elections were held today, Republicans would hold on to the Senate with a 52 to 46 majority, with two independents.
Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics: Inside Cover Stories
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