What is up with Virginia?

Survey USA just released presidential numbers from Virginia, and the numbers are more than encouraging for Clinton:

• She only trails against John McCain -- and does so by a lot: 52% to 42%.
• She wins all her other match-ups, 47%-46% against Giuliani, 51% to 43% against Thompson, 51% to 41% againt Romney, 52% to 38% against Huckabee, 54% to 35% against Ron Paul.
  

Survey USA's new Virginia poll is the third poll in two months that has Hillary Clinton leading Rudy Giuliani and most other major Republicans in the traditionally GOP state. This is last month's SurveyUSA poll, in which Edwards also leads Republicans. And this is the September Rasmussen poll that has Clinton up on Rudy.

Virginia is supposed to be turning purple for sure -- witness the back-to-back victories of Gov. Kaine and Sen. Webb in 2005 and 2006, but it is still a Southern state that has voted reliably Republican. The last time a Dem carried Virginia was Johnson in 1964, very different circumstances. And of all the people who are supposed to be putting it in play now, Hillary Clinton is not supposed to be one of them. Interesting that there has been no evidence up till now that Hillary Clinton is radioactive material in the South -- polls have found her leading in Kentucky, Arkansas, tied in Tennessee, competitive in Alabama, leading in Virginia. Edwards and Obama also posted good numbers in many of these polls, proving that Democrats will likely be very competitive in states in which Gore and Kerry did not even try. And most interestingly, these Southern states are polling more consistently in favor of Democrats than are Ohio and Florida!!!

And a word also on John McCain, who is very consistently the strongest Republican candidate. The numbers out of Virginia indicate that is not a factor of name recognition (Rudy is very well-known as well), but of personal popularity -- that is the only way of explaining why he outpolls Giuliani by 10 and all other Republicans by 20.

• New Hampshire primary

Rasmussen also has a new poll from the New Hampshire Democratic primary. It has Clinton leading 38% to Obama's 22%, followed by Edwards at 14%. Richardson, who is stalling after a fast rise to double-digits, is tied with... Kucinich at 7%. These numbers are actually encouraging for Obama, as he was led by much more in the last Rasmussen poll from New Hampshire. Without reading too much into one set of number, Clinton had ben increasing her NH lead by the poll from a weak single-digits edge in early summer to massive leads in the past two months. Obama has stopped the bleeding and is still very much in a position to overtake her if things go well in Iowa. 16 New Hampshire points is no insurmountable lead.