Want to see where the candidates this year stand? We sent questionnaires to all the candidates running for Senate and U.S. House in Virginia, plus more than 500 local offices across Southwest and Southside. You can compare their answers (or lack thereof) on our Voter Guide.
We have another poll that’s come out, and it shows the race in Virginia tied.
In this case, it’s next year’s governor’s race, not this year’s presidential race.
The University of Mary Washington’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies last week had a poll on the presidential contest that found Kamala Harris and Donald Trump essentially in a dead heat in Virginia — in contrast to other recent polls that have shown Harris with a lead of 7 to 13 percentage points in the state, depending on how the poll was constructed.
On Wednesday, Mary Washington released the rest of that poll, which looked ahead at the 2025 governor’s race. The poll shows that’s tied, too.
In a choice between Democrat Abigail Spanberger, who is retiring from her 7th District seat in Congress to run for governor, and Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, each candidate received 39%.
In a choice between Spanberger and Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares, the results were Spanberger 40%, Miyares 39%, well within the margin of error.
What does this poll tell us? Probably nothing.
Democrats won’t like this because they think Spanberger should be a shoo-in next year, and they don’t think UMW had the presidential numbers right to begin with. (I had a column last week that looked more closely at those numbers.)
Republicans might take heart that, even though Spanberger has been running since last November, and Earle-Sears just declared (and Miyares has yet to), the race is tied.
My take is this: Nobody’s really focused on the 2025 governor’s race yet, and some of these candidates, particularly Spanberger, who until now has only represented 1/11th of Virginia, aren’t well-known beyond partisans on each side.
To me, this poll simply shows that Democrats will vote for a Democrat, Republicans will vote for a Republican. I suspect you could substitute the names of my two cats and get similar results. (Hazel is the candidate you want if you want a bear chased off the back deck; Billy is who you want if you feel the need to be constantly reminded of your deficiencies as a food provider.)
Still, it’s worth delving into the details of this poll.
Virginians are very clear about how they feel about the direction of the country: 51% feel it’s on the wrong track, 30% are mixed, only 16% think it’s on the right track. If Democrats wonder why Harris isn’t doing better, this is why — voters are fundamentally unhappy and that always hurts the party in power. If Republicans had nominated anyone other than Trump, the presidential race might not be so close — this seems a Republican year that Republicans might fumble away by nominating Trump.
However, when asked about the state of things in Virginia, poll respondents are much more conflicted. The biggest group — 43% — has mixed feelings, while 26% think Virginia is on the wrong track and 24% think it’s on the right track. This would seem to pose a challenge for both parties’ nominees for governor next year. For Republicans, the challenge is that Virginians aren’t entirely sure that things are headed in the right direction so they might be open to a change of party in the governor’s mansion. For Democrats, the challenge is that voters aren’t nearly as unhappy with things in the state as they are nationally, so they are not necessarily predisposed to change.
Polls have consistently shown that Youngkin gets high approval ratings in Virginia. This poll puts his ratings a bit lower, but still, more people approve (46%) than disapprove (34%). If Youngkin were allowed to run for governor, I’d wager that he’d get reelected. However, it’s always tricky when one politician tries to transfer his popularity to a potential successor.
For me, one of the key questions here is when poll respondents were asked what they think of how Earle-Sears and Miyares have done their jobs.
For Earle-Sears: 34% approve, while 19% disapprove and 48% simply aren’t sure.
For Miyares: 32% approve, while 19% disapprove and 48% aren’t sure.
My read on that is that core Republicans probably instinctively approve, some portion of Democrats instinctively disapprove — while about half the people have no idea. Let’s face it: A lieutenant governor doesn’t have much of a job to approve or disapprove of; some states don’t even have one. An attorney general has an actual government apparatus to run. Both officeholders, though, could do a better job of defining themselves to the public.
If the choice next fall is Earle-Sears vs. Spanberger, Virginia will have two women running for governor. Politically, that raises the question of whether there will be a gender gap. Most races these days show women favoring Democrats, men favoring Republicans. This poll shows women favoring Spanberger, 40% to 33%.
Earle-Sears is our third Black lieutenant governor (behind Douglas Wilder and Justin Fairfax) and, if elected, would be our second Black governor. Republicans are hopeful that an Earle-Sears candidacy would help them broaden their distinctly white party base. This poll shows Black voters favoring Spanberger 62% to 15%. Those numbers aren’t particularly different from what the poll shows for the presidential and Senate races. None of these numbers — on a gender gap or race gap — really change when the choice is Miyares vs. Spanberger. Again, it may simply be too early to get a good read on what voters think about this contest.
Republicans, though, may want to be wary of this figure: While liberals naturally favor Spanberger and conservatives naturally favor either of the two Republican options, moderates break for Spanberger either way by a 2-1 margin. That presents a challenge: To win a Republican primary (if there is a contested nomination), the candidates will have to appeal to a conservative electorate but to win a general election, that Republican will have to persuade moderates who start off leaning toward Spanberger.
We now return you to your presidential race, already in progress …
What early voting trends tell us
I write a weekly political newsletter, West of the Capital, which goes out Friday afternoons. This week I’ll look at what the first week of early voting tells us. You can sign up for that or any of our other free newsletters below:
