Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, is sounding more and more like a candidate for the U.S. House — if voters approve the April 21 referendum on congressional redistricting.
Rasoul has previously said he’d be interested in running if the new lines are adopted, which would create a Democratic-leaning congressional district from Radford to Charlottesville to Harrisonburg — what some are calling “the university district” because it connects a lot of blue-voting college towns.
If voters approve redistricting (and if the courts uphold legal challenges to the process by which the referendum was put on the ballot, that map would put two well-funded Democrats in the same district — former U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello of Albemarle County and Roanoke author Beth Macy. (Under the current maps, Perriello is in the 5th District and Macy is in the 6th District). A third candidate, Henrico County lawyer Hugh Murray, says he’s also running in that district, even though he doesn’t live there — congressional candidates don’t have to live in their district, as long as they’re in the same state.
We now have our first public poll from that potential configuration of the 6th District. It comes from a special interest group, which always gives me some pause. The group that commissioned it also appears to have a favorite candidate, which further gives me pause. That doesn’t mean their numbers are wrong — just that the sponsor is not a disinterested observer, the way some other polls are. I pass these numbers on, with that consumer advisory, because they are already having an impact on the race by seeming to encourage Rasoul to enter.
The poll was commissioned by the Unity & Justice Fund, which is linked to the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest Muslim nonprofit in the United States. The poll surveyed potential voters in a Democratic primary in a reconfigured 6th District, although it’s unclear from the poll results that were released whether these were registered voters or likely voters, the former being a larger group than the latter.
What we do know is that the survey asked about three candidates — Macy, Perriello and Rasoul, but not Murray.
The initial results:
Undecided/don’t know 35.38%
Perriello 34.38%
Rasoul 15.47%
Macy 12.59%
Someone else 2.19%
The pollsters then presented information on Rasoul — we don’t know what (the pollsters didn’t respond to my inquiry), but presumably it was positive information because when the pollsters re-asked the question after that, they got these results:
Perriello 37.40%
Rasoul 27.70%
Undecided/ don’t know 19.98%
Macy 12.89%
Someone else 1.95%
Before we go further, let’s analyze these two separate results, starting with the first one — which is the cleanest because it’s just a straightforward “who do you support?” question.
The first thing we see is that, with such a large “undecided” response, this is a very fluid race. That doesn’t surprise me, because I suspect many voters haven’t been fully engaged yet in what their choices are.
The second thing we see is that, among the candidates, Perriello is the frontrunner. This isn’t surprising to me.
Population-wise, the political weight of the new district would be almost equally divided between the Charlottesville area (25.38% in Charlottesville, Albemarle County, Fluvanna County and Nelson County) and the portions of the Roanoke Valley that are included (23.69%). This is where mapmakers didn’t do any favors for candidates out of the Roanoke Valley because the whole Charlottesville area is in the new 6th, but the Roanoke Valley is split between the 6th and the 9th.
Perriello gets a boost because he’s held office before and, while he didn’t represent most of the reconfigured 6th, he did run for governor nine years ago and won all those localities. With both Macy and Rasoul listed as options, that likely means the Roanoke Valley first gets split geographically, then gets split between its two hometown candidates, plus whatever support Perriello has picked up there. (Last week, he announced the endorsement of Roanoke Vice Mayor Terry McGuire.)
Still, I am surprised that Macy’s support in the first question is so low. She’s proven to be a formidable fundraiser; last week, her campaign announced it had raised more than $1 million. However, she’s a first-time candidate and may not be well-known to the type of party activists who vote in primaries. These numbers — if confirmed by other polling — might serve as a wake-up call that Macy’s celebrity status in the book world may not automatically translate into strength in the political world.
One telling number for Macy came when the poll tried to gauge favorability ratings; 51.09% of those surveyed gave her a “neutral” rating, which suggests they simply don’t know much about her. Of the 12 political figures asked about, she had the highest neutral rating. Rasoul had the second-highest neutral rating — 43.84% — with Perriello at 31.39%, which suggests all three have a lot of upside among Democratic voters, once they learn more. By contrast, only 1.01% were neutral about Trump.
