VA-Governor/Roanoke: McAuliffe +8, Dems lead in Lt. Gov & AG too

[Jackson Lee]

46% - McAuliffe
38% - Trumpkin
  2% - Blanding
  1% - Others

Lt. Gov.

42% - Ayala
36% - Sears
  2% - Others
 
AG

45% Herring
37% Miyares
  1% Others

Gov. Northam: 52% approve, 38% disapprove
Pres. Biden: 48% approve, 43% disapprove

McAuliffe: 44% favorable, 32% unfavorable
Trumpkin: 27% favorable, 21% unfavorable

https://www.roanoke.edu/about/news/rc_poll_politics_aug_2021

[SnowLabrador]

If McAuliffe is outrunning Biden's approval margin by three points, that makes me feel a bit better. Still Lean D.

[Sir Mohamed]

Likely D as for the margin, Safe D as for chance of winning.

McAuliffe +7.5 is my prediction as of today.

[wbrocks67]

Trumpkin having a 27/21 favorability after all of that money he's already spent on ads is... something

[Gass3268]

Roanoke’s poll was very good last year. Only off by a point.

[Young Conservative]

Good poll for McAuliffe, bad for Youngkin, but really bad for Biden if he was only +5 in a state he won by 11.

Especially given the poll was conducted BEFORE the fall of Kabul.

[VAR]

If McAuliffe is outrunning Biden's approval margin by three points, that makes me feel a bit better. Still Lean D.

I doubt there are many voters who disapprove of Biden but plan to vote for McAuliffe — it’s probably just a matter of McAuliffe having more name recognition than Youngkin. In any case, my prediction is McAuliffe +5.5, but it’s really Safe D in the sense that it’s impossible for Youngkin to win this race.

[Skill and Chance]

If McAuliffe is outrunning Biden's approval margin by three points, that makes me feel a bit better. Still Lean D.

I doubt there are many voters who disapprove of Biden but plan to vote for McAuliffe — it’s probably just a matter of McAuliffe having more name recognition than Youngkin. In any case, my prediction is McAuliffe +5.5, but it’s really Safe D in the sense that it’s impossible for Youngkin to win this race.

I wouldn't be surprised with a margin of 2-4%, but yeah, it's really hard to get the R over the line. 

[SnowLabrador]

If McAuliffe is outrunning Biden's approval margin by three points, that makes me feel a bit better. Still Lean D.

I doubt there are many voters who disapprove of Biden but plan to vote for McAuliffe — it’s probably just a matter of McAuliffe having more name recognition than Youngkin. In any case, my prediction is McAuliffe +5.5, but it’s really Safe D in the sense that it’s impossible for Youngkin to win this race.

I don't know how many there are, but if I lived in Virginia, I'd be one of them.

[Matty]

Holy crap, nate Cohn is saying this poll is way too “educated” in its sample

https://mobile.twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1428751054049533952

[Chips]

I'm leaving my 6 point prediction for McAuliffe but I think I'm finally ready to move the race to Likely D: Clock is ticking for Youngkin to make something interesting happen. I won't deny the fact that Youngkin has a net positive approval despite like 52% having no opinion of him is interesting though.

Still, I think it's a 6 point McAuliffe win.

[Skill and Chance]

Holy crap, nate Cohn is saying this poll is way too “educated” in its sample

https://mobile.twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1428751054049533952

An odd year VA electorate is going to look shockingly educated, but this is just too much.  Feeling good about expecting a 2013 repeat. 

[S019]

This seems much more realistic than all of those McAuliffe+2 polls, still on the border of Lean and Likely D.

[Young Conservative]

Holy crap, nate Cohn is saying this poll is way too “educated” in its sample

https://mobile.twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1428751054049533952

An odd year VA electorate is going to look shockingly educated, but this is just too much.  Feeling good about expecting a 2013 repeat. 

I mean there is no chance 27% of the electorate is going to have an advanced degree beyond a bachelor's.

[President Johnson]

An eight point margin for T-Mac is actually what I'm expecting here. Seems reasonable.

[KaiserDave]

Safe D race is Safe D

[Progressive Pessimist]

I'm going to stand by my six point McAuliffe win prediction as well. But I certainly wouldn't be surprised if he ends up winning by this much in the end. In fact it would be utterly satisfying after all the takes about critical race theory being the Virginia GOP's playing field evener.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

TMac has got this on lockdown.

[MT Treasurer]

I also expect the margin to be close to Clinton's 2016 result at this point (between D+4.5 and D+5.5), which in itself is a solid result for any Republican in what is one of the most inflexible blue states in the country, but playing around with the counties on Elections Shuffler, you really run out of options for Youngkin after D+4 or so unless there’s a dramatic collapse in non-white support for Democrats (extremely unlikely in a state like VA) or a collapse in D base turnout (virtually impossible). I’m rating it Likely D out of an abudance of caution (and because gubernatorial/non-federal races can sometimes produce surprisingly favorable results for the non-dominant party), but more likely this is just an AL-SEN 2020/CO-SEN 2020 situation where the candidate coasting on the state's partisanship wouldn’t even lose if they tried to or barely bothered to campaign.

[Alben Barkley]

Safe D

Youngkin is literally burning his money.