VA-GOV (Wason): McAuliffe +1

[wbrocks67]

(changes from early Oct poll)

McAullife 49 (=)
Youngkin 48 (+3)

Ayala 49 (+1)
Sears 48 (+4)

Herring 48 (-1)
Miyares 47 (+4)

https://cnu.edu/wasoncenter/surveys/archive/2021-10-27.html

[wbrocks67]

Cliche, but it'll come down to turnout. A lot of these polls are modeling an electorate that is not very D-heavy (this has an R+4 party ID and R+12 modeled electorate), so it's really going to come down to whether Democrats turn out or not.  The polls are suggesting that they won't.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Biden-effect.

[neostassenite31]

I am getting the feeling that Youngkin has momentum. A loss could embolden Trump like we've never seen before. We should be very thankful that the state senate is not on the ballot this cycle.

[Sir Mohamed]

Ugh, these polls are annoying. Glad when this is over and polls either are disproven or several red avatars including myself indeed didn't see the writing on the wall.

[Person Man]

Ugh, these polls are annoying. Glad when this is over and polls either are disproven or several red avatars including myself indeed didn't see the writing on the wall.

The writing on the wall isn't quite there yet but there are 5 days left. If we have a legitimately tied race, yeah. I'll believe it.

[wbrocks67]

Was curious how it changed under the hood from August (T-Mac +9) to now (T-Mac +1)

Republicans
10/27: 97-2 Youngkin (Youngkin +95)
10/8: 90-7 Youngkin (Youngkin +83)
8/26: 95-3 Youngkin (Youngkin +92)

Democrats
10/27: 98-2 McAuliffe (McAuliffe +96)
10/8: 92-1 McAuliffe (McAuliffe +91)
8/26: 95-1 McAuliffe (McAuliffe +94)

Indies
10/27: 51-44 Youngkin (Youngkin +7)
10/8: 50-41 Youngkin (Youngkin +9)
8/26: 44-39 McAuliffe (McAuliffe +5)

Males
10/27: 56-42 Youngkin (Youngkin +14)
10/8: 48-47 Youngkin (Youngkin +1)
8/26: 45-45 tied

Females
10/27: 56-41 McAuliffe (McAuliffe +15)
10/8: 50-43 McAuliffe (McAuliffe +7)
8/26: 55-36 McAuliffe (McAuliffe +19)

Whites
10/27: 58-39 Youngkin (Youngkin +19)
10/8: 58-38 Youngkin (Youngkin +20)
8/26: 50-44 Youngkin (Youngkin +6)

Blacks
10/27: 93-7 McAuliffe (McAuliffe +86)
10/8: 86-7 McAuliffe (McAuliffe +79)
8/26: 83-6 McAuliffe (McAuliffe +77)

18-44
10/27: 51-46 McAuliffe (McAuliffe +5)
10/8: 55-43 McAuliffe (McAuliffe +12)
8/26: 52-34 McAuliffe (McAuliffe +18)

45+
10/27: 49-49 tied
10/8: 46-46 tied
8/26: 49-44 McAuliffe (McAuliffe +5)

Youngkin has consolidated Republicans, while T-Mac has seemed to consoled Ds from the beginning. Indies actually were a bit better for T-Mac than last poll. Youngkin +7 is pretty reasonable, given Gillepsie won them by 3 in 2017.

Males and Females is where it gets a bit weird. The two previous polls had the two about tied with males, but this one shows a real surge for Youngkin. Meanwhile for females, this one shows a surge for T-Mac, closer to his August poll #s.

Whites is a bit of the same, close to the last poll, but both were way up from August’s Youngkin +6.

Blacks have been amazingly steady, especially for a small subsample I’m sure. T-Mac has actually gained in every poll, while Youngkin has stayed 6-7% at each of the 3 polls, much worse than Gillepsie’s 12%.

Their 45+ sample has been pretty steady, but the 18-44 sample has gone from T-Mac +18 to +12 to +5. So the real question is whether that’s reality or just a wonky sample. I would think though, if Youngkin’s message was working, it would be hurting T-Mac among 45+ moreso than 18-44.

[MT Treasurer]

It’s really remarkable how close Youngkin has managed to made this — even finishing at 48% (losing by 3) would be a more than impressive showing given that Trump only got 44% even in 2016 and the state has continued to zoom leftward since then. VA GOP should be glad that they didn’t nominate Amanda Chase (Snyder probably would be doing worse as well, even if not by as much). Youngkin’s run a really strong campaign, if he loses in this environment against this opponent it will be because he fell victim to partisanship/nationalization and we can expect this pattern of gubernatorial races increasingly reflecting federal/presidential races to continue.

