VA-JMC- McAuliffe +4

[Skill and Chance]

Wow, this poll basically looks like a reversion to the Obama era.  Also somewhat surprised that Alaya is outrunning McAuliffe. 

[Skill and Chance]

McAuliffe will win, but by an embarrassingly low margin.

People forget how much being the opposite party of the president helps in VA. 

Going to be hilarious if McAuliffe ends up being the only same party governor to win for another 50 years. 

[Skill and Chance]

FWIW, Virginia wasn't polled much in 2020 because it wasn't really considered competitive, but the polls that we did get were pretty accurate.

Looking at VA polling in post-Obama elections:

VA-GOV 2013: overestimated McAuliffe (D) by 3-4%
VA-SEN 2014: overestimated Warner (D) by 8%
VA President 2016: accurate to within 1%
VA-GOV 2017: underestimated Northam (D) by 5-6%
VA-SEN 2018: slightly overestimated Kaine (D) by perhaps 1-2%, very few polls because considered uncompetitive, includes stuff from several months before the election with tons of undecideds
VA President 2020: slight overestimation of Biden, perhaps 1-2%, nothing like the nationwide error
VA-SEN 2020: overestimated Warner by perhaps 4%, but the sample includes several early 5X/3X polls with tons of undecideds like in 2018 VA-SEN

This isn't like the Midwestern states where McAuliffe +4 in the polling average would mean to expect a Youngkin win, and the big errors from the early 2010's seem to have been fixed, and even repeating the 2013 error would have McAuliffe winning in a recount.  However, the Dem still needs to be up by at least 2-3 in the polling average to be confident. 

What's interesting is that D executive offices/R legislature split ticket voting looks very much alive.  The Dem House majority would be gone at only D+1.

[Skill and Chance]

Did they forget to poll NoVa? I still think this race will be decided by 10-12%, at worst 8-10% favoring the Dems. This isn’t 2009-10 VA anymore. It’s clearly a blue state at every level, and there are no signs of these trends de accelerating, let alone reversing, anytime soon.

Interestingly, if you look at the crosstabs, basically all of McAuliffe's decline vs. Biden is in NOVA.  NOVA looks like the Obama era in this poll, but the rest of the state looks just like 2020.  

[Skill and Chance]

That's rather worrying. McAuliffe needs to win by double digits in order to not give the GOP momentum heading into 2022.

Stop acting like this is a football game. The extent of McAuliffe's victory will have no impact on how people vote in Arizona or anywhere else for that matter. It may be a reflection of a broader trend, or it may not, but this sports language is not an accurate way to assess electoral politics.

What would be alarming for national Dems is if he loses.  The margin isn't particularly relevant (extending the VA 2017 results nationwide would not have been sufficient to flip the House in 2018).

[Skill and Chance]

Did they forget to poll NoVa? I still think this race will be decided by 10-12%, at worst 8-10% favoring the Dems. This isn’t 2009-10 VA anymore. It’s clearly a blue state at every level, and there are no signs of these trends de accelerating, let alone reversing, anytime soon.

Interestingly, if you look at the crosstabs, basically all of McAuliffe's decline vs. Biden is in NOVA.  NOVA looks like the Obama era in this poll, but the rest of the state looks just like 2020. 

Exactly. That doesn’t make any sense.

It would be broadly consistent with a collapse in the Asian/Hispanic Dem vote while they are matching or exceeding 2020 with white and black voters.  The recent special election results would be consistent with this (TX-06 lockout, GOP flip of McAllen, easy Dem holds in Scranton and NH, coalition shift from Hispanic to white areas of ABQ in NM-01).