Home 2021 Elections New Virginia Governor Poll: McAuliffe Leads Dems at 43%, with Others in...

New Virginia Governor Poll: McAuliffe Leads Dems at 43%, with Others in Single Digits; Chase Leads Rs at 24%, Followed by Pete Snyder at 13%, Kirk Cox at 7%

There are lots of "undecided" voters, particularly on the Republican side

February 12, 2021

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There’s new polling this morning from YouGov (a “B”-rated pollster by FiveThirtyEight.com) on the Virginia governor’s race. The good things about this poll are that it covers both the Republican and Democratic races, and that it push the “undecideds” as to which candidate they are leaning towards. And with that, the results are…

Democrats: Undecided 46%; Terry McAuliffe 33%; Jennifer McClellan 6%; Jennifer Carroll Foy 6%; Lee Carter 5%; Justin Fairfax 4%

Pushing the undecideds, YouGov has the Democratic governor’s race as: McAuliffe 43%-Undecided 30%-McClellan 8%-Carroll Foy 7%-Carter 6%-Fairfax 6%

Republicans: Undecided 54%; Amanda Chase 19%; Pete Snyder 10%; Kirk Cox 6%; Merle Rutledge 5%; Glenn Youngkin 3%; Kurt Santini 1%; Sergio de la Pena <1%.

Pushing the undecideds, YouGov has the Republican governor’s race as: Undecided 43%-Chase 24%-Snyder 13%-Cox 7%-Youngkin 5%-Rutledge 5%-Santini 1%-de la Pena 1%

Note that the question for Republicans is wrong, as they are NOT having a primary, unless something dramatically changes in the next couple weeks. And I’m not sure how on earth you’d poll for that one, since it’s either going to be some sort of “unassembled convention” or even the VA GOP State Central Committee’s 72 members selecting their party’s statewide nominees. So take that one with a huge grain of salt.

As for the Democrats, you can compare the results of this poll to:

This one, by Mason-Dixon, which found that “Terry McAuliffe is clearly the best known Virginia gubernatorial candidate” and that “Among the other Democrats, Jennifer McClellan may be the most serious contender for McAuliffe. While still unknown to just over half of Democratic voters, her favorable recognition is 22% and her unfavorable rating is just 2%.”
This internal Jennifer McClellan campaign poll, which found the race at Undecided 38%; McAuliffe 32%; Fairfax 16%; McClellan 8%; Carroll Foy 5%.

So basically, this new poll by YouGov is fairly consistent with the internal McClellan poll, with the huge exception of Justin Fairfax, who was at 16% in McClellan “internal” but just 4% in the YouGov poll. On, and Lee Carter was included in the YouGov poll, starting off at 5%, which is very close to McClellan’s and Carroll Foy’s 6% each. We’ll see how much this changes as the huge “undecided” number comes down over the next few months…