The president has a low approval rating in Virginia, which he won by ten points in 2020.
At a virtual campaign rally last night, Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe attempted to distance himself from President Biden.
“We’re facing a lot of headwinds from Washington,” he told supporters. “As you know, the president is unpopular today, unfortunately, here in Virginia, so we have got to plow through.”
A McAuliffe spokesperson later told Politico Playbook, “Terry’s point was clearly that Democrats can’t take anything for granted and must turn out to vote this year: Glenn Youngkin is running on a divisive, Trumpian agenda that puts election conspiracy theories and banning abortion first.”
I think McAuliffe’s point was pretty obvious: Virginians might not be thrilled with the Biden presidency thus far, but please vote for me anyway. And, as Playbook points out this afternoon, it wasn’t the first time the Democrat has tried to send this message:
McAuliffe has repeatedly tried to distance himself from Biden and the Democratic Congress — for instance, at a recent debate, McAuliffe said that the proposed $3.5 trillion price tag of Dems’ reconciliation package was “too high.” Even so, that’s a tall task, considering that McAuliffe is longtime friends with the president, and, of course, is the former chair of the DNC. (Also, VP KAMALA HARRIS recently headlined a fundraiser for McAuliffe, and second gentleman DOUG EMHOFF campaigned for him in Loudoun County over the weekend.)
McAuliffe is right to be nervous. Virginia’s gubernatorial election, coming as it does in the year immediately following a presidential race, tends to flip in the opposite direction of whichever party is in the White House.
It’s not a hard and fast rule, of course, and changing demographics have caused Virginia to lean further blue in recent years — the last Republican governor won election in 2006 — but if you’re McAuliffe, you were certainly hoping for a better performance from Biden so far this year to bolster your run.
And as satisfaction with Biden plummets nationwide, polls of the race in Virginia are continuing to suggest a fairly close race. Out today, a new survey from Emerson College/Nexstar media indicates that the contest is a “dead heat.”
The poll found that Biden has a 45 percent approval rating in Virginia, remarkably low considering that he won the state by ten points less than a year ago. McAuliffe, meanwhile, is locked in a tight race with Republican Glenn Youngkin. According to the results, McAuliffe leads by just one point, 49 percent to 48 percent among likely voters.
The poll comes about a week after McAuliffe and Youngkin faced off in their most recent debate, in which McAuliffe made news for asserting that parents have no business determining the curriculum or books in their children’s schools.
Perhaps the most interesting nugget from the results: Youngkin is ahead among both white voters (53 percent to 45 percent) and Hispanic voters (55 percent to 45 percent). And while McAuliffe has a sizable advantage among black voters, Youngkin has mustered the support of 25 percent of this typically loyal Democratic bloc.
Also interesting: Youngkin has a slight lead among likely voters in Virginia’s suburbs, 49 percent to 48 percent. With less than a month to go, the race is looking closer than ever.