VCU poll, weighted to 2021 electorate, makes Virginia races seem closer than they are

A new VCU poll, weighted, curiously, to reflect the 2021 electorate, has Abgail Spanberger with a seven-point lead on Winsome Earle-Sears in the race for governor of Virginia.

Seems odd to assume a 2021 electorate in terms of weighting, doesn’t it?

I found this buried in the fine print on the VCU news release explaining the weighting:

“Results were weighted by exit poll data; in the exit poll weighting design, the data were weighted to reflect known demographic proportions of the 2021 Virginia electorate. The geographic and demographic weighting parameters were obtained from the 2021 Virginia CNN Exit Poll.”

Seems to me an effort to produce poll numbers that make the race seem closer than it is.

Take the weighting away, and the poll, released on Tuesday, has Spanberger, the Democrat, with an 11.2-point lead on Earle-Sears, the MAGA nominee, and we also get different renderings than the headlines you read about the poll for the downticket races.

The weighted-to-2021 report has Ghazala Hashmi, the Democratic Party nominee for lieutenant governor, with a one-point lead on MAGA nominee John Reid; the raw numbers give Hashmi a five-point lead.

The 2021 weighting gives MAGA nominee Jason Miyares a three-point lead on Democrat Jay Jones; the raw numbers have Jones with a narrow 1.2-point lead in the two-way race.

Remaking the 2025 sample polled to the 2021 electorate also showed voter preference for a Democrat-majority House of Delegates at 47 percent, with 42 percent expressing a preference for a Republican majority.

The raw numbers: 49.2 percent Democrat, 40.1 percent Republican.