VA-Gov (FOX 5 DC/InsiderAdvantage*): Youngkin +2

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://www.fox5dc.com/news/youngkin-ahead-of-mcauliffe-in-fox-5-exclusive-poll-of-virginias-gubernatorial-race

October 27-30
500 LV

[Woody]

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

It's like one of those optical illusions that could either be a wine glass or two faces: it works for both camps

[Person Man]

Isn’t this an internal?

[BigSerg]

Isn’t this an internal?

No

[Person Man]

Isn’t this an internal?

No

Could be right then.

[SnowLabrador]

At this point, it's hard for me not to think Youngkin is favored.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It feels a bit late for Youngkin for him only to be leading by 2 in what looks like an actually solid poll this late in the process.
If he doesn't get enough Election Day votes to swamp Dem early votes, he's screwed.

[SnowLabrador]

It feels a bit late for Youngkin for him only to be leading by 2 in what looks like an actually solid poll this late in the process.
If he doesn't get enough Election Day votes to swamp Dem early votes, he's screwed.

This feels a lot like NC-SEN 2020, where it seemed like Cunningham had built an insurmountable lead in early voting, only for a late-breaking scandal to give Tillis last-minute momentum. Now replace "Cunningham" with "McAuliffe" and "Tillis" with "Youngkin."

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It feels a bit late for Youngkin for him only to be leading by 2 in what looks like an actually solid poll this late in the process.
If he doesn't get enough Election Day votes to swamp Dem early votes, he's screwed.

This feels a lot like NC-SEN 2020, where it seemed like Cunningham had built an insurmountable lead in early voting, only for a late-breaking scandal to give Tillis last-minute momentum. Now replace "Cunningham" with "McAuliffe" and "Tillis" with "Youngkin."

But NC is not really comparable to VA; VA is borderline Safe Dem on presidential level now,  while NC is much closer to Lean/Likely R.
If T-Mac vs Youngkin was in a more competitive state, Tossup might even be a very charitable rating that is overly too Dem.
Youngkin has no issue with making this race close; getting above T-Mac in numerical votes is the hard part, one that people underestimate the difficulty of.

[Chips]

Hmm...Probably a bit too many undecideds to make this a reliable poll.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

It feels a bit late for Youngkin for him only to be leading by 2 in what looks like an actually solid poll this late in the process.
If he doesn't get enough Election Day votes to swamp Dem early votes, he's screwed.

This feels a lot like NC-SEN 2020, where it seemed like Cunningham had built an insurmountable lead in early voting, only for a late-breaking scandal to give Tillis last-minute momentum. Now replace "Cunningham" with "McAuliffe" and "Tillis" with "Youngkin."

But NC is not really comparable to VA; VA is borderline Safe Dem on presidential level now,  while NC is much closer to Lean/Likely R.
If T-Mac vs Youngkin was in a more competitive state, Tossup might even be a very charitable rating that is overly too Dem.
Youngkin has no issue with making this race close; getting above T-Mac in numerical votes is the hard part, one that people underestimate the difficulty of.

I was about to say: it's apples to oranges.  In all fairness to SnowLab, though, Virginia is a "could vote that way statewide if everything falls into place"-type state.  And this is, IMO, the best chance that the Republicans will have of winning statewide for the foreseeable future.  

The question is whether Youngkin has built enough momentum for that late surge.  The Democrats are still quite a force.   

[TodayJunior]

Ok. Fine. Tossup!

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It feels a bit late for Youngkin for him only to be leading by 2 in what looks like an actually solid poll this late in the process.
If he doesn't get enough Election Day votes to swamp Dem early votes, he's screwed.

This feels a lot like NC-SEN 2020, where it seemed like Cunningham had built an insurmountable lead in early voting, only for a late-breaking scandal to give Tillis last-minute momentum. Now replace "Cunningham" with "McAuliffe" and "Tillis" with "Youngkin."

