Final polls: Spanberger leads by a lot, Hashmi by a little, attorney general’s race down to the wire

With apologies to the Michael Corleone character in “The Godfather: Part III,” just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.

I had thought that the Roanoke College poll on Thursday would be the last poll we’d see before we get election results. Nope. Four new polls dropped over the weekend.

 All four show the same thing: 

Democrat Abigail Spanberger clearly leads Republican Winsome Earle-Sears in the governor’s race, often by double digits. 

Democrat Ghazala Hashmi leads Republican John Reid for lieutenant governor but by smaller margins in most polls. 

But the attorney general’s could go either way, with two polls putting Democrat Jay Jones ahead, two putting Republican incumbent Jason Miyares ahead, but all are within the margin of error.

We need to remember that all these polls are based on different models of what they think the electorate will look like, but both parties are out there trying to shape the electorate to their benefit. Democrats were in Norfolk on Saturday with former President Barack Obama, a rally that seemed aimed at boosting turnout in Hampton Roads, especially among Black voters. Meanwhile, Republicans were in Southwest Virginia trying to pump up rural turnout. That’s why it’s probably best not to get hung up on specific numbers but instead focus on general trends. Some pollsters change models over the course of the campaign as they get a better sense of things, so often comparing Pollster X’s new poll with Pollster X’s previous poll isn’t a good comparison, either. If all you want to know is who’s going to win, check with us Tuesday night and we’ll tell you. In the meantime, here are four new measurements of what Virginians are thinking.

Governor: Spanberger might be lengthening her lead

Emerson College/The Hill (Oct. 30-31): Spanberger 55%, Earle-Sears 44% (+11D)
Echelon Insights (Oct. 28-31): Spanberger 55%, Earle-Sears 43%   (+12D)
Atlas Intel (Oct. 25-30): Spanberger 53.9%, Earle-Sears 45.2%  (+8.7 D)
State Navigate (Oct. 26-28): Spanberger 54%, Earle-Sears 41% (+13 D)

Spanberger has consistently led this race all year. Not a single poll has shown Earle-Sears ahead. Of the past 15 public polls taken after the two candidates’ only debate, seven have shown Spanberger with a double-digit lead, including three of the four most recent.

It seems clear that the debate did not help Earle-Sears, who spent the whole evening interrupting Spanberger and trying to rattle her. That failed. It’s less clear whether the debate helped Spanberger; maybe her lead would have grown anyway, we don’t know, but it definitely did not accomplish what Earle-Sears wanted it to.

These polls consistently show the same thing: Earle-Sears’ unfavorable ratings are much higher than her favorable ratings, making her a difficult sell. Spanberger is always on the plus side. Independents also favor Spanberger by wide margin, and the issues that Earle-Sears is running on don’t seem to matter to a lot of voters. If voters don’t like you and don’t care about the issues you’re running on, it’s hard to win.

Atlas Intel asked respondents to pick up to three issues that were important to them: 56.2% cited cost of living, which has been central to Spaberger’s campaign; only 5.7% cited transgender issues, which Earle-Sears has spent much of her time running on.

Atlas also asked which candidate people felt would be best at handling 16 issues. Spanberger won on 14 of them, tied on a 15th and lost only one. Among the issues that Spanberger was considered best on was . . . transgender policy. Earle-Sears’ focus on transgender policy appears to be gaining no ground for her and could actually be backfiring. 

The only issue where Earle-Sears was rated better than Spanberger was on Jones’ text messages. However, only 5.8% cited Jones’ text messages as something that would matter to them in the governor’s race. Those text messages are definitely having an impact in Jones’ own race, but they’re not really bleeding into the governor’s race the way Republicans had hoped they would.

Lieutenant Governor: Hashmi leads, but there’s disagreement about how closely 

Emerson College/The Hill (Oct. 30-31): Did not poll this race.
Echelon Insights (Oct. 28-31): Hashmi 49%, Reid 46% (+3 D)
Atlas Intel (Oct. 25-30): Hashmi 51.7%, Reid 45.6% (+6.1 D)
State Navigate (Oct. 26-28): Hashmi 53%, Reid 41% (+12 D)

This matches what we saw when I looked at a bunch of polls last week: Some say this race is close, with Hashmi holding a narrow lead, and others say it’s not, with Hashmi further ahead. 

State Navigate, a Richmond-based nonprofit that aims to provide political data for all 50 states, has always been the most bullish on Democrats’ chances this fall. If we drop them out, the other polls since Oct. 1 have either been roughly tied or show Hashmi with, at most, a lead of 7.8 percentage points (A2 Insights).

