Virginia looks like a sure Senate pick-up for Dems, while Louisiana is ready to switch Republicans

As much as Republicans want to hope they can knock Mark Warner off his pedestal in Virginia, this Senate race seems headed for a sure blow-out. The Washington Post just came out with a new poll, and if you thought Mark Warner's lead in last month's Rasmussen numbers was massive, take a look at this one:

• Warner leads against former Governor Jim Gilmore 61% to 31%. He leads Rep. Tom Davis by an even larger 63% to 28%.
• Warner's favorability rating is 67%, which pretty much explains why he is winning this handily. The WaPo reports Warner is getting about 40% among self-described conservatives!
• To be fair to the Republicans, they are not as well-known as Mark Warner. 54% don't have an opinion of Tom Davis. But only 27% say the same about Gilmore -- enough to show that Warner's advantage isn't that shallow.

The key question now in the Republican primary is whether the nominee is decided through a primary or through a convention. Conservative Gilmore would stand a much better chance at a convention, moderate Davis at the primary. The Republican State Central Committee is voting tomorrow to decide which selection method to use -- and the result could very well determine whether Tom Davis enters in the race. He is currently trailing Gilmore by 19% in the WaPo primary poll, but he could certainly improve his standing there.

Further, the poll delved into the presidential race and found that, when Virginians were asked which party they would prefer the next president to be, a Democrat led by 11%. No individual match-ups appear to have been tested, but this is definitely in line with a SUSA poll from last month in which Clinton led against all Republicans! As surprising as it might seem, Virginia might very well be ripe for pick-up at the presidential level.

In other polling news, we got treated with a very rare Louisiana governor poll today. For those of you who forget this, the first round of the election is at the end of this October, so a few weeks away. Southeastern Louisiana University just came out with some numbers:

• GOP Rep. Bobby Jindal gets 46%, far far ahead of the myriad of Democrats challenging him. Coming in second is State Sen. Walter Boasso at... 10%.
• The pollster does caution as to this result, saying that the post-Katrina demographic shifts make it hard to poll Louisiana rigorously.

If Jindal does not get 50% in this first round, the election will go to a run-off between the two top vote-getters. There, the Democrats are hoping they would be able to regroup around one candidate and oppose Jindal -- but Louisiana appears to be ready for now to give itself to the Republicans.