We now have two weeks of early voting in the books, with four more weeks and a few days ahead of us before we get to the traditional Election Day.
What can we say about the state of the race?
1. Early voting is running high
Early voting is running almost double what it was four years ago this time, but we don’t know whether that signifies a surge in overall turnout or simply a shift in voting preferences. I have more analysis of early voting in this week’s edition of West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter, so that’s a good reason to go ahead and sign up now:
2. Federal shutdown uniquely impacts Virginia
The federal government is shut down, and Virginia has more federal workers than any other state except California. However, we don’t know yet what impact that will have on the race — or if it will have any impact at all. We know each party is blaming the other, but what will voters think?
3. The ad campaigns: MAGA vs. transgender
Both candidates for governor are running attack ads against the other side, which suggests that both think they need to drive up the negatives of the other — although it’s still too early for a candidate to turn off those ads and try to coast in the rest of the way with a positive message. (Voters may say they don’t like negative ads, yet they react to them, which is why candidates run them.) Democrat Abigail Spanberger’s ads call Republican Winsome Earle-Sears a “MAGA Republican” who backs President Donald Trump; Earle-Sears focuses on transgender issues.
4. Spanberger has a big financial advantage
Democrat Abigail Spanberger has a lot more money than Republican Winsome Earle-Sears — with a cash advantage of 2.5 to 1 in the most recent campaign finance reports — so expect to hear far more from Spanberger than Earle-Sears the rest of the way.
5. Spanberger has said little, but Earle-Sears has often said nothing
Spanberger has run a disciplined campaign that has said very little in terms of specifics beyond the general theme of “affordability.” Earle-Sears has run a chaotic campaign in which she’s changed campaign managers and skipped many of the things candidates for governor traditionally do — declining to meet with key business groups and avoiding interaction with Virginia-based journalists. (See my column earlier this week that addressed this unusual approach.) Of late, she’s emphasized transgender issues.
6. Polls (except one) give Spanberger a clear lead
Polls have consistently shown Spanberger with a clear lead — although one recent poll shows the race tied. That brings us a consumer advisory: Voters should be good consumers when it comes to polls, and these two most recent polls provide an opportunity to examine what to look for — along with more insight into what Virginians are thinking this fall.
The two new polls are from Emerson College, which has a long track record, and A2 Insights, which does not. It was founded this year by a student at the University of Michigan.
Emerson (in a poll conducted for The Hill) shows Spanberger with a lead of 10 percentage points; A2 Insights shows the race tied. Which is right? Technically, both are — both reflect their samples. The better question is which one is more predictive of the outcome in November? That one we don’t know yet.
Let’s deal with Emerson first.
That poll gives Spanberger a lead of 52% to 42%, which aligns with other recent polls.
Some key numbers, which also match what we’ve seen elsewhere:
Virginians like Gov. Glenn Youngkin (46% approval, 41% disapproval) but don’t like President Donald Trump (42% approval, 54% disapproval).
Earle-Sears is not benefiting from Youngkin’s popularity — 11% of those who like him say they’re voting for Spanberger, which seems a high “leakage” rate — but could be getting weighed down by Trump’s negatives.
Virginians simply like Spanberger better than they like Earle-Sears: 51% of Virginians have a favorable opinion of Spanberger, compared to 42% for Earle-Sears. Meanwhile, more people — 44% — have an unfavorable opinion of Earle-Sears than a favorable one. Spanberger’s unfavorables are lower at 38%. That helps explain why Earle-Sears is running negative ads against Spanberger. Not only is she behind, but since voters don’t much like her, her only real option is to try to raise Spanberger’s negatives.
Spanberger is talking about the issues voters care most about; Earle-Sears isn’t. Emerson finds that 79% of Virginians list the economy as a “very important issue,” with 78% also listing education and 71% ranking health care that way. Only 27% list transgender issues — Earle-Sears’ top theme of late — as “very important.” Earle-Sears may need that issue to rally the Republican base, but it’s not a majority-maker. More bad news for Earle-Sears: Those who rank the economy as their top concern favor Spanberger 51% to 44%.
Independents favor Spanberger by almost 20 percentage points: 53.3% to 33.5%.
With numbers like this, it’s hard to see what Earle-Sears does in a situation like this: Voters have an unfavorable impression of her, her top issue is one that only about a quarter of voters care about and on the issue that does dominate voters’ minds, people prefer Spanberger. The only things she can do are to try to drive up Spanberger’s negatives (Earle-Sears is trying) and to change the subject (which she’s not).
Now, though, we turn to the A2 Insights poll. It’s much more favorable to Republicans. It also asked about all three statewide races but didn’t ask about specific issues, so we have less of a breakdown available. Here’s how A2 Insights sees things:
Governor: Spanberger 47.7%, Earle-Sears 44.6%
Lieutenant governor: Ghazala Hashmi 48.7%, John Reid 43.8%
Attorney general: Jay Jones 48.7%, Jason Miyares 46.0%
In statistical terms, the gubernatorial and attorney general’s races are within the margin of error, and the lieutenant governor’s race is right on the edge.
How can two polls produce such different results? This is the consumer advisory part — and why we need to look under the hood of these polls, so to speak. A2 Insights has a more conservative sample and so, naturally, gets more conservative results.
These figures weren’t on the firm’s site, but A2 Insights sent them to me when I asked for them: Its sample wound up at 36.65% conservative, 31.72% liberal, 31.63% moderate. Emerson didn’t ask ideology but did ask party identification, which is close enough. Emerson’s sample was 34.8% Republican, 37.1% Democratic, 28.1% independent.
The A2 Insights sample was also whiter: 73.5% white, 26.5% non-white.
The Emerson sample was 70.3% white, 29.7% non-white.
Given that whites trend more Republican than Democratic, a whiter sample will yield more Republican results. (A2 Insights doesn’t have that racial breakdown, but Emerson’s cross-tabs show that white voters prefer Earle-Sears 50.5% to 45.2%.)
The only way that we can say that one of these polls is “wrong” is to know in advance what the electorate will look like — and we don’t. We can’t. The whole point of a campaign is to persuade people — and to get more on your side to vote than those on the other side are getting to the polls. Four years ago, the electorate was more Republican than usual, which is how the Republican ticket swept. If it skews that way this year, it might do so again. If it doesn’t, Republicans may have a rough night.
One side note: The A2 Insights shows the attorney general’s race to be the closest of the three statewide races. Does this suggest we could see our first split ticket result in 20 years? Ultimately, that may depend on how close the governor’s race is.
All that is a long way of saying that we shouldn’t hang on polls and if we do start citing them to support a particular point (Spanberger is running away with this! Earle-Sears is closing the gap!), we ought to understand the samples they’re built on. It’s a cliché, but the most important poll is now underway with early voting. That’s the sample that really counts.
Where the candidates stand
You can see how the candidates for governor (as well as lieutenant governor, attorney general and many House of Delegates candidates) answered our questionnaire on our Voter Guide. We have individual pages for all 133 counties and cities in Virginia, so no matter where you live, you can look on our Voter Guide to see who’s on the ballot in your community.
Want more political news and insights? You can sign up for our weekly political newsletter, West of the Capital. This week, I’ll be taking another look at the latest early voting trends.