Virginia voters (Via Shutterstock)

The Virginia gubernatorial race is effectively a dead heat between likely Republican nominee Attorney General Ken “The Cooch” Cuccinelli and Democratic frontrunner Terry McAuliffe, according to a new poll.

Researchers at Quinnipiac University found that even if Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling gets in the race, it would still be a close contest between McAuliffe and The Cooch. In a poll of 1,134 voters last week, 40 percent said they would likely vote for McAuliffe, a former Democratic National Committee chairman, while 39 percent went for Cuccinelli, a Tea Party favorite.

Bolling, a Republican, might enter the race as an independent following a switch by the Virginia Republican Party from a primary election to a party caucus, which would favor the more conservative Cooch. Still, the Quinnipiac survey found that Bolling would make only a tiny dent in a three-way race, with only two percent of respondents saying they would vote for someone other than McAuliffe or the Cooch.

Moreover, though, the poll found that while Virginia voters are ready to cast a ballot based on party identification, they remain largely uninformed about the candidates’ actual positions and personalities. Sixty-one percent said they did not know enough about McAuliffe to make an informed decision about the former DNC leader, while 41 percent said the same about their culture-crusading, rat-fighting attorney general. As for Bolling? Seventy-two percent of all voters, and the same percentage of Republicans, said they don’t know much about him.

Gov. Bob McDonnell, however, remains modestly popular, with 54 percent approving his job performance compared to just 27 percent disapproving.

The poll was conducted between January 4 and 7 and has a margin of error of 2.9 percent.