Two new polls in Virginia find Bob McDonnell leading by double digits, with Election Day now just 24 hours away. If the polls are even close to accurate, it would appear Creigh Deeds will lose to the Republican for the second election in a row, after losing the 2005 attorney general race by fewer than 400 votes. The margin likely won't be so close this time.

McDonnell leads by 14 points in a PPP survey released this morning (Oct. 30-Nov. 1, 1457 LV, MoE +/- 2.6%). The polling firm has found the GOPer to be up by a similar margin in each of its other two surveys released in the past month.

Yesterday, the latest Richmond Times-Dispatch poll conducted by Mason-Dixon found McDonnell up 12 points, 53%-41% (Oct. 28-29, 625 RV, MoE +/- 4.25%).

As reporter Jeff Schapiro wrote, McDonnell "appears poised to win the governorship and lead a GOP sweep Tuesday, ending nearly a decade of reverses for his party."

McDonnell now leads by 13.8 points in the RCP Average for Virginia.

Quinnipiac's final poll in New Jersey (1,533 LVs, 10-27-11/1, +/- 2.5%) shows a significant late swing toward Republican Chris Christie, giving us a trend showing movement against the incumbent.

General Election Matchup
Christie 42 (+4 from last poll, 10/20-26)
Corzine 40 (-3)
Daggett 12 (-1)
Undecided 6 (+1)

Christie's support seems to be most committed at this point, with 90 percent of his supporters saying their mind is made up. Nearly four in 10 of Daggett's supporters could still change their mind; Corzine is the second-choice candidate of 39 percent, with Christie at 29 percent.

The Republican now has a 1.2 point lead in the RCP Average of New Jersey.

Early yesterday, I posited that Dede Scozzafava's withdrawal from the race in NY-23 might hurt Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman.  The basic idea is this:  If you are a conservative living in NY-23, you're probably already lined up behind Hoffman.  Scozzafava and Democrat Bill Owens were probably mostly splitting the moderate-to-liberal vote at this point.  These voters may well conclude that their views are more closely aligned with Owens' than with Hoffman's, and pull the lever disproportionately for the Democrat.  The fact that Scozzafava endorsed Owens lends some credence to this viewpoint.

A new poll from PPP casts some doubt on this hypothesis.  The poll went through several question iterations, due to the fast-moving sequence of events over the weekend, but the results are unequivocal:  In a three-way race, Hoffman leads Owens 51%-34%, with 13% for Scozzafava.  Hoffman leads 54%-38% in a head-to-head matchup with Owens.

Owens may well be getting the bulk of Scozzafava's support. The 2-way matchup numbers indicate that Scozzafava's voters lean at least somewhat toward Owens  - but if Hoffman is above 50%, it doesn't matter.  Moreover, PPP finds that Hoffman is winning among Independents 52%-30%, and is even receiving 21% of the Democratic vote.  PPP emphasized that there were no significant differences in the numbers at any point over the course of the weekend.

Of course, this is only one poll, and Siena and DailyKos/Research2000 were showing a much tighter race than PPP was showing before Scozzafava's withdrawal (see all NY23 polls here).  If Siena and R2000 have the correct partisan breakdown (and it's worth noting that R2000's partisan breakdown mirrored the registration breakdown in the district, which seems unlikely in an off-year-special-election), then Hoffman may still be in real trouble.

The biggest danger for new gamblers is to win the slots on the first try. It leaves the false impression that making money at the casino is easy. And they start recklessly throwing their quarters into the bandits.

Likewise, winning the special election in Upstate New York's 23rd Congressional district might deliver the wrong lesson to Republicans.

The Republican chosen by local GOP leaders, Dede Scozzafava, dropped out under assault by party hotheads, egged on by the talk-show axis. The right had showered their love on a third party conservative, Doug Hoffman, who soon outpolled the moderate Scozzafava and polled even with Democrat, Bill Owens.

If Hoffman wins, every Baby Beck will be trying to dethrone the moderate Republican establishment in purple districts, such as this one. They will be running armadillos in Canadian goose country. And they will lose a lot more than they will win.

Newt Gingrich, who backed Scozzafava, had this to say:

If we get into a cycle where every time one side loses, they run a third-party candidate, we'll make Pelosi speaker for life and guarantee Obama's re-election.

BTW, the Siena poll issued yesterday before Scozzafava left the race shows her supporters holding slightly less favorable views of Hoffman than of Owens. And they expressed a favorable view of Obama by a 64-31 margin. Hoffman may now have the odds, but there's still a race going on.

Perhaps the Republican Party will get lucky and lose this gamble.

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