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The contest is widely seen as a prime barometer of the 2022 midterm election. The Virginia governor’s race has historically favored the party that lost the presidential election the year before. Democratic Governor Ralph Northam and former Governors Bob McDonnell, a Republican, and Mark Warner, a Democrat, all won the year after their party lost the White House. McAuliffe, however, won a close race in 2013 to take the governorship the year after former President Barack Obama was reelected.
Now, as he did back then, McAuliffe is taking advantage of running in a state that has an increasing tendency to lean towards Democrats, in part thanks to growth in the liberal Washington, DC suburbs. Democratic presidential candidates have won Virginia in the last four elections, and President Joe Biden has won the state by 10 points in 2020.
Conway’s poll was commissioned by the Presidential Coalition, an organization overseen by former Trump deputy campaign manager David Bossie. The survey of 700 voters, conducted September 17-19, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
A memo accompanying the investigation, however, argues that McAuliffe faces a rocky road thanks to a political environment that backfires against his party. The poll shows Biden’s approval rating in Virginia is 49%, with 48% disapproval of his performance – down from that comfortable 10-point margin of victory he enjoyed over Trump there in last november.
“This is a nagging and growing responsibility for McAuliffe,” the memo reads.
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