What we broadly see is that Reid’s numbers are generally in line with Earle-Sears’ polling, while Hashmi trails Spanberger. Is that because some Spanberger voters don’t know who Hashmi is yet? Or are they hesitant about her for some reason? The polling can’t answer that. However, that phenomenon suggests Hashmi’s share could increase if and when those Spanberger/not sure voters decide to keep marking the ballot for Democrats.

Attorney General: Who knows? Some late signs of hope for Jones, though.

Emerson College/The Hill (Oct. 30-31): Jones 49%, Miyares 47% (+2 D)
Echelon Insights (Oct. 28-31): Miyares 49%, Jones 46%  (+3 R)
Atlas Intel (Oct. 25-30): Miyares 48.1%, Jones 46.6%    (+1.5 R)
State Navigate (Oct. 26-28): Jones 49%, Miyares 46% (+3 D)

The only thing we know for certain here is that Jones’ text message scandal upended this race. He led consistently until that news broke. Now this race could go either way. Of the 11 previous polls since the text messages came out, Miyares led in nine, while Jones only led in one, and another was tied. This final batch has Jones ahead in two. Since all these are within the margin of error (and so were most of the previous ones), maybe this means nothing. Or maybe it’s a sign that Jones’ slide has stopped and he’s now rebounding slightly as Democratic voters “come home”? 

One factor here is how many voters Jones banked in early voting before the news came out — and whether those matter. Early voting tends to skew Democratic, and the Roanoke College poll found those early voters — hardcore Democrats, usually — weren’t inclined to change their support for Jones. 

Some of these polls attempt to delve deeper into what impact the early vote might have in this race. State Navigate found that Jones’ overall lead in its poll is being held up by the early vote: Jones held a lead of 20 percentage points with those voters. However, for those who plan to vote after this poll was taken (either in last weekend’s final weekend of early voting or on Tuesday), Miyares led 54% to 46% — but that still wasn’t enough to make the difference overall. If the State Navigate model is right, then Miyares really needs a big turnout on Tuesday to change things.

Emerson College/The Hill found similar numbers: Jones winning the early vote 56% to 44% with Miyares winning the day-of voting 50% to 43% — but still not enough to take the election. The Emerson poll also had what could be a telling figure: It asked undecided voters who they’re leaning toward. They said Jones, by 63.7% to 36.3%. That tells me there are some Democrats who are uncomfortable with Jones but their natural leanings might bring them around to him when it comes time to vote. Emerson says if those voters are factored in, the result would be Jones 51.3% to Miyares 48.7%. On the other end, Echelon went ahead and factored in those leaners and came up with Miyares slightly ahead.

There’s only one way to resolve this: We can actually vote and see who comes out on top.

But wait there’s more!

Republicans get the blame for the federal government shutdown

Atlas asked which party should get most of the blame: 46.9% said Republicans, 41% said Democrats, 11.3% said both parties.

Republicans have a problem with independents on this one: 49.3% of independents blamed Republicans, only 29.9% blamed Democrats. 

The midterms might be rough for Republicans

The party in power often fares poorly in midterms. Republicans are certainly fearing that, which is why some states have set out to redraw their congressional lines in hopes of producing more Republican seats (a gerrymandering war that has prompted California Democrats and now Virginia Democrats to try to do the same, just in reverse). Atlas asked who voters were likely to support in the midterms: 51% said Democrats, 45% said Republicans. I’m not really moved by that number; that’s a statewide poll but we elect House members by district, but what really matters is how voters in some specific geography feel — the 2nd District held by Republican Jen Kiggans or the 7th District now held by Democrat Eugene Vindman. This poll can’t tell us that. However, it does show that independents are leaning toward Democrats next year by 52.9% to 35.6%. That’s a figure Republicans ought to be worried about.

Virginia’s redistricting referendum (if we have one) could be close

The Democratic-controlled General Assembly last week started the process of amending the state constitution to allow for the redrawing (gerrymandering) of congressional lines next year to create new lines for the midterms. Virginia’s House delegation is currently 6-5 Democratic but with some creative cartography Democrats could make that 9-2 or even 10-1.

The next step will be for the General Assembly to pass the amendment again in the new session (assuming Democrats retain control of the House on Tuesday). If this push survives legal challenges, which have already begun in Tazewell County, there will be a referendum in the spring. Echelon Insights asked how respondents would vote on this: 45% said they’d vote yes to allow redistricting, 44% said they’d vote no. Buckle up, buckaroos, we’re in for a wild ride on this one.

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