ANALYSIS: Early Voting Starts Today with Many Unknowns Ahead
But at the moment, the Republican candidate for governor is seeing warning lights flashing all around her.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
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Early voting begins today and will run for nearly seven weeks.
In the race for governor, a new poll by the Wason Center reveals both parties lining up near-lockstep behind the candidate bearing their party’s badge. Fully 91% of Republicans stand with Winsome Earle-Sears, while 95% of Democrats are behind Abigail Spanberger.
However, Spanberger’s lead is 12 percentage points — 52% for Spanberger vs. 40% for Earle-Sears
The independents are swinging hard Spanberger’s way, meaning there are flashing warning lights for the Republican Party’s candidate.
The Wason Center poll shows independent voters breaking for Spanberger 55% to 32% — a yawning 23 percentage point gap. The former congresswoman also carries Black voters 85% to 6% — a 79 percentage point gap. Finally, women are in for Spanberger by 58% to 33% — a 25 percentage point gap.
The poll’s margin of error is +/- 3.9, meaning Spanberger appears to be tightly in control of this race.
A fair rebuttal to the argument that this is Spanberger’s race to lose is that this is only one poll. However, Spanberger has consistently held a roughly 7 percentage point lead across all polling done thus far.
More worrisome for Earle-Sears and the Republicans — and beneficial to Spanberger — might be what is happening on the national level.
Outsized Influence
President Donald Trump is going to play a significant role in this race because Trump is such an outsized personality. Right now, that’s bad news for Earle-Sears.
The latest YouGov/Economist poll shows Trump’s overall approval numbers tanking — he is currently lower than he was at the same point in his first term, and lower than Biden at the same point in his term.
Interestingly, Trump’s approval/disapproval numbers among voter subsets are similar to the voting margins showing up in the Wason Center poll.
Black Voters
84% of Black voters in the YouGov/Economist poll disapprove of Trump, while just 11% approve. That’s a 73-point gap.
Among Black voters surveyed in the Wason Center poll, 85% support Spanberger, just 6% support Earle-Sears. That’s a 79-point gap.
Independent Voters
The YouGov/Economist poll shows 64% of Independents — the group that gave Trump the victory in 2024 — disapprove of Trump. Just 28% approve of Trump. A 36-point gap. This marks a significant shift from the 2024 election, when Trump got as many votes from Independents as did Harris.
In the Wason Center poll, 55% of independents side with Spanberger, 32% stand with Earle-Sears. A 23-point gap.
The Wason Center poll did not provide data for Hispanic voters. The YouGov/Economist poll, however, shows these voters leaning more heavily against Trump. Some 65% of Hispanics surveyed disapprove of Trump, 33% approve. That’s a 32-point gap.
In 2024, Hispanics went for Harris, but only 51 to 48. A meager 3-point margin.
Hispanics, it appears, are not just turning on Trump, they’re fleeing.
Uncertain Road Ahead
While things are going Spanberger’s way, there are a lot of what-ifs to play out over the next seven or so weeks.
Most worrying is the prospect — yet again — of a government shutdown. If it happens, the educated money says that Democrats get the blame.
That may not be the case, however. Voters are souring on Trump’s handling of the economy. The YouGov/Economist poll shows Trump’s approval level for handling the economy is deep in the red at -34%. And his declining approval numbers in other areas suggest that the Democrats may gain traction with the idea that the government needs to be shut down in order to rein the president in.
If that happens, this race could effectively be over.
If Democrats take the blame, however, the race could tighten. And if that happens, November 4 could prove to be a longer night than many expect.
The other wildcard is the ongoing fallout from the Charlie Kirk assassination. While it has certainly strengthened the resolve of solid Republicans, Trump’s moves to silence speech he doesn’t like — most recently, Jimmy Kimmel — is having the same effect on Democrats.
As a party with a long history of its voters approaching elections with a laissez-faire attitude, the threats against news organizations, nonprofits, and government leaders who dare question Trump is energizing Democrats to fight back.
In multiple conversations with local Democrats since the Kirk murder, the squelching of free speech is a topic that has surfaced repeatedly.
Every vote matters, of course.
But this year, early votes may prove especially important as the threat of a government shutdown and suppression of free speech could affect how people vote if they wait until November.
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