VA- Wapo/schar school poll- McAuliffe +3 among LV, +6 among RV

[Matty]

https://mobile.twitter.com/nick_field90/status/1438980606243770374

[Skill and Chance]

This is nothing if not consistent!

[2016]

That's two Polls in a row showing a close Race! Bidens Approvals must be underwater otherwise this wouldn't be close.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Great news☑️T/Mac

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

If the race is really this close, it sounds like a good news for GOP.

[BoiseBoy]

That's two Polls in a row showing a close Race! Bidens Approvals must be underwater otherwise this wouldn't be close.

Polls showed CA under 20 points consistently. Look where we are now. We should know by now that polls are not entirely reliable. The unfortunate reality is that Youngkin is a bad candidate who doesn’t know how to campaign. Expect 2017 margins here.

[2016]

That's two Polls in a row showing a close Race! Bidens Approvals must be underwater otherwise this wouldn't be close.

Polls showed CA under 20 points consistently. Look where we are now. We should know by now that polls are not entirely reliable. The unfortunate reality is that Youngkin is a bad candidate who doesn’t know how to campaign. Expect 2017 margins here.

VA isn't CA. Biden still had 56-41 positive JA in CA Exit Polls.

This Poll has him 46/51 in VA. If that's right the Race will be much closer to the 2013 margin than the 2017 margin!

[BoiseBoy]

That's two Polls in a row showing a close Race! Bidens Approvals must be underwater otherwise this wouldn't be close.

Polls showed CA under 20 points consistently. Look where we are now. We should know by now that polls are not entirely reliable. The unfortunate reality is that Youngkin is a bad candidate who doesn’t know how to campaign. Expect 2017 margins here.

VA isn't CA. Biden still had 56-41 positive JA in CA Exit Polls.

This Poll has him 46/51 in VA. If that's right the Race will be much closer to the 2013 margin than the 2017 margin!

You should know by now that polls can't be 100% trusted (see 2020 and 2016 presidential elections). There are other elements to the race than what a bunch of predictive numbers are stating.

[Cyrusman]

That's two Polls in a row showing a close Race! Bidens Approvals must be underwater otherwise this wouldn't be close.

Polls showed CA under 20 points consistently. Look where we are now. We should know by now that polls are not entirely reliable. The unfortunate reality is that Youngkin is a bad candidate who doesn’t know how to campaign. Expect 2017 margins here.

Why are you so confident the number will be like 2017 when that was 4 years ago during trumps term?

[slothdem]

The difference between LV and RV further shows what the California polls/results demonstrated: pollsters haven't figured out how to actually measure the Democrats' new high-propensity voter base in off year elections. The +6 result should be the one taken as accurate.

[jamestroll]

Color me skeptical that Youngkin leads by 57 to 37 in Prince William and Loudoun counties...

[BoiseBoy]

That's two Polls in a row showing a close Race! Bidens Approvals must be underwater otherwise this wouldn't be close.

Polls showed CA under 20 points consistently. Look where we are now. We should know by now that polls are not entirely reliable. The unfortunate reality is that Youngkin is a bad candidate who doesn’t know how to campaign. Expect 2017 margins here.

Why are you so confident the number will be like 2017 when that was 4 years ago during trumps term?

I think Youngkin is genuinely that bad, likely to lose by a bigger margin that expected even during what should be a more GOP-friendly cycle. He is not playing his cards right at all, especially for a state like Virginia. I don't think the margin will be as high as 2017, but 5-6 points is perfectly reasonable.

[Cyrusman]

That's two Polls in a row showing a close Race! Bidens Approvals must be underwater otherwise this wouldn't be close.

Polls showed CA under 20 points consistently. Look where we are now. We should know by now that polls are not entirely reliable. The unfortunate reality is that Youngkin is a bad candidate who doesn’t know how to campaign. Expect 2017 margins here.

Why are you so confident the number will be like 2017 when that was 4 years ago during trumps term?

I think Youngkin is genuinely that bad, likely to lose by a bigger margin that expected even during what should be a more GOP-friendly cycle. He is not playing his cards right at all, especially for a state like Virginia. I don't think the margin will be as high as 2017, but 5-6 points is perfectly reasonable.

Why is he that bad of a candidate? I don’t know much about him but I have not heard any really awful comments. I imagine he loses because his state is too blue, but what specifically makes him so bad?

[swf541]

Numbers look p plausible, I expect the race to end up in the high single digits.

[Skill and Chance]

That's two Polls in a row showing a close Race! Bidens Approvals must be underwater otherwise this wouldn't be close.