But NC is not really comparable to VA; VA is borderline Safe Dem on presidential level now,  while NC is much closer to Lean/Likely R.
If T-Mac vs Youngkin was in a more competitive state, Tossup might even be a very charitable rating that is overly too Dem.
Youngkin has no issue with making this race close; getting above T-Mac in numerical votes is the hard part, one that people underestimate the difficulty of.

I was about to say: it's apples to oranges.  In all fairness to SnowLab, though, Virginia is a "could vote that way statewide if everything falls into place"-type state.  And this is, IMO, the best chance that the Republicans will have of winning statewide for the foreseeable future.  

The question is whether Youngkin has built enough momentum for that late surge.  The Democrats are still quite a force.  

I feel that if we were dealing with the VA of a decade ago or another state that had comparable partisanship right now, it'd be a valid comparison.
Virginia 2021 just isn't that though.

[wbrocks67]

Is there any more info on this poll? Is it just Fox 5 or is a company behind it? There's literally no data in their post.

edit - does it say somewhere it's InsiderAdvantage?

[Matty]

Is there any more info on this poll? Is it just Fox 5 or is a company behind it? There's literally no data in their post.

edit - does it say somewhere it's InsiderAdvantage?

It’s a poll for fox 5 done by insider adv

[MT Treasurer]

It feels a bit late for Youngkin for him only to be leading by 2 in what looks like an actually solid poll this late in the process.
If he doesn't get enough Election Day votes to swamp Dem early votes, he's screwed.

What?

I legitimately don’t understand what this post is trying to convey — if it’s "Youngkin needs to be ahead by more at this stage of the race", perhaps (although this is just one poll), but for the umpteenth time, relying on selective early voting data to predict an election when there are several things we don’t know about election-day turnout and the early vote itself is a fool's errand which we’ve been through before.

Youngkin has no issue with making this race close; getting above T-Mac in numerical votes is the hard part, one that people underestimate the difficulty of.

I don’t think there’s a single person on this board who doesn’t realize how difficult winning this state/race will be for the GOP (and who hasn’t pointed this out), so I’m not sure who you’re referring to with "people"?

[Dan the Roman]

It feels a bit late for Youngkin for him only to be leading by 2 in what looks like an actually solid poll this late in the process.
If he doesn't get enough Election Day votes to swamp Dem early votes, he's screwed.

What?

I legitimately don’t understand what this post is trying to convey — if it’s "Youngkin needs to be ahead by more at this stage of the race", perhaps (although this is just one poll), but for the umpteenth time, relying on selective early voting data to predict an election when there are several things we don’t know about election-day turnout and the early vote itself is a fool's errand which we’ve been through before.

Youngkin has no issue with making this race close; getting above T-Mac in numerical votes is the hard part, one that people underestimate the difficulty of.

I don’t think there’s a single person on this board who doesn’t realize how difficult winning this state/race will be for the GOP (and who hasn’t pointed this out), so I’m not sure who you’re referring to with "people"?

The only way early voting would matter that much would be in a state like CA where odds were 80% was in and there was scandal which did not just target marginal partisans but actual hardcore. Ie. if it came out Newsome had sexually assaulted someone on video the weekend before the election, it may well have been too late for him to lose. But that is a much more extreme situation than here.

[Skill and Chance]

It feels a bit late for Youngkin for him only to be leading by 2 in what looks like an actually solid poll this late in the process.
If he doesn't get enough Election Day votes to swamp Dem early votes, he's screwed.

What?

I legitimately don’t understand what this post is trying to convey — if it’s "Youngkin needs to be ahead by more at this stage of the race", perhaps (although this is just one poll), but for the umpteenth time, relying on selective early voting data to predict an election when there are several things we don’t know about election-day turnout and the early vote itself is a fool's errand which we’ve been through before.

Youngkin has no issue with making this race close; getting above T-Mac in numerical votes is the hard part, one that people underestimate the difficulty of.