[wbrocks67]

It’s really remarkable how close Youngkin has managed to made this — even finishing at 48% (losing by 3) would be a more than impressive showing given that Trump only got 44% even in 2016 and the state has continued to zoom leftward since then. VA GOP should be glad that they didn’t nominate Amanda Chase (Snyder probably would be doing worse as well, even if not by as much). Youngkin’s run a really strong campaign, if he loses in this environment against this opponent it will be because he fell victim to partisanship/nationalization and we can expect this pattern of gubernatorial races increasingly reflecting federal/presidential races to continue.

I don't think the state has "zoomed" leftward. Biden only increased 1% on Northam's margin from 2017 to 2020.

[Matty]

For the 2017 people

This poll has northam +8 in its final iteration

[MT Treasurer]

I don't think the state has "zoomed" leftward. Biden only increased 1% on Northam's margin from 2017 to 2020.

Why is everyone here so obsessed with the 2017 race? Kaine won VA-SEN by 16 points in a high-turnout midterm election and Warner won by 12 in 2020. Biden was the first Democrat to win VA by double digits since 1944. Yes, none of these Republicans were ever considered "competitive" and Stewart may have underperformed Generic R by a point or two, but the point is that this is a very blue state that Democrats now routinely win by double digits. Even Clinton won it by more than 5, and her favorability ratings were of course abysmal. There’s (rightly) much debate about whether GA is still winnable for the GOP, and that state only voted for Biden by <0.5 points, so I do think Youngkin deserves credit for making a Biden +10 state with similarly unfavorable demographics at least somewhat competitive. Yes, the environment and decline in Biden's approval numbers are likely helping as well, but I don’t buy that that’s the whole story.

It’s also a state where rural/small-town GOP areas are very close to maxed out and any further gains won’t make a big difference in the grand scheme of things, so any major improvement over 2017 has to come from areas that have trended strongly Democratic or were already deep blue. I’m skeptical that the votes are there for him (I was adjusting the VA county/city map on Election Shuffler the other day, and I couldn’t get Youngkin above a 3-point loss even with a very generous swing to him in NOVA/Richmond metro) but I don’t think any Republican would have done better than him. This election is basically as close to a best-case scenario for the VA GOP as you can realistically get, and if they can’t win that one, it’s game over for the state party.

[wbrocks67]

I don't think the state has "zoomed" leftward. Biden only increased 1% on Northam's margin from 2017 to 2020.

Why is everyone here so obsessed with the 2017 race? Kaine won VA-SEN by 16 points in a high-turnout midterm election and Warner won by 12 in 2020. Biden was the first Democrat to win VA by double digits since 1944. Yes, none of these Republicans were ever considered "competitive" and Stewart may have underperformed Generic R by a point or two, but the point is that this is a very blue state that Democrats now routinely win by double digits. Even Clinton won it by more than 5, and her favorability ratings were of course abysmal. There’s (rightly) much debate about whether GA is still winnable for the GOP, and that state only voted for Biden by <0.5 points, so I do think Youngkin deserves credit for making a Biden +10 state with similarly unfavorable demographics at least somewhat competitive. Yes, the environment and decline in Biden's approval numbers are likely helping as well, but I don’t buy that that’s the whole story.

It’s also a state where rural/small-town GOP areas are very close to maxed out and any further gains won’t make a big difference in the grand scheme of things, so any major improvement over 2017 has to come from areas that have trended strongly Democratic or were already deep blue. I’m skeptical that the votes are there for him (I was adjusting the VA county/city map on Election Shuffler the other day, and I couldn’t get Youngkin above a 3-point loss even with a very generous swing to him in NOVA/Richmond metro) but I don’t think any Republican would have done better than him. This election is basically as close to a best-case scenario for the VA GOP as you can realistically get, and if they can’t win that one, it’s game over for the state party.

I agree with the last thought. If VA can't win with Youngkin, who is the least "crazy" or "extreme" candidate that they've fielded in recent years (though not that far off from Gillepsie), then it's game over for the GOP here.

[kwabbit]

Pollsters are now herding big time. They've set up TMac +1 as their estimate, let's see what actually happens.

[Alben Barkley]

If it wasn't for the Loudoun County stuff going on now (which I wasn't aware of before), I wouldn't be even remotely nervous about this race. But that might be the kind of thing that could really give the GOP a boost in a state like VA (lots of suburban voters concerned about their kids). And it doesn't help that T-Mac and then Obama while campaigning for him basically just wrote off the rape of a girl because it wasn't convenient to the narrative that something like that NEVER could happen. Not a good look. Guess we'll find out, if the race is closer than it should be or if Youngkin even manages to pull it off somehow, just how powerful that kind of culture war stuff can really be. This is our first real test of that and our first glimpse into whether or not the GOP strategy they have set up for the midterms will be a success.

