Poll: McAuliffe holds narrow lead over Youngkin in tight race in Virginia



[ad_1]

The poll took place September 22-26 and interviewed 801 registered voters. It has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.

By digging through the cross tables: While the overall race topline has remained stable month over month in the Monmouth polls, there have been some notable regional changes in the race.

McAuliffe’s largest support base remains in Northern Virginia, where it was up 58% to 29%. But he saw a gain in the eastern Tidewater area, extending his lead over last month.

Likewise, Youngkin maintained his large lead in the western part of the state. But the central part of the state, which encompasses the I-95 corridor, shifted from August to September, going from a 10-point lead for McAuliffe to an 11-point lead for Youngkin in the region.

“The central backbone around Richmond appears to be the area with the greatest potential to influence voters. In much of Virginia, however, it’s more about determining the bases of the respective parties, ”said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, in a statement accompanying the poll.

State of the race: The two men will meet for their second and final debate on Tuesday evening. It comes after Youngkin recently declined to tell Axios whether he would have voted to certify the 2020 presidential election if he were a congressman, while saying he believed current President Joe Biden had legitimately beaten the former President Donald Trump in 2020.

This follows their first debate earlier this month, when the two clashed over various mandates related to the pandemic.

This debate is about a week and a half into the early voting. In the Monmouth poll, a majority of voters indicated that they plan to vote in person on election day. About a quarter said they plan to vote early in person, 9 percent via mail-in ballot and 5 percent said they have already voted.

There is, however, a significant partisan divide. More than three-quarters of voters who identified as Republicans in the poll said they would vote in person on election day, while a slim majority of voters who identified as Democrats said they planned to vote early, by mail or in person, or had already done so.

[ad_2]

Source link