Another new poll gives Northam big lead in Virginia governor race

One Virginia governor race poll released yesterday had Democrat Ralph Northam and Republican Ed Gillespie tied.

A second had Northam with a five-point lead. And a third, released today, has Northam up by 10.

The latest poll, from Quinnipiac, has Northam at 51 percent, to 41 percent for Gillespie. Libertarian Cliff Hyra is a distant third at 3 percent.

A couple of keys in the numbers: Northam leads among non-white voters by a 74-16 margin, while Gillespie’s lead with white voters is just 49-44, and Northam has a wide favorability advantage, at 47 percent favorable to 31 percent unfavorable, with Gillespie’s split at 40 percent favorable/39 percent unfavorable.

“Virginians were just getting used to the idea that the Old Dominion was no longer that tried-and-true, rock-solid Republican bastion that had been the case since the civil rights era of the 1960s and was now a swing state.  But as these poll numbers demonstrate, politics in Virginia may be moving further leftward,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.

The Quinnipiac poll has President Trump treading serious water in terms of favorability, with 39 percent giving him their approval, and 58 percent disapproving. Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, has a 56 percent/37 percent split on the approval metric, and U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, up for re-election in 2018, has a 55 percent/40 percent split.

Sen. Mark Warner, also a Democrat, continues to lap the field in favorability, at a 62 percent/33 percent split.