At the end of Mitt Romney’s rally in Virginia last Thursday, he appealed to voters in the state. Romney said, “I’m counting on you, Virginia. We have to win this. Find someone who voted for Barack Obama, get him to join our team.” Romney also has to worry about Virgil Goode, a former Virginia congressman running for president for the Constitution Party. He could take enough voters away from Romney that could give Obama the victory in the state and maybe in the nation. Many Republicans have called for Goode to remove himself from the ballot in Virginia because they are worried that he could take votes away from Romney in the presidential race.
“My positions are the only ones that, long range, will really save America,” Goode said during an interview with The Daily Beast. “Both candidates talk about jobs, but we need jobs for American citizens first. I think citizenship should count for something…and it really counts for nothing.”
Multiple polls in the state of Virginia show that Obama is in the lead by just 0.3 percent this week, making for a very close race. Another close race in the state is for the senate race. The race is between former governor Tim Kaine and former senator George Allen. The two each have 46 percent in the latest NBC/Marist poll. A poll taken in August by PPP shows that Romney could be negatively impacted in the race with Goode on the ballot. The poll shows Goode at four percent but pulling Romney down by eight points.
“If it is a very close election, then Virgil Goode could take enough votes away from Romney to give Virginia’s 13 electoral votes to Obama,” Larry Sabato said, according to The Daily Beast. Sabato works as the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “But notice the ‘if’—it has to be very close.”