I heard from a friend of a friend an interesting phenomenon going on in some polls in Virginia right now (they have local elections here in November).
Polling for a state legislative campaign in the northern end of Virginia found the Republican “brand” is in the dumpster, much like the rest of the country. But over the past two weeks, the number of men who self-identified as Republicans jumped – from the low 30s to the high 30s. So what triggered the change? The current theory is that coverage of the presidential campaign ramped up with the fall, and that Hillary Clinton is getting a lot of coverage in local media (particularly the Washington Post). The thinking is that a number of men who were sour with the Republican party, and maybe feeling interested in the Democrats so long as they associate that party with Jim Webb, Tim Kaine, Mark Warner, etc., saw Hillary front and center again, lots of headlines about “HillaryCare 2.0″ and then said, “wait a minute! I’m not one of those!”