Two new polls that came out Monday show Democrat Abigail Spanberger maintaining a lead of 7-8 percentage points in the governor’s race but suggest that Jay Jones’ text messages have turned the attorney general’s race into a contest that could go either way.
The two polls gave conflicting accounts of what’s happening in the lieutenant governor’s race. A poll by Christopher Newport University shows Democrat Ghazala Hashmi leading Republican John Reid by 2 percentage points while one by A2 Insights, a new Michigan-based pollster, gives Hashmi a lead of almost 8 percentage points.
Spanberger has consistently led all public polling; the real significance of these two polls is they show the text messages have upended the attorney general’s race and thrown the prospect of a Democratic sweep into doubt. Both show Republican incumbent Jason Miyares with a razor-thin lead that’s within the margin of error.
I’ll present the numbers first, then reverse the usual order of things by dealing with the attorney general’s race first.
About these two polls
Some potentially important housekeeping: While both polls came out Monday, they were conducted at different times. The CNU poll was in the field Oct. 21-23. A2 Insights conducted its survey Oct. 24-26 so has fresher data. Pollsters have to construct a model of what they think the electorate will look like. Many simply use a model of what the last comparable election was. That’s drawn some scrutiny this year because the 2021 governor’s race saw a stronger-than-usual turnout in many rural areas, which meant we had a more Republican electorate that enabled the GOP ticket to win that year. It’s notable that neither of these polls is weighted to that 2021 electorate. Both are weighted to a combination of the 2017 and 2021 exit polls, which combines a strong Democratic year with a strong Republican one. For A2 Insights, that’s a change from a previous survey, which means we can’t really compare its results now with the results it found earlier in the campaign because they’re based on different expectations.
What these polls show
Governor:
CNU: Spanberger 50%, Earle-Sears 43% (+7 D)
A2 Insights: Spanberger 53.6%, Earle-Sears 45.5% (+8.1 D)
These polls come after six other polls released last week; I’m including them so we have more context by which to evaluate these new numbers:
VCU: Spanberger 49%, Earle-Sears 42.1% (+6.9)
State Navigate: Spanberger 55%, Earle-Sears 42% (+13 D)
Quantus Insights: Spanberger 51%, Earle-Sears 46% (+5 D)
Kaplan Strategies: Spanberger 51%, Earle-Sears 41% (+10 D)
Washington Post/Schar School: Spanberger 54%, Earle-Sears 42% (+12 D)
Suffolk University: Spanberger 51.8%, Earle-Sears 43.2% (+8.6 D)
(If you subscribe to West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter, these numbers look familiar because I wrote about them in last Friday’s edition.)
Lieutenant governor:
CNU: Hashmi 47%, Reid 45% (+2 D)
A2 Insights: 52.9%, Reid 45.1% (+7.8 D)
VCU: Hashmi 44.0%, Reid 43.0% (+1 D)
State Navigate: Hashmi 53%, Reid 42% (+11 D)
Quantus Insights: Hashmi 49%, Reid 45% (+4 D)
Kaplan Strategies: Hashmi 48%, Reid 41% (+7 D)
Washington Post/Schar School: Hashmi 51%, Reid 44% (+7 D)
Suffolk University: Reid 44.8%, Hashmi 44.6% (+0.2 R)
Attorney general:
CNU: Miyares 46%, Jones 45% (+1% R)
A2 Insights: Miyares 48.6%, Jones 48.0% (+0.6 R)
VCU: Miyares 45.3%, Jones 42.2% (+3.1 R)
State Navigate: Jones 50%, Miyares 45% (+5 D)
Quantus Insights: Miyares 49%, Jones 42% (+7 R)
Kaplan Strategies: Miyares 45%, Jones 44% (+1 R)
Washington Post/Schar School: Tied at 46% apiece
Suffolk University: Miyares 46.4%, Jones 42.4% (+4 R)
Keep in mind that, while all these polls were recent, all were in the field at different times and, more importantly, each poll has its own model, so we shouldn’t compare the numbers too closely to argue that one is right or one is wrong.
Let’s just focus on the big picture: Spanberger has a solid lead, there’s dispute over the Hashmi-Reid race while most others agree that the attorney general’s race is up for grabs.
Now let’s take a closer look at the two new ones, starting from the bottom of the ticket up:
Text messages have cost Jones with both Democrats and independents
In a poll that CNU conducted in late September and early October, Jones led 49% to 43%, which was roughly in line with the other races. Then two stories about Jones broke. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that Jones was caught speeding 116 miles per hour and wound up doing 1,000 hours of community service, including 500 hours for his own political action committee. (Cardinal News later reported that four others busted for driving lower speeds that day received suspended jail time and suspended licenses.) Then the National Review reported the text messages in which Jones fantasized about shooting the then-Republican speaker of the House. Now CNU finds the race to be Miyares 46%, Jones 45%.
What changed? Or, more to the point, who changed?
Jones has seen a drop among Democrats. In the previous poll, 96% backed him, now 91% do.
He’s also seen a drop among independents. In the previous poll, independents backed Jones 45% to 40%. Now they’re 46% to 42% for Miyares.
If we look at the data other ways, we see the voters most likely to desert Jones are college-educated voters. Voters without a college degree haven’t changed their position at all; those tend to be Republican voters anyway, and they favored Miyares both times. But college-educated voters went from 58% to 33% in Jones favor to 49% to 40% for Jones.
The Democratic voters who have left Jones haven’t gone to Miyares; they’ve voted into either the “undecided” or “don’t know/refuse” category. It’s possible that they will “come home” to the Democratic nominee, however reluctantly. Or perhaps they simply won’t vote in that race — but they seem unlikely to vote for the Republican.
