Polls aren’t everything. Predicting election outcomes based on polls is a highly incomplete science. But trends in polling data can be indicative of where a race is going, especially with Election Day right around the corner.
If that’s the case, Ralph Northam and his Democratic supporters must be getting very nervous. This morning, the Real Clear Politics polling average in the Virginia gubernatorial election showed Northam’s lead over his Republican opponent Ed Gillespie to be the narrowest it has been in the entire race.
Here’s an image showing the RCP polling trend over the course of the general election:
Looking at the most recent trends, on October 24, Northam still had a lead of nearly six percentage points in the polling average. But as the week went on, that lead began to narrow steadily. In the days following the controversy over the Latino Victory Fund’s grotesque anti-Gillespie attack ad, which was released this past Monday, the gap between Northam and Gillespie hovered around the 3 percent mark.
But by this morning, Northam’s lead in the RCP average had shrunk to just 1.2 percentage points. Again, polls can only tell you so much about a race. And given the disparity in some of the latest polling data, we certainly can’t try to predict the outcome on Tuesday based on these numbers.
And yet, the trends certainly seem to favor the Republican. Looking more closely at some of the latest polls, likely voters seem to be growing more favorable toward Gillespie and less favorable toward Northam. In mid October, a Roanoke College survey of likely voters found that Gillespie had a 38 percent favorable to 33 percent unfavorable rating. The same poll showed Northam tied with Gillespie with a 38 percent favorable rating, but with just a 28 percent unfavorable rating.
Flash forward to the poll released by Roanoke College yesterday, and Gillespie clearly has the edge. Now, Gillespie has a 45 percent favorable rating and 35 percent unfavorable. Northam, on the other hand, has stayed static at 38 percent favorable, but his unfavorable rating has risen to 36 percent.
Given the abysmal week Northam has had, and given that most of the latest polls suggest a very close race, the trends seem to favor Gillespie, or at least indicate that he, and not Northam, has cornered the market on positive momentum. Safe money is still on Northam to win this race. But the Gillespie campaign is certainly managing to give the Democrat and his supporters some last-minute heartburn.