Obama Holds Lead In Virginia, While Senate Race Is A Dead Heat

A new poll shows President Obama is ahead of former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in the race to win over Virginia voters.

Virginia remains one of the closest contests this year. The president maintains a mere 4 percentage point lead over his Republican opponent, according to a new poll by Quinnipiac University. Romney is polling better with all-important independents, while the president continues to attract more support from female voters.

"The country is very strongly split along ideological lines. This is perhaps the most ideological election of, probably, my lifetime and I'm pretty old," says Peter Brown of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. The poll shows only about one in 10 voters say they have yet to make up their minds. 

As for the U.S. Senate race in Virginia, the two former governors, Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican George Allen, are polling neck and neck. Brown says that while the campaign has heated up, the polls still haven't moved.

"In Virginia, the U.S. Senate race remains tight as a tick," says Brown. "Quinnipiac has been surveying that race now for a year and in none of the polls we have done there has the difference been greater than the margin of error. It goes back and forth between George Allen and Tim Kaine."

With the biggest contests in Virginia still up for grabs, analysts expect the national dollars to continue to pour into the commonwealth. That means residents should expect plenty more of those nasty political ads that both sides continue to churn out.