A new VCU poll gives Democrat Abigail Spanberger a 12-point lead over Republican Winsome Earle-Sears in the 2025 Virginia governor race, as fundraising numbers out this week show Spanberger with a huge money advantage over the sitting lieutenant governor.
The other breaking news in the 2025 race: the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor, John Reid, a conservative radio talk-show host who is gay, is saying he would support a “straight repeal” of the state constitutional amendment passed in 2006 banning gay marriage, putting him at odds on that issue with Earle-Sears.
Lots to unpack here; let’s start with the poll numbers.
“The poll results show a clear message from the voters: performance matters, and so do priorities. This poll should be a wakeup call,” said Doug Wilder, commenting on the poll conducted by the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at VCU that was made public on Wednesday.
The poll pegs voter approval for Donald Trump at just 40 percent, with 55 percent saying they don’t approve of the job that Trump has done as president over the past six months.
Significant there: 61 percent of independent voters don’t approve of Trump.
Independent voters are also starting to turn on Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who is in the final year of his one term as governor.
Fifty-one percent of independents gave the MAGA Republican a bad job review.
One other poll number that I want to highlight here: when asked which issue would most influence their vote in the upcoming election, 28 percent of voters identified the rising cost of living, followed by women’s reproductive rights (14 percent) and immigration (14 percent).
None of this is good for the MAGA side.
“Gov. Youngkin’s slipping numbers among independents and the overwhelming disapproval of Trump make clear that Virginia voters are not buying political spin,” Wilder said. “They want action on the issues that hit hardest: the rising costs of living, threats to women’s rights and immigration policies. The shift from education to economic and personal freedoms shows an engaged electorate.”
Next, to the money part of the story, which is important not so much in the immediate here and now, but will be as we get to the fall, when the two sides are going to be blowing huge wads of money on TV and social media ads.
Spanberger, who launched her campaign immediately after the 2023 state midterms, has raised $27 million and reported having $15.2 million in cash on hand as of June 30.
Earle-Sears got a late start on the 2025 cycle, hitting the ground running last September, and she has raised $11.6 million to date, and reported having $4.5 million in her campaign account as of June 30.
That could be an obstacle for the MAGAs, as could the problematic candidacy of Reid, a very out gay man who Youngkin tried to talk into dropping out of the LG race, because of the MAGA base being, you know, strenuously anti-LGBTQ+.
ICYMI
- John Reid resists pressure to drop out of LG race over hot gay online photos
- This John Reid-Glenn Youngkin fight over gay porn is worth keeping an eye on
- Earle-Sears backs Reid in fight with Youngkin, who wants Reid off the ballot
- John Reid rails against ‘swamp,’ ‘corrupt’ Republican political machine
As if that’s the only problem with the 2025 MAGA ticket, right?
Earle-Sears, at the top of the ticket, is a Black immigrant; then you’ve got Reid, a gay man, in the second slot; and Jason Miyares, the sitting attorney general, who is the son of Cuban immigrants, at #3.
But anyway, Reid isn’t making things easy on the issue that the MAGA base will hold most against him.
The Daily Progress reported this week that Reid told the paper in an editorial board interview that he is “not against gay marriage. I’m a gay man. I am very pleased the decision the Supreme Court made to give that right to gay and lesbian citizens.”
“I have talked about this for 20-plus years. I was against the amendment that currently exists in Virginia’s constitution. I went and voted against that,” Reid said, signaling his support for a full-out repeal of the 2006 state constitutional amendment.
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Chris Graham
