One poll has the Spanberger/Earle-Sears race close; another has it, not close

One poll commissioned by a business group headed up by former Republican lawmaker Chris Saxman has the 2025 Virginia gubernatorial race at a tight 4 percent. A second poll out this week from Roanoke College has Democrat Abigail Spanberger with a 17-point lead on Republican Winsome Earle-Sears.

Which is it?

Do we have a tight race, or one that is trending big-time in the D direction?

The guts of the poll commissioned by Virginia FREE look more like the big lead for Spanberger that we’ve been seeing in the polling all spring.

The topline in the Virginia FREE poll, which was conducted by Pantheon Insight and HarrisX, has Spanberger at 52 percent, and Earle-Sears at 48 percent.

If something seems off there to you, it would be that the poll assigns everybody to a candidate.

We’re more than five months out from November, the campaigns have barely gotten off the ground, and we’re supposed to believe everybody has already made up their minds.

O … K.

The polling firms working for Virginia FREE indicated in a memo that Spanberger’s lead grows to seven points among “high level” of interest voters, and 20 points among “very high level of interest” voters.

These numbers are in line with the Roanoke College rendering of the electorate, which has Spanberger at 43 percent, and Earle-Sears at 26 percent.

That leaves more than 30 percent undecided, which makes more sense in May of an election year than 0 percent.

As to the question, what is going on here, it could be what we’re seeing with the discrepancy in the numbers is, the Virginia FREE poll has a thumb or two on the scales.

Pantheon Insight is headed up by Amanda Iovino, who served as the polling director for MAGA Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s 2021 gubernatorial campaign.

That’s one thumb.

The other: according to data from the Virginia Public Access Project, Saxman’s political consulting firm received $67,644 in payments from Earle-Sears’ PAC in 2022 and 2023, plus an additional $15,000 from the Earle-Sears Inaugural Committee and $4,784 from her 2021 lieutenant-governor campaign.

I’m not sure we can accurately call the Virginia FREE thing a poll.

Donald Trump would lean toward election interference, and get the DOJ involved, if he was on the other side of it.