Virginia Politics News

Hello everyone! And welcome to House Call, the Virginia Politics blog's new weekly feature that will focus on, yep, you guessed it -- the House of Delegates! Call me a geek, but there are few subjects I'd rather blog than the murky depths of this year's down-ballot races. Where else is a senior appropriator in the political fight of his life (and under investigation) for budgeting state money to his future employer? And where else is the seat of the former chairman of the state GOP one of the Democrats' top targets? And where else did a challenger from the Northern Neck urge supporters to take to the bullet box if the ballot box didn't work out? Forget about the fireworks, though. There's a lot of serious business at stake in the House of Delegates, the lower house of the General Assembly where all 100 seats are up for election

A new poll finds that more Virginians disapprove of President Barack Obama’s performance in office than approve of him. The poll by Public Policy Polling shows him with a 42 percent approval rating, while 51 percent disapprove. That’s down from a positive 48-46 percent rating a month ago. The poll taken July 31 to Aug. 3 surveyed 579 likely voters. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percent.

The Senate’s Democratic women took to the floor Wednesday to highlight the landmark nature of Sonia Sotomayor’s impending confirmation as the first Hispanic and third female Supreme Court justice, as Latino leaders stressed the vote’s importance to their community, a growing part of the electorate.

One thing about "Deeds Country," as the swath of rural Virginia extending through the Shenandoah Valley and down into southwest where state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds has been touring this week has been dubbed by his campaign: It apparently isn't Obama Country. Outside stops in the more urban settings of Charlottesville, Danville and Blacksburg, many of the 20 visits Deeds is making on a nine-day campaign swing that begun Sunday are in places where President Barack Obama was beaten handily by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Appomattox, Hillsville, Tazewell, Floyd. All are areas where Obama did not break 35 percent of the vote.