Anyway, no longer sure this is much of a safe lock as I thought, I'm walking that back. I still think T-Mac is a bigger favorite than the polls suggest, but not completely safe due to the potential for these factors to affect the race and an unclear picture of who will turn out. In CA, predictions that Rs would vote in massively greater numbers turned out to be totally wrong, but that might have been at least partly because they literally mailed ballots to everyone. VA doesn't do that.

[wbrocks67]

If it wasn't for the Loudoun County stuff going on now (which I wasn't aware of before), I wouldn't be even remotely nervous about this race. But that might be the kind of thing that could really give the GOP a boost in a state like VA (lots of suburban voters concerned about their kids). And it doesn't help that T-Mac and then Obama while campaigning for him basically just wrote off the rape of a girl because it wasn't convenient to the narrative that something like that NEVER could happen. Not a good look. Guess we'll find out, if the race is closer than it should be or if Youngkin even manages to pull it off somehow, just how powerful that kind of culture war stuff can really be. This is our first real test of that and our first glimpse into whether or not the GOP strategy they have set up for the midterms will be a success.

Anyway, no longer sure this is much of a safe lock as I thought, I'm walking that back. I still think T-Mac is a bigger favorite than the polls suggest, but not completely safe due to the potential for these factors to affect the race and an unclear picture of who will turn out. In CA, predictions that Rs would vote in massively greater numbers turned out to be totally wrong, but that might have been at least partly because they literally mailed ballots to everyone. VA doesn't do that.

How is the Loudon County thing automatically something negative for Ds? Nothing about that situation is political, so why would it help the GOP?

And Obama did not mention anything specific to that situation last week (obviously) - he mentioned the culture war education BS that the GOP has been pushing, like CRT, etc. It's clear that's what he was talking about.

[Alben Barkley]

If it wasn't for the Loudoun County stuff going on now (which I wasn't aware of before), I wouldn't be even remotely nervous about this race. But that might be the kind of thing that could really give the GOP a boost in a state like VA (lots of suburban voters concerned about their kids). And it doesn't help that T-Mac and then Obama while campaigning for him basically just wrote off the rape of a girl because it wasn't convenient to the narrative that something like that NEVER could happen. Not a good look. Guess we'll find out, if the race is closer than it should be or if Youngkin even manages to pull it off somehow, just how powerful that kind of culture war stuff can really be. This is our first real test of that and our first glimpse into whether or not the GOP strategy they have set up for the midterms will be a success.

Anyway, no longer sure this is much of a safe lock as I thought, I'm walking that back. I still think T-Mac is a bigger favorite than the polls suggest, but not completely safe due to the potential for these factors to affect the race and an unclear picture of who will turn out. In CA, predictions that Rs would vote in massively greater numbers turned out to be totally wrong, but that might have been at least partly because they literally mailed ballots to everyone. VA doesn't do that.

How is the Loudon County thing automatically something negative for Ds? Nothing about that situation is political, so why would it help the GOP?

And Obama did not mention anything specific to that situation last week (obviously) - he mentioned the culture war education BS that the GOP has been pushing, like CRT, etc. It's clear that's what he was talking about.

You are making the classic Dem mistake of using logic and reason, and assuming that voters will think the same way. Not how it works, sadly. It is completely and totally irrelevant if the situation itself is or should be political or not; it has already been insanely politicized. (Also, a Superintendent is technically a political figure, and covering up details of a crime in an attempt to get a policy goal of yours passed is blatantly political, so...) And Obama has now been personally blasted by the parents of the victim for his remarks. Again, bad LOOK, regardless of what the intent was. That's what SO MANY Dems don't seem to get about politics; it is NOT about what ACTUALLY is, let alone what SHOULD be. It is about how things LOOK above all else. OPTICS. It baffles me I still even have to say this.

[wbrocks67]

If it wasn't for the Loudoun County stuff going on now (which I wasn't aware of before), I wouldn't be even remotely nervous about this race. But that might be the kind of thing that could really give the GOP a boost in a state like VA (lots of suburban voters concerned about their kids). And it doesn't help that T-Mac and then Obama while campaigning for him basically just wrote off the rape of a girl because it wasn't convenient to the narrative that something like that NEVER could happen. Not a good look. Guess we'll find out, if the race is closer than it should be or if Youngkin even manages to pull it off somehow, just how powerful that kind of culture war stuff can really be. This is our first real test of that and our first glimpse into whether or not the GOP strategy they have set up for the midterms will be a success.

