CNU poll: Democrats poised for sweep but AG’s race was closest of three before Jones’ text messages revealed

Yet another poll gives Democrat Abigail Spanberger a double-digit lead and points to a Democratic sweep of all three statewide races, although the margin is closest in the attorney general’s race that’s now rocked by the text messages that Democratic candidate Jay Jones once sent in which he fantasized about shooting the Republican speaker of the House.

This new poll, released Monday, is from Christopher Newport University’s Wason Center for Civic Leadership and comes with a big caveat: This poll was conducted before the news about Jones’ text messages hit on Friday.

That means we can’t possibly know the political impact of that development yet, but this poll does show us what the political landscape was like when that news broke — and it didn’t look good for Republicans.

Here are the numbers, then we’ll get to the analysis:

Governor: Abigail Spanberger (D) 52%, Winsome Earle-Sears (R) 42%
Lieutenant governor: Ghazala Hashmi (D) 48%, John Reid (R) 39%
Attorney general: Jay Jones (D) 49%, Jason Miyares (R) 43%

Margin of error: 3.9 percentage points

Now, what else should we know?

The major polls have consistently shown Spanberger with a clear lead 

Here are the past seven polls from what I’d consider major (or, perhaps, best-known) pollsters. I always give preference to university-based polls because there’s no risk of some partisan affiliation. To keep this simple, I’ll just show the margin in percentage points:

We have had other polls, such as the A2 Insights poll, that showed a much closer race. That pollster also had a distinctly more conservative sample. If the electorate actually is more conservative, we’ll get a more conservative result. The main polls, though, are all producing the same picture: This looks like a Democratic year.

Jones’ lead is a weak one 

This poll cannot answer any of the questions we all want to know, like: What impact will the text messages have on Jones’ campaign? However, it can tell us some other useful things: Jones’ lead of 6 percentage points is the smallest of the three Democrats statewide. One reason it’s smaller is that he has a smaller lead among independents than either Spanberger or Hashmi has. Independents back Jones by 5 percentage points, while they back Spanberger by 12 and Hashmi by 8 — pretty much what their overall leads are. However, the reason Jones has a smaller lead among independents than the other Democrats isn’t that he’s weaker with independents — it’s that Miyares is stronger than the other Republicans.

We live in such partisan times that nothing may dampen the Democratic support for Jones; it’s the independents we need to pay attention to. If Miyares is to use the text messages — or any other issue — to overtake Jones, he will need independents, and he’s within striking distance with those. That brings us to this:

Democrats are winning because they’re winning independents

Let’s look at the actual numbers. Among independents:

Spanberger 49%, Earle-Sears 37%
Hashmi 43%, Reid 31%
Jones 45%, Miyares 40%

To win, candidates need strong support from their own party and they need to win independents. All the candidates are getting strong support from their party (although Reid is a little weaker than his ticketmates), but only the Democrats are winning independents.

If you want to understand why the Republican candidates are behind, that may be all you need to know — although the CNU poll does have stats on why Republicans are failing to win over independents.

Miyares is the only Republican whose favorables are higher than his unfavorables

Sometimes people vote for candidates they don’t much like — because they dislike the other candidate even more — but understanding a candidate’s favorable/unfavorable rating does tell us a lot.

Both Earle-Sears and Reid have higher unfavorables than favorables. The difference isn’t much; it shouldn’t be considered statistically significant, but the point is, people do not have a favorable opinion of them. By contrast, voters do have a more favorable impression of Spanberger and Hashmi than an unfavorable one.

Spanberger 43% favorable, 38% unfavorable
Earle-Sears 38% favorable, 39% unfavorable 

Hashmi 19% favorable, 16% unfavorable
Reid 15% favorable, 16% unfavorable

Now look at the attorney general candidates

Jones 28% favorable, 26% unfavorable
Miyares 31% favorable, 24% unfavorable

Miyares has more favorables and fewer unfavorables than Jones — and the gap between the two scores is bigger. In fact, Miyares has a bigger gap between those scores than any of the other candidates. To the extent they know who he is (more on that coming), Virginians seem to like Miyares. That gives him something to build on.

Voters don’t know much about any of the down-ballot candidates

In the attorney general’s race, 30% of those surveyed didn’t know enough about either Jones or Miyares to have a favorable or unfavorable opinion. In the lieutenant governor’s race, nearly half didn’t know enough about Reid to have an opinion (46%), and Hashmi (43%) was only marginally better known. That would suggest that voter opinion in both those races might be very malleable — assuming voters aren’t just going to cast a straight-party ballot. That’s really the big question.

