PPP: Tomblin - 32, Perdue - 17, Tennant - 16, Thompson - 15

by: heath_harrison

Tue Apr 26, 2011 at 21:35:08 PM EDT

On the Republican side, Former Secretary of State Betty Ireland earns 31%, while teabagger favorite Bill Maloney comes in at 17%. The other challengers were stuck in single digits.

PPP will release results of general election match-up tomorrow.

West Virginia marks the first state where we've found Donald Trump leading the GOP Presidential field- he gets 24% there, tying him at the top with Mike Huckabee. Sarah Palin is third with 13%, followed by Mitt Romney at 11%, Newt Gingrich at 9%, Tim Pawlenty at 4%, and Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul at 3%.

and on that birther stat teased yesterday:

Trump is riding the birther train to his lead in West Virginia. Only 22% of Republican voters there think Barack Obama was born in the country to 53% who think he was not and 26% who are unsure. With the voters who think Obama was born in the US Trump gets just 15%, putting him in third place behind Huckabee and Romney. But with the folks who think Obama was not Trump gets 30% putting him 8 points ahead of Huckabee and allowing him the overall tie.

Now that we know that the crackpot birther theory is a driving force in the W.Va. Republican electorate, it would be interesting to see what self-declared "moderate" Republican figures like Shelley Moore Capito and Betty Ireland think of the issue. Would they be more interested in coming down on the side of reality, or would they prefer to remain appealing to an increasingly extremist base?