While most pollsters find the Virginia gubernatorial race to be tied (or Democrat Terry McAuliffe slightly ahead), a new Fox News poll shows Republican Glenn Youngkin jumping out to an eight-point lead:
McAuliffe receives 45 percent to Youngkin’s 53 percent in a new Fox News survey of Virginia likely voters. Youngkin’s eight-point advantage is outside the poll’s margin of sampling error.
That’s a big shift from two weeks ago, when McAuliffe was ahead by five, 51-46 percent.
While the Fox poll could be an outlier (or a leading indicator), even the polls showing a tied race are good news for Youngkin. McAuliffe, as a former governor who served from 2014 to 2018, should effectively be viewed as an incumbent, and there’s a good chance that that undecided voters will break in favor of the lesser-known challenger at the end of the race.
Biden’s national job approval rating is almost exactly where Obama’s was in 2013 when McAuliffe won with 47.8 percent of the vote. The Republican candidate Ken Cuccinelli lost to McAuliffe in 2013 by 2.3 points, while a libertarian candidate siphoned off 6.5 percent of the vote statewide. In 2021, there isn’t a libertarian candidate running in Virginia.
Biden’s job approval a tick below where Obama’s was when McAuliffe won 47.8% of the vote in 2013:
Virginia has become bluer since 2013, of course. pic.twitter.com/CNNqwNAx7R
— John McCormack (@McCormackJohn) October 27, 2021