Polls showed CA under 20 points consistently. Look where we are now. We should know by now that polls are not entirely reliable. The unfortunate reality is that Youngkin is a bad candidate who doesn’t know how to campaign. Expect 2017 margins here.

VA isn't CA. Biden still had 56-41 positive JA in CA Exit Polls.

This Poll has him 46/51 in VA. If that's right the Race will be much closer to the 2013 margin than the 2017 margin!

Yes, this is what I had expected all along.  The question is whether this is the low point for Biden.  I think it probably is, but he could keep sliding.

[jamestroll]

There is no way that Youngkin is leading by 57 to 37 in Loudoun and Prince William county and behind statewide.

And contrary to popular belief, Pwc and Loudoun have very different demographics.

[wbrocks67]

There is no way that Youngkin is leading by 57 to 37 in Loudoun and Prince William county and behind statewide.

And contrary to popular belief, Pwc and Loudoun have very different demographics.

Yeah, crosstabs are iffy but this one is really bad.

Like others have said, CA proved that pollsters are still terrible at coming up with an accurate LV model, so RV seems like the # to go with here.

[MT Treasurer]

"Youngkin is a bad candidate who doesn’t know how to campaign" is one of the most tedious, nonsensical takes on this forum. If he loses (more likely than not), it will be due to the state's partisanship, but any objective outside observer will not label his campaign "awful."

Frankly, his ads are among the best I have seen of any Republican candidate in the Trump era.

[Virginiá]

Not necessarily that I think McAuliffe is going to romp to victory (hard to see Dems not paying a penalty for a president with middling/low approvals), but Northam's average lead on RCP was +3.3 in 2017. So Democratic candidates posting these kinds of numbers this far out is not exactly unheard of. Source

[TodayJunior]

I think this is too low of a margin considering Virginia’s partisan lean, which is only getting more Democratic by the cycle. Still think McAuliffe wins by 10.

As we saw in California, Dems successfully nationalized that race to make it about Trump (fair or not), rendering Biden irrelevant. As a result, they matched their 2020 margins. No one should be surprised if the same occurs here.

They’ll run that playbook until they can’t. It won’t be anytime soon bc they know it works. Trump is the best turnout machine for Democrats

[Skill and Chance]

I think this is too low of a margin considering Virginia’s partisan lean, which is only getting more Democratic by the cycle. Still think McAuliffe wins by 10.

As we saw in California, Dems successfully nationalized that race to make it about Trump (fair or not), rendering Biden irrelevant. As a result, they matched their 2020 margins. No one should be surprised if the same occurs here.

They’ll run that playbook until they can’t. It won’t be anytime soon bc they know it works. Trump is the best turnout machine for Democrats

Maybe?

VA doesn't have automatic VBM, but they do have a 45 day in-person early voting period. 

[Skill and Chance]

Not necessarily that I think McAuliffe is going to romp to victory (hard to see Dems not paying a penalty for a president with middling/low approvals), but Northam's average lead on RCP was +3.3 in 2017. So Democratic candidates posting these kinds of numbers this far out is not exactly unheard of. Source

This is true, but back in 2013, the same polling average had McAuliffe +6.0 and then he only won by +2.5. 

[Virginiá]

Not necessarily that I think McAuliffe is going to romp to victory (hard to see Dems not paying a penalty for a president with middling/low approvals), but Northam's average lead on RCP was +3.3 in 2017. So Democratic candidates posting these kinds of numbers this far out is not exactly unheard of. Source

This is true, but back in 2013, the same polling average had McAuliffe +6.0 and then he only won by +2.5. 

Also true, but changes in the coalition demographics may also mitigate some of that issue. Heavier reliance on college graduates and other high-turnout demos might make Democrats more likely to match or over-perform their polling. These are some of the same groups that gave Republicans its midterm advantage. Just a thought, anyway.

More favorable to the idea that the White House curse will at the very least make it unlikely that Democrats over-perform their polls too much like 2017.

[wbrocks67]

Not necessarily that I think McAuliffe is going to romp to victory (hard to see Dems not paying a penalty for a president with middling/low approvals), but Northam's average lead on RCP was +3.3 in 2017. So Democratic candidates posting these kinds of numbers this far out is not exactly unheard of. Source

This is true, but back in 2013, the same polling average had McAuliffe +6.0 and then he only won by +2.5. 

Right, but 2017 is closer, so it makes more sense to take the closer result.

[sting in the rafters]

Crosstabs are showing greater enthusiasm among conservatives and Rs. Still a lean D race, however an early sign on election night will be whether the downstate and Appalachian regions  comprise a larger share of the electorate. If liberal turnout is still high and moderates stick with Tmac, then it should be a comfortable win. If not? Then we're looking at a nail-biter.