Polling released on Thursday shows the majority of Virginians continue to hold a positive view of the performance by Glenn Youngkin as Virginia Governor, though suggested voters may nonetheless vote for a Democrat to succeed him when casting ballots in November.
The survey, released by Christopher Newport University’s Wason Center for Civic Leadership and conducted between January 6-13, found 53 percent of Virginia voters continue to approve of Youngkin’s performance as governor, including 87 percent of Republicans, 54 percent of independents, and 19 percent of the commonwealth’s Democratic voters.
At 49 percent, a plurality of voters similarly said the commonwealth is heading in the right direction, with the numbers driven by 65 percent of Republicans who say things in Virginia are going well. Just 31 percent said Virginia is moving in the wrong direction, while 11 percent offered a mixed response.
Despite the level of optimism for the future of Virginia, the commonwealth was less convinced about the direction of the United States, with just 31 percent saying it is heading in the right direction compared to 58 percent who said it is moving in the wrong direction.
Pollsters also found broad support for policies championed by Youngkin, including charging those who sell fentanyl to a drug user who dies of a fatal overdose with felony homicide, which was supported by 76 percent of the respondents.
While Youngkin and his agenda may remain popular among voters, the Wason Center poll was the first to show his prospective successor, Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, losing to former Representative Abigail Spanberger, the Democrat who resigned from Congress to run to become Virginia’s governor.
The pollsters found 44 percent of the commonwealth’s voters plan to cast a ballot for Spanberger, while just 39 percent intend to vote for Earle-Sears. An additional 12 percent said they were undecided, while 4 percent did not know or refused to answer, and 2 percent said they would vote for another candidate.
With a margin of error of 3.6 percent, this is the first survey to show Earle-Sears losing to Spanberger, as two previous surveys showed the candidates statistically tied.
These previous surveys included an early January poll released by Emerson College, which found Spanberger tied with Earle-Sears at 42-41 percent, and the poll released last week by Masin-Dixon Polling and Strategy, which found Spanberger leading by 3 percent, which was still within the survey’s margin of error.
Spanberger raised more than $3 million during her first four months on the campaign trail, while Spanberger raised nearly $6 million over 2024 and has over $9 million to spend on her campaign.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Glenn Youngkin” by Governor of Virginia.Â