Voters like Youngkin but not Trump 

This is hardly news; we’ve seen this in every poll. Virginians like their governor; 50% approve of Glenn Youngkin’s handling of the governorship, while 42% disapprove. With Trump, it’s the opposite: Only 41% approve, and 56% disapprove. Democrats have based much of their campaign on running against Trump, and these numbers show why. He’s an easy target. This is what might save Jones. Are voters going to be more concerned about his texts or about Trump?

Now for some really bad news for Republicans

There’s not a single issue on which voters think Earle-Sears would do a better job than Spanberger 

It’s taken a while to get to this point, but this might be the biggest news out of the poll. CNU gave respondents a list of 12 issues to choose from. In every other poll I’ve seen in this race that asked about issues, the economy ranked as the top concern. This time “threats to democracy” did — at 19%. The economy (framed as “cost of living/inflation”) came in second at 18%. Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo, research director of the Wason Center, noted that this poll was taken after the assassination of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk. However, the number of people who cited “threats to democracy” as a concern was little changed from the September poll — from 18% then to 19% now. The economy edged down slightly, from 21% then to 18% now. The biggest change was with health care — from 7% then to 10% now, which Bromley-Trujillo attributes to health care issues being part of the federal government shutdown debate. 

CNU did add one issue to the list that wasn’t available in September: transgender policy, since that’s something Earle-Sears has pushed. However, only 3% cited it as their top issue. Only climate change (1%) ranked lower. That points to what might be a central problem with the Earle-Sears campaign: She’s not talking about the issues that matter most to voters.

When CNU went through the list issue by issue and asked respondents which candidate they thought would do a better job, the result was remarkable: Voters picked Spanberger as the best choice on every issue. Usually there’s a split. Not this time.

Economy: Spanberger 49% to 40%
Education: Spanberger 51% to 39%
Health care: Spanberger 54% to 36%

You get the idea. Even on issues that normally give Republicans an edge, Spanberger was the preferred choice:

Immigration: Spanberger 49% to 43%
Crime: Spanberger 47% to 45%
Taxes: Spanberger 47% to 43%

When the Democrat beats the Republican even on crime and taxes, you know something is seriously wrong with the Republican candidate. Even on Earle-Sears’ preferred issue of late — transgender policy — Spanberger wins, 50% to 37%. 

Let’s think about this: Earle-Sears has chosen to run on transgender policy but this poll shows not many people care, and those who do back Spanberger. This is a problem for Republicans. If these issues aren’t winning issues for Republicans, what could be? That’s why you’re likely to see an all-out push on Jones’ text messages. They might well be a legitimate issue but nothing else is working.

Miyares has an opening 

It’s hard to look at these numbers and see a way for Earle-Sears to win. She’s not popular, and not preferred on any single issue — not even the ones usually most advantageous for Republicans. So what can she do? Her latest approach is to try to tie Spanberger to Jones’ texts. Lots of Republicans took to social media on Monday to attack Spanberger for not calling on Jones to drop out. Rep. Ben Cline, R-Botetourt County, circulated Spanberger’s call for then-Gov. Ralph Northam to resign during the “blackface” scandal and called on her to do the same with Jones this time. Politically, she can’t do that and, as a practical matter, it’s too late to take Jones’ name off the ballot. Early voting is already underway and so far more than 354,000 votes have been cast. Jones also has a lead, and we don’t know yet whether the general public is worked up about his texts. Miyares seems to have a better chance to take advantage of those texts than Earle-Sears does. Jones is his opponent. Miyares, as we’ve seen, is also relatively popular in a way that Earle-Sears is not.

The CNU poll also finds a potentially important shift among independents: In September, independents said the economy was their top concern (25%). Now it’s “threats to democracy,” at 20%. If Miyares can make voters see Jones hypothesizing about killing a Republican legislator instead of Adolf Hitler or Pol Pot as a threat to democracy, he may have the potential to win over the independents he needs. Too many voters may have already made up their minds in the governor’s race, but there are twice as many people who have no opinion about either Jones or Miyares than have no opinion about the candidates for governor. 

This is where we stand in early October. If you’re still undecided, now’s a good time to visit our Voter Guide to see how the candidates answered our questions. 

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