VA-Emerson: T-Mac +1

[Dan the Roman]

No one knows what turnout will be which means topline numbers, while not worthless, are not really hugely useful.

The problem is these public polls, unlike focus groups or some of the campaign tracking polls, are not designed to actually track target demographics or areas which means the information polling can tell us , ie. what women with degrees are doing, what is going on in Fairfax among Biden voters, etc is worthless given sample issues.

The polls which are most accurate are those which honestly come out with 2 to 3 toplines for different turnout models. And those models do seem to show three things

A. A tied race to one point youngkin lead
B. 3 Point or so Tmac lead
C. 6+ Tmac lead

Neither campaign is going to act as if C is right because they have no reason to. It serves no one's interests. For Youngkin there is little they can do because C likely means the race was never winnable. For TMAC they win anyway so they need to figure out how to win A.

My impression is everyone would be surprised but not shocked if Youngkin wins by 1-2%. They would not be shocked if he loses by 6 or 7. They are both probably running models showing it around 2-3 points.