I don’t think there’s a single person on this board who doesn’t realize how difficult winning this state/race will be for the GOP (and who hasn’t pointed this out), so I’m not sure who you’re referring to with "people"?

This has to be about the 2017 polls, right?  We have reached the point where people are just automatically adding 5% to the Dem based on the Northam +3 polling average.  Problem is that was only one election and 2018/20 polls narrowly favored Dems so there's no trend.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Youngkin was never up 8

[ElectionsGuy]

It feels a bit late for Youngkin for him only to be leading by 2 in what looks like an actually solid poll this late in the process.
If he doesn't get enough Election Day votes to swamp Dem early votes, he's screwed.

Again, this banks on the idea that there were persuadable swing voters who already cast their ballot for McAuliffe, but now have regret and want to rescind their vote for Youngkin. It's just not that realistic. If he loses, it'll be because the election day votes were never there for him, not because too many people voted early. All these polls include both people who already voted and people who will vote.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

You going has a small lead but VBM went overwhelming D and it's the VBM ballots that will matter and Terry was ahead during the VBM process not during the same day, that's why Youngkin being up 8 was junk

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

It feels a bit late for Youngkin for him only to be leading by 2 in what looks like an actually solid poll this late in the process.
If he doesn't get enough Election Day votes to swamp Dem early votes, he's screwed.

What?

I legitimately don’t understand what this post is trying to convey — if it’s "Youngkin needs to be ahead by more at this stage of the race", perhaps (although this is just one poll), but for the umpteenth time, relying on selective early voting data to predict an election when there are several things we don’t know about election-day turnout and the early vote itself is a fool's errand which we’ve been through before.

Youngkin has no issue with making this race close; getting above T-Mac in numerical votes is the hard part, one that people underestimate the difficulty of.

I don’t think there’s a single person on this board who doesn’t realize how difficult winning this state/race will be for the GOP (and who hasn’t pointed this out), so I’m not sure who you’re referring to with "people"?

My calculation is simple. Youngkin needs to cut into the D base to win OR get more Rs on Election Day. He can't rely on an "enthusiasm gap" that probably never really existed as a huge factor in the race in the first place.

T-Mac's polling leads when there was early voting were enough that he basically did decently there at least, as polls are generally a snapshot of what the race is at the time. In some places up to 2/5 of the broader electorate early-voted, which locks in a significant part of his built-in advantage as Democratic candidate for Governor of Virginia. In the Old Dominion, if you hold the Dem voter base and don't get sufficiently swamped in Independents (like how the D incumbent in IL-GOV 2014 was), you will very, very, very likely win. Late-breaking momentum in the polls doesn't matter as much if a sufficiently large share of the vote happens earlier. And yes, it is true partisans who are likelier to vote to begin with are a disproportionate share of early voters, but the slice of people who early-voted this time has to have included some swing voters. Youngkin HAS to do well among swing voters. T-Mac can lose most swing voters and still win.

Youngkin - already a long-shot - has his chances diminished still by this factor. Some of the vote he needed has already voted and likely has gone for T-Mac. Further hurting Youngkin in this (helping him in the race in aggregate but not in this specific facet) is that since Rs also advertised early voting, this means a sizable number of firm R voters in rural VA will also have voted. So he can't rely on a 2020-style surge as much as Trump did.

The big question mark to me, for quite some time, is if he can do well among the Election Day vote. I don't know what to assume about election day turnout, so I have the broader race as a Tossup out of an abundance of caution, but Youngkin's path for victory is extremely narrow. That's what people don't get. They get it is hard, but they don't get how hard it is. Only the black box which is Election Day turnout keeps me from rating this at least Lean D.

[wbrocks67]

Yeah Election Day will be interesting.

It is quite possible that a bunch of Trumpy voters actually swarm the polls on ED like in 2020 with a 'red wave'.

It's also possible that election day turnout is fine, but not the turbo-charged vote Youngkin needs.

[MillennialModerate]

If you don’t think Youngkin is winning this thing then you really don’t know politics