New Poll: Trump Approval in Virginia 37%-60%; Virginia GOP Senate Candidates Largely Unknown, but All Get Crushed by Tim Kaine

See below for highlights and a press release from a new poll by the Wason Center for Public Policy at CNU.

• “Two-thirds of Republican voters are undecided about who they will support in their party’s June U.S. Senate primary, but Corey Stewart begins the nominating campaign with a small lead.”
• Very few Virginian registered voters know who the potential Republican challengers to Sen. Tim Kaine are, with 87% having no opinion of Del. Nick “Freaky” Freitas, 83% incredibly having no opinion of Ewwwwww Jackson (despite the fact that he was the Republicans’ LG nominee and ran statewide in 2013!), 67% having no opinion of neo-Confederate Corey Stewart (despite him being Chairman of the Board of Supervisors in PW County and having finished a close second to Ed Gillespie for the Republican governor nomination in June 2017).
• Of those who DO have an opinion of these guys, Freaky Freitas is at 4% approve/9% disapprove; Ewwww is at 7%/10%; neo-Confederate Corey is at 13%/20%.
• Only among Republicans, right now 16% are leaning Corey, 7% Ewwww, 6% Freaky Freitas, 4% “someone else” and 1% Ivan Raiklin.
• “Democratic Senator Tim Kaine enters a reelection campaign with a 53% favorability rating and a 20-plus point lead on potential Republican challengers.”
• Kaine leads Freaky Freitas 56%-33%, Ewwww 56%-32%, and neo-Confederate Corey 56%-32%. In short, right now it doesn’t seem to matter which of these extremist nutters the VA GOP nominates, as Kaine would crush any of them. Sad!
• “President Trump’s approval rating in Virginia is 37%, 52% of voters “strongly disapprove” of the job he’s doing as president.” Also note that 60% of Virginian voters disapprove of Trump.
• “Although 57% of Virginians say the Commonwealth is on the right track, only 32% say the same about the country.”

Stewart leads Virginia GOP Senate primary, but 66% undecided; majority of Virginia voters ‘strongly disapprove’ of Trump

NEWPORT NEWS, VA – The contest for the Republican nomination to challenge incumbent Democrat Sen. Tim Kaine is wide open, with 66 percent of GOP voters saying they are undecided in their party’s primary election in June, according to a new survey of Virginia voters by the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University.

Corey Stewart, who nearly upset eventual nominee Ed Gillespie in last year’s GOP gubernatorial primary, leads the field with support from 16 percent of the Republican voters surveyed. E.W. Jackson, who also has some name recognition as the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in 2013, won 7 percent of those surveyed. Del. Nick Freitas polled at 6 percent, and newcomer Ivan Raiklin polled at 1 percent. The survey of 1,562 registered Virginia voters has an overall margin of error of +/-2.5%.

Kaine showed a 20-plus point advantage over his potential rivals in the survey. In head-to-head matchups, Kaine consistently polled at 56 percent, with Stewart at 32 percent, Jackson at 32 percent and Freitas at 33 percent. “That says less about the candidates and more about the size of the Republican base – the locked-in vote against Kaine,” said Wason Center Assistant Director Rachel Bitecofer. “As it stands, the Republican primary is a contest between unknowns.”

Also in the survey, 52 percent of voters said they “strongly disapprove” of how President Donald Trump is handling his job, and another 8 percent “disapprove.” Trump’s job approval stands at 37% overall, but 86% among those who voted for him for president.

“While Trump has lost a little ground among Republicans and those who voted for him in 2016, he nevertheless enjoys very robust support among his partisan loyalists,” said Quentin Kidd, director of the Wason Center. “If Trump’s approval-disapproval is a guide, the 2018 elections are setting up to be base elections in Virginia.”