This academic poll for the Virginia gubernatorial race has these results: Democrat Ralph Northam 42%; Republican Ed Gillespie 37%; Libertarian Cliff Hyra 6%; undecided 13%. Thanks to Political Wire for the link.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
IF Hyra can pull off 10% that would guarantee ballot access for the next 4 years
It’s interesting to note that both Northam and Gillespie have higher percentages (both) in the “likely voter” category than the “registered voter” category. That suggests to me that both have their committed partisans, but not much more. Hyra could do well in a high turnout election. That means part of his strategy should be based on increasing his positives and generating enthusiasm among those who aren’t thinking of voting.
In the “registered voters” sample, the breakdown is Northam 39, Gillespie 33, Hyra 8, “none of these” (which isn’t an option on the Virginia ballot) 4, and don’t know, 16. If Hyra captures the none of these and don’t know, the poll would be Northam 39, Gillespie 33, Hyra 28. In other words, an extremely competitive three-way race. Since I suspect that most who are casting a ballot for Northam are doing so because they don’t like Gillespie and most casting a ballot for Gillespie are doing so because they don’t like Northam, Hyra would be the second choice of all of these voters. Hyra’s voters, on the other hand would likely evenly split between Northam and Gillespie. If the race becomes a 39/33/28 race, it wouldn’t surprise me to see some defections away from Gillespie toward Hyra for the sole purpose of seeing Northam defeated. At least, if Hyra is going to win, that’s what his path to victory looks like, IMO.
The Republicans would have mixed feelings about this. They should, however, avoid angering Hyra voters, because if Gillespie can’t win, I would think the Republicans would at least like Hyra’s voters to vote Republican in the downballot races. I live in Virginia, and I think that lesson is lost on Gillespie, as he seems to be the candidate most responsible for seeing Hyra excluded from the debates.
One more point about the VA governor poll. Looking at the cross tabs, the age distribution on the sampling was 18-34, 96; 35-44, 78; 45-64, 277; 65 and older, 237. It would appear that younger voters were arguably undersampled.