With t-minus one day to go until Virginians starting hitting the voting booth, both Terry McAuliffe and Ken Cuccinelli were out in full force with their top-tier surrogates over the weekend, and Quinnipiac’s latest poll of the past few days showcase a race that doesn’t seem to have tightened quite as much as Republicans might have been hoping. Via CNN:

A new poll indicates Democrat Terry McAuliffe maintains his advantage over Republican Ken Cuccinelli, one day before the two candidates square off on Election Day in Virginia’s gubernatorial race.
According to the Quinnipiac University survey, McAuliffe leads Cuccinelli among likely voters, 46%-40%. Libertarian candidate Robert Sarvis has support among 8% of likely voters. …
The latest poll was conducted from October 29 through November 3, a window of time that included high profile campaign stops by former President Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama for McAuliffe. …
The new poll also indicates five percent of likely voters are undecided, while five percent say they may change their mind by Tuesday.

It’s a wider advantage than their previous poll from the early part of last week that showed a tighter split with McAuliffe leading by only four points, which might not be a surprise given that President Obama took to the trail on Sunday to do what he does best:

“Extremism,” and ergo, the government shutdown and its economic impact on [northern] Virginians specifically, was a big theme there, and Biden was off to a similar start this morning, disparaging Cuccinelli as an oh-so-extremist, anti-progress tea partier, while Cuccinelli is working the rally scene with Ron Paul and Marco Rubio in tow:

This particular Virginia race, a bellwether for next year’s midterm races all over the country? …Questionable, but at least one aspect that could definitely have some prescriptive powers here is the GOP’s strategy for winning over Hispanic votes. North Virginia especially has a lot of diverse votes for the taking, and McAuliffe is steadily leading with both women and minorities in pretty much every poll; Ed had a great interview with Daniel Garza of the Libre Initiative recently for more on that front: