John McCain is putting more distance between himself and his potential Democratic rivals in Virginia, according to a Rasmussen Reports survey conducted March 27. McCain leads Barack Obama 52 percent to 41 percent and Hillary Clinton by a whopping 58 percent to 36 percent. The margin of error is 4,5 percent. The previous Rasmussen poll last month had McCain leading Obama by a more modest 5 points and Clinton by 10 points. But Rasmussen’s findings were even more starkly different when compared to a SurveyUSA poll conducted March 14-16 which showed both Democrats running evenly with McCain, suggesting that perhaps traditionally-Republican Virginia was becoming a “purple” state open to Democratic inroads.

Following trends in other national and state-by-state polls, Clinton suffers from high negatives with 61 percent viewing her unfavorably versus 37 percent who give her positive ratings. McCain’s favorable-to unfavorable ratio is 64 percent to 34 percent while Obama’s is 53 percent to 47 percent.
Thirty-eight percent of voters choose the economy as the top campaign issue and only 17 percent rate the economy as good or excellent. Fifty-seven percent of Virginia’s voters believe the U.S. is winning in Iraq which Rasmussen notes is higher than the national average, possibly contributing McCain’s strength in this poll.