Roanoke College Poll: Spanberger +10 (51%-41%); Hashmi +2 (42%-40%; still a lot of undecideds); Miyares +8 (46%-38%)

I haven’t been a huge fan of Roanoke College polling for  long time, but at least it’s not a right-wing “poll” (in air quotes). Also, given that it’s Thursday, and the election is next Tuesday, this may be the final nonpartisan poll we get on the Virginia elections, so…here are the results. Also, see Sam Shirazi’s analysis here (“Spanberger maintains around 10% lead in non-partisan polls; LG is mainly just lower name ID and most Dems will just vote straight ticket; AG Miyares is around 46% in non-partisan polls; This one has Jones lower, but lots of undecideds”)

• “Democrat Abigail Spanberger holds a 10-point lead over Republican Winsome Earle-Sears (51%-41%) in the November election for governor of Virginia, according to the Roanoke College Poll. Only 4% of likely voters are undecided, and 1% said they would vote for someone else.” (Note: Spanberger’s lead in this poll is *exactly* what the polling average shows)
• “In the race for lieutenant governor, Democrat Ghazala Hashmi leads Republican John Reid (42%-40%), while Republican incumbent Jason Miyares now leads Democrat Jay Jones (46%-38%) in the race for attorney general.” (Interesting that for AG, only 1% say they were switching their vote from Jones to Miyares, but 5% said they would just leave the AG line blank – not great for Jones…but could be worse?)
• “President Donald Trump’s job approval rating (40%) is essentially unchanged from the last Roanoke College Poll in August. Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s job approval rating (50%) is the same as August, but his disapproval declined by 7 percentage points.”
• “Spanberger’s rating (47% favorable/42% unfavorable) shows an increase in both numbers from August. The same is also true for Earle-Sears (38% favorable/45% unfavorable).”
• “A large majority of likely voters (80%) say they have heard or read about texts sent by Jay Jones in 2022, in which he fantasized about shooting then-House of Delegates Speaker Todd Gilbert. We asked respondents about the impact that information had on their vote. Of the early voters who already cast their ballot for Jones, 87% said they would have voted for Jones anyway, while only 1% said they would have switched their vote to Miyares. Another 5% said they would not have voted in that election, and 8% declined to answer. “
• The most important issues to voters are: “Threats to democracy 29%; Inflation/cost of living 24%; Immigration 12%; Taxes 5%; Abortion 5%; Crime 5%; Jobs 4%; Transgender issues 4%; Gun Control 3%”