I am wary of the numbers from the second horse race question because we don’t know what information was presented. However, that is the way campaigns work — they present information to make their candidate look good and, sometimes, make the other candidates look bad. What we can take from this is that Rasoul seems to have quite an upside — when voters are presented with favorable information about him, his numbers nearly double. Of course, in a real campaign, others might be presenting favorable information about their own candidates and perhaps less-than-flattering portrayals of Rasoul.
Rasoul still comes in about 10 percentage points behind Perriello, but, with such a large undecided vote, that doesn’t seem an insurmountable number. If you’re Rasoul, you’re likely to look at these numbers and think, gosh, this might be doable.
In fact, that’s more or less that he said in a formal reaction to the poll (which he says he did not initiate): “While I am still assessing my next steps, a recent poll shows encouraging news that an overwhelming majority of our district believes that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and that our taxpayer dollars should no longer be used to send weapons to the Netanyahu regime. Our community is demanding bold, progressive leadership that tackles the cost of living crisis to make life more affordable and delivers Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, an end to the Netanyahu regime’s genocide in Gaza, and an end to the war with Iran.”
His response brings us to the rest of the poll, which quizzed potential Democratic voters on a variety of issues — many of them related to the Middle East. If corroborated by other polling from more neutral sponsors, these results give good insight into how the views of Democratic activists are changing in regard to their support for Israel.
Offered the statement “Israel is committing genocide in Gaza,” these were the responses:
Strongly agree: 47.14%
Agree: 37.69%
Disagree: 8.62%
Strongly disagree: 2.82%
Did not answer: 3.73%
Offered the statement “The United States should stop sending weapons to the Netanyahu regime in Israel,” these were the responses:
Strongly agree: 53.21%
Agree: 32.37%
Disagree: 9.01%
Strongly disagree: 2.42%
Did not answer: 2.99%
One reason to think these might be accurate results is that they mirror national polling, by reputable pollsters, on the same subjects. A national poll last year by Quinnipiac University found that 50% of American voters overall think Israel is committing genocide in Gaza — with that number rising to 77% among Democrats. The 84.83% of Democrats here who say Israel is committing genocide is not far off that mark.
The Quinnipiac poll found that 60% of Americans opposed more military aid to Israel, with the figure rising to 75% among Democrats. The 85.58% of Democrats here who feel the same way are generally in line with that; the difference could well be the consequence of a district dominated by college towns, where support for the Palestinian cause has often been high. We’re also several months removed from that Quinnipiac poll, so some views may have changed.
Given those numbers, it’s not hard to imagine Rasoul, the son of Palestinian immigrants, entering the race with a campaign that puts a lot of emphasis on his views about Israel and Gaza.
On the other hand, there are other numbers. While the Democrats surveyed feel strongly about their positions on Israel, those are not the issues they’re most concerned about.
Asked for the issue that Congress should address most and given 15 choices, the leading answer by far was “holding Trump accountable” — 32.42%
Second place, at 16.24%, was the cost of living.
“Genocide in Gaza,” which was the way the poll phrased it, ranked eighth, at just 1.84%.
When asked for the second most important issue Congress should address, healthcare edged up to the top at 19.94%, while the Gaza issue ranked 11th at 2.03%. Israel’s actions in Gaza do not appear to be top of mind for Democratic voters in a reconfigured 6th District, although that’s part of what campaigns are about: To persuade people to change their priorities.
Regardless of these results, we must keep two things in mind before a Democratic primary in this reconfigured 6th District happens: First, voters must approve the constitutional amendment that allows redistricting, and second, the Virginia Supreme Court must rule that the issue was validly put before voters. That is not a given, for reasons I explained in a column last week that pointed out the seven most important votes in this special election are those of the Virginia Supreme Court justices, and they won’t vote until after everyone else does.
For more on redistricting, see our Voter Guide. For more politics and analysis, sign up for West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter that comes out on Fridays. That’s a long way off, but it’s possible I’ll have more about these poll results then.