In what could be a harbinger of House seats to come, SurveyUSA has a poll for the Tom Perriello / Robert Hurt race. Perriello has gone from even to 23% down. Doesn't look good:
VA-05: Democrat Perriello in Peril, One More House Seat Poised for Republican Take-Away: In an election for US House of Representatives in Virginia's 5th Congressional District today, 07/20/10, Republican State Senator Robert Hurt defeats incumbent Democrat Tom Perriello 58% to 35%, according to this latest exclusive WDBJ-TV poll conducted by SurveyUSA.At FireDogLake, Jane Hamsher puts the blame on the health care bill:
The seat is one of many Republicans hope to capture in November 2010. 39 "take-aways" are needed for Republicans to capture control of the US House of Representatives.
Perriello, who defeated 6-term Republican Virgil Goode by 727 votes in 2008, today trails among most demographic groups.
[F]orcing members of Congress like Tom Perriello to vote for the health care bill was truly a Paths of Glory move by House leadership and the administration. As our SurveyUSA polling indicated at the time, the health care bill was hugely unpopular in swing districts. . . members like Perriello were counseled to vote for the Stupak amendment as a sop to conservative voters in their districts. Well, looks like that didn’t work out so well[.]Take a look at the poll; the numbers are pretty striking, even among women. Perriello is a conservative Dem in Virginia. The White House plan was to make the ConservaDems vote for health care (which was unpopular in their districts), and sop the district base with Yes votes on Stupak.
Looks like the Stupak sop-vote was a negative with women, and not a plus with men. Jane's point is that guys like Perriello got played, and the piper's now back with his hand out.
Perriello could be one of many, whatever you think of the health care bill.
GP