Anyway, no longer sure this is much of a safe lock as I thought, I'm walking that back. I still think T-Mac is a bigger favorite than the polls suggest, but not completely safe due to the potential for these factors to affect the race and an unclear picture of who will turn out. In CA, predictions that Rs would vote in massively greater numbers turned out to be totally wrong, but that might have been at least partly because they literally mailed ballots to everyone. VA doesn't do that.

How is the Loudon County thing automatically something negative for Ds? Nothing about that situation is political, so why would it help the GOP?

And Obama did not mention anything specific to that situation last week (obviously) - he mentioned the culture war education BS that the GOP has been pushing, like CRT, etc. It's clear that's what he was talking about.

You are making the classic Dem mistake of using logic and reason, and assuming that voters will think the same way. Not how it works, sadly. It is completely and totally irrelevant if the situation itself is or should be political or not; it has already been insanely politicized. (Also, a Superintendent is technically a political figure, and covering up details of a crime in an attempt to get a policy goal of yours passed is blatantly political, so...) And Obama has now been personally blasted by the parents of the victim for his remarks. Again, bad LOOK, regardless of what the intent was. That's what SO MANY Dems don't seem to get about politics; it is NOT about what ACTUALLY is, let alone what SHOULD be. It is about how things LOOK above all else. OPTICS. It baffles me I still even have to say this.

But you're still not answering why the average voter - even absent the Obama comments - would associate what's going on at the school district with negative towards Democrats, and not GOP?

The only people upset about Obama's comments are right wingers from what I can tell, who are disingenuously connecting the two.

For people to connect what he said to an incident that has nothing to do with it versus the GOP's entire fake "education" narrative this entire campaign season is just ridiculous.

You'd only compare the two as connected unless you already had a pre-conceived notion to.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Youngkin won't win he won't even campaign with Trump

[2016]

Virginia as a whole has moved left over the last 15 years or so.

However Republicans have a much more friendly Political Environment to either 2017 or 2013 (when McAuliffe won for the first time).

Going to be interesting if the Pollsters can nail this one especially Patrick Murray from Monmouth. His Career and Monmouth as Pollster might be on the line if he missed this one again considering how badly they performed in 2020.

[Person Man]

Virginia as a whole has moved left over the last 15 years or so.

However Republicans have a much more friendly Political Environment to either 2017 or 2013 (when McAuliffe won for the first time).

Going to be interesting if the Pollsters can nail this one especially Patrick Murray from Monmouth. His Career and Monmouth as Pollster might be on the line if he missed this one again considering how badly they performed in 2020.

At this point, I would almost give pollsters a break because there might be detectable decline in the median person's tendency to be honest....perhaps across the political spectrum.

[Spectator]

For the 2017 people

This poll has northam +8 in its final iteration

As if people remember who they voted for four years ago when most can’t remember what they are for breakfast, let alone the name of the losing gubernatorial candidate.

[Progressive Pessimist]

I guess it's just good to see McAuliffe leading at all now.

[South Dakota Democrat]

For the 2017 people

This poll has northam +8 in its final iteration

As if people remember who they voted for four years ago when most can’t remember what they are for breakfast, let alone the name of the losing gubernatorial candidate.

Pretty sure they meant this pollster's final poll in 2017 had Northam+8, rather than them asking in this poll how people voted in 2017.

[bilaps]

If it wasn't for the Loudoun County stuff going on now (which I wasn't aware of before), I wouldn't be even remotely nervous about this race. But that might be the kind of thing that could really give the GOP a boost in a state like VA (lots of suburban voters concerned about their kids). And it doesn't help that T-Mac and then Obama while campaigning for him basically just wrote off the rape of a girl because it wasn't convenient to the narrative that something like that NEVER could happen. Not a good look. Guess we'll find out, if the race is closer than it should be or if Youngkin even manages to pull it off somehow, just how powerful that kind of culture war stuff can really be. This is our first real test of that and our first glimpse into whether or not the GOP strategy they have set up for the midterms will be a success.

Anyway, no longer sure this is much of a safe lock as I thought, I'm walking that back. I still think T-Mac is a bigger favorite than the polls suggest, but not completely safe due to the potential for these factors to affect the race and an unclear picture of who will turn out. In CA, predictions that Rs would vote in massively greater numbers turned out to be totally wrong, but that might have been at least partly because they literally mailed ballots to everyone. VA doesn't do that.

How is the Loudon County thing automatically something negative for Ds? Nothing about that situation is political, so why would it help the GOP?

You have political insticts of Hillary Clinton.