VA-Gov(Fox): Youngkin +8 with Likely Voters

[wbrocks67]

Among the larger pool of registered voters, it’s a one-point race:  McAuliffe 47 percent vs. Youngkin 48 percent.  Two weeks ago, McAuliffe led among registered voters by 11 points, 52-41 percent.

That is .... one hell of an LV screen

[wbrocks67]

Fox is incredibly dem leaning as well.. in regards to it's polling.

Not really. This poll has an LV screen of R+4 and an RV screen of D+2, which makes sense given the diverging results between the two.

A D+2 screen would be pretty close to 2020, while the LV screen is clearly way more Republican.

Again, most polls are banking that Republican turnout is going to eclipse Democratic turnout by a decent margin, so it really all depends if that actually happens or not.

[wbrocks67]

I mean, it's definitely an R sample. The LV screen is assuming that Republican turnout is going to be considerably above D turnout.

The true question is just going to be if thats true or not. It seems both sides are engaged, so idk if that's likely.

It also appears to be the first poll that has a decent chunk more Biden supporters crossing over to Youngkin than Trump for T-Mac.

[wbrocks67]

Voters under 35 are also not passing their LV screen, either. The RV sample shows T-Mac +21 with that group, but in the LV group, there's not enough of them for the sample.

[wbrocks67]

The LV is too tight, but even the RV margin is youngkin +1

Youngkin has the polling trends in his favor

It’s the exact opposite we saw in CA

the RV makes sense, because if this is actually a T-Mac +1 or +2 race like polls are suggesting, then you'd expect to see Youngkin +1 based on MoE

The RV sample also lines up with what we've seen in VA recently (D+2 sample, exact same as last year)

LV sample clearly too Republican. Youngkin can win, but he's not winning by 8

[wbrocks67]

Should also be noted that the RV sample in their last poll was much more Democratic (D+7) compared to this one (D+2), so also makes sense why Biden approval was higher

[wbrocks67]

This is sickening. It seems that their astroturfed culture wars are paying off.

Yep, which would be pretty damn disappointing since VA has a lot of college-educated, rational, intelligent people who seem like they wouldn't fall for these tactics.

Somehow GOP has turned crazy lunatics showing up at school board meetings into heroes. Total insanity.

[wbrocks67]

Is the finding that Youngkin is outrunning Trump by 7 points among registered voters verified by other polls?

Well technically Youngkin outrunning Trump by 4 points among RV, as Youngkin is at 48 (T-Mac 47) here.

Honestly the RV # is completely believable given what we've seen over the last 2 weeks. Youngkin +1 would perfectly fit in with tied-T-Mac +2/3 that we've been getting.

[wbrocks67]

Quinnipiac is next, if they have a similar result, dude this is a landslide

Q-Pac would be quite interesting lol.

I *think* a Roanoke poll is coming tomorrow possibly as well

But that's probably it since CBS/YouGov is not doing any more.

[wbrocks67]

What I think is interesting here is the comparison to CA, in that we had the same issue in CA where pollsters did not understand who was going to show up, and expected a very large turnout edge from Rs.

Now, things reversed course in CA and polls got better for Newsom towards the end. But was that because things truly turned around in a matter of weeks, or pollsters had a better understanding of who actually was showing up? Partisanship took control, but I think what was also prudent for pollsters at the time was how big the early/mail vote was. It was undeniable from the beginning that Democrats were voting in larger numbers than Republicans, and IIRC, pollsters got savvy to this and realized that a LV model where Rs are getting massive turnout wasn't happening.

Now, Virginia does not have registration by partisan so we can't see who is turning out. One wonders if things would be any different if we knew exactly who was turning out in the Early Vote. Could easily show that Rs *are* turning out, but it's an unknown that I think that was something that affected pollsters models in CA towards the end. If we didn't have a party ID for who those mail ballots were, it's possible pollsters might've continued to think Rs had a turnout edge.

Just food for thought and something to think about if T-Mac outperforms the polls