Mark Warner “more favorable image” than Jim Gilmore in new poll

They could be official opponents for the U.S. Senate after this coming weekend, and if that happens former Republican Governor Jim Gilmore has some work to do on his image against former Democratic Governor Mark Warner.

Virginia Commonwealth University’s Commonwealth poll found nearly half of the Virginians it surveyed had a favorable view of former Mark Warner, versus less than a quarter for Gilmore.

The poll found 47% gave Warner a favorable view,a nd 10% have an unfavorable view. About 20% are undecided about Warner, and 23% say they have not heard enough about him to have an opinion.

As for Gilmore, 23% of those surveyed had a favorable image of Gilmore. 15% have an unfavorable image of Gilmore. 21% said they’re undecided, and 41% said they do not know enough about Gilmore to have an opinion.

Only 8% of Virginians surveyed had an opinion about Gilmore’s Republican primary opponent, Delegate Bob Marshall.

VCU conducted the poll by telephone. The poll randomly selected 1,003 adults from May 12-18th. VCU says the margin of error is +/- 3%.

“These results suggest that Jim Gilmore will need to reintroduce himself to Virginia voters if he is the GOP candidate for the Senate,” said Cary Funk, Ph.D., director of the Commonwealth Poll and associate professor of the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs, in a news release. “As the contest for the U.S. Senate seat begins in earnest, Mark Warner has a clear advantage in terms of name recognition. And those with an opinion about Warner tend to think well of him by a margin of nearly 5 to 1. That compares with a positive-to-negative image of about 1.5 to 1 for Gilmore,” Funk added.

As for Virginia’s current Governor, Democrat Tim Kaine, the VCU poll found 42%have a favorable view of him. 16% are unfavorable. Among the resondents who rated Governor Kaine’s job performance (858 respondents), 54% says Gov. Kaine is doing an excellent or good job as Governor. 46% rate Kaine’s job performance as fair or poor.

Despite Democrat U.S. Senator Jim Webb’s national media barnstorming last week, the VCU poll found the Senator is not well known in the Commonwealth. 39% of respondents said they did not know enough about Senator Webb to give him a favorable or unfavorable rating.

You can read the full results of the poll by clicking here (PDF file, must have Adobe Acrobat reader)