The independent voters are the bigger worry for Jones because if they’re truly independent, they might not show the hesitation about voting for a Republican the way Democratic voters would. Independents also favor Spanberger — more on that to come — but some might like to prove their independence by casting a split ticket.
Another data point: Voters 44 and younger have moved toward Jones since the text messages broke, while voters 45 and up have moved away from Jones. Maybe this reveals a generational divide in how seriously to take text messages or how views can be expressed, but it is interesting. Bottom line: Older, college-educated independents are Jones’ challenge in this final week.
Governor: Earle-Sears makes up some ground but not enough
Now let’s move up to the governor’s race. There seems very little to say here that hasn’t already been said before. Spanberger’s lead in the CNU poll has slipped from 10 percentage points to 7 percentage points. That appears to be because Earle-Sears has made up some ground among independents. In the previous poll, Spanberger led among independents 49% to 37%. Now she leads 48% to 42%. Although these are ostensibly independents, maybe this is simply a case of conservative-leaning independents “coming home” to a Republican candidate they were initially lukewarm about. Statistically speaking, Spanberger hasn’t fallen at all.
There are several notable things about these numbers: None of these polls show any big change since the Oct. 9 debate where Earle-Sears spent the evening interrupting Spanberger — and Spanberger spent it not answering Earle-Sears’ questions about Jones. If Spanberger has suffered any damage from Jones’ text messages, it’s been minimal. The basic dynamics of the governor’s race appear generally unchanged.
There’s also this: Spanberger’s lead of 7 percentage points in the current poll matches almost exactly the generic ballot for House of Delegates, where CNU found survey respondents favored Democrats by 51% to 43% — just a hair off Spanberger’s overall lead of 50% to 43%.
Perhaps what we’re seeing here is that the general lay of the land this year favors Democrats and Spanberger is simply recording a generic Democratic vote. If that’s the case, then how do we account for the numbers in the lieutenant governor’s race?
Lieutenant governor: Reid rapidly picking up support among independents
There seem to be two types of polls this fall: Those that show Hashmi with a lead matching Spanberger’s and those that show the race essentially tied. What gives?
We won’t really know for sure until we have actual votes, but here’s what the CNU poll shows: Reid has been winning over independents.
The previous CNU poll that showed Hashmi leading 48% to 39% showed her leading among independents 43% to 31%. Now CNU shows independents tied at 44%, which explains why the overall race there is 47% to 45%.
That’s a pretty astonishing rise for Reid among independents — a gain of 13 percentage points in about a month’s time. Independents have moved more in the lieutenant governor’s race than they have in the attorney general’s race. Why? We don’t know. Maybe this is another case of conservative leaning independents finally warming up to the Republican candidate. Maybe it’s something else. Either way, Hashmi hasn’t lost ground, but Reid has risen fast with independents.
Let’s recap how independents are leaning:
Governor: Spanberger 48%, Earle-Sears 42%
Lieutenant governor: Tied at 44%
Attorney general: Miyares 46% Jones 42%
Why are independents behaving differently in the lieutenant governor’s race than they are the other two races? And why do some polls show this race close and sometimes not?
Here are four possible scenarios:
- Maybe Jones’ texting troubles are having an influence on the lieutenant governor’s race. Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo, research director for the Wason Center for Civic Leadership at CNU that conducted the poll, offered this option when she briefed journalists on the poll.
- Maybe voters simply don’t know very much about either of these candidates. Bromley-Trujillo offered that suggestion, as well. The Hashmi-Reid race has attracted far less attention than the other two. Hashmi declined to debate Reid, depriving us of that set-piece news event. Reid has little money with which to get his message out, and Hashmi has done little to create news. For instance, from the perspective of the western part of the state, she was in Roanoke with Spanberger in June but hasn’t held a public event in the largest metro market west of Richmond during the whole campaign.
- Maybe Hashmi is underperforming for some reason. Is she seen as too liberal? Is her Indian name off-putting to some voters? It’s hard to tell. Whether it’s Jones’ texting or lack of name ID or something else, she is running a few percentage points behind Spanberger.
- Or maybe this race is the normal one, while Spanberger is overperforming and Jones is underperforming?
Now we come to maybe the most interesting numbers of all.
The transgender issue is a flop for Earle-Sears; independents are more concerned about ‘threats to democracy’ than anything else
Until Jones’ text messages were revealed, Earle-Sears has been running mostly on transgender issues. While her views may be heartfelt, they seem strategically unsound. In the previous CNU poll, only 3% of voters listed that as their top concern (and those were overwhelmingly Republicans who ought to be voting for Earle-Sears anyway). In this new poll, only 4% cite transgender issues as their main issue. Earle-Sears’ campaign hasn’t changed public opinion at all. Transgender policy isn’t even a top issue for Republican voters; they list four others before they cite that — with immigration and cost-of-living getting more than twice as much interest. Instead, cost-of-living has been the focus of Spanberger’s campaign. Issue-wise, Spanberger has spent the whole summer and fall campaigning on Earle-Sears’ turf because Democrats only list that issue third.
The top issue for independents? Threats to democracy — 19% of independents cite that, more than the 17% who say cost-of-living and certainly more than the 2% of independents who say transgender policies.
“Threats to democracy” has generally been a catch phrase for concerns about President Donald Trump. The challenge for Earle-Sears is whether she can make voters see Jones’ text messages as a threat to democracy. If not, Earle-Sears appears to have spent the campaigning running on issues that independents don’t really seem to care about.
For more on this year’s election
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