Tag Archives: Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam

Virginia Starting to Sway

https://youtu.be/2SHf9iQh8mA

By Jim Ellis

Oct. 19, 2017 — It has been presumed for the past week that Republican Ed Gillespie is gaining momentum in his quest to become governor of Virginia. The emphasis on attacking Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam (D) with a series of ads (see video above) casting him as being weak on crime and illegal immigration was thought to be paying political dividends. Now we have some independent data verifying that the race is significantly tightening.

Three new polls came into the public domain yesterday, with one actually showing Gillespie forging into a slight lead, another finding him closing the gap, and a third from an entity with a history of inaccurate polling results that makes us want to discard their latest data.

New Jersey’s Monmouth University (Oct. 12-16; 408 likely Virginia voters) now finds Gillespie taking a one-point lead over Northam, 48-47 percent. The analysis segments the state into geographic divisions and compares their previous poll to the current data. Though this is a small sample poll – likely too small for a state the size of Virginia – the geographic delineations appear believable.

As one knew would be inevitable, Monmouth projects that Democratic Northern Virginia is becoming stronger for Northam, while Gillespie is now racking up big margins in the western part of the state. According to the Monmouth analysis, the central part of the state continues to be a swing area. This, too, provides good news for Gillespie as he now leads there 47-44 percent after trailing in the September Monmouth poll, 49-48 percent.

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A Virginia Polling Bonanza

By Jim Ellis

Sept. 21, 2017 — Four different pollsters released new data for the Virginia governor’s campaign within the past few days, and the spreads range from a tie to a 10-point lead for Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, the Democratic nominee.

The polls are all reputable, but one seems a bit skewed toward the Republicans, while another favors the Democrats. Most of the statistical information appears sound, and all of them have reasonable splits regarding the numbers of Democrats and Republicans in the respondent universes when compared to the actual percentages.

The four pollsters are: Suffolk University/USA Today, Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, Princeton Survey Research Associates, International partnering with the University of Mary Washington, and Quinnipiac University. The ballot test results follow, from earliest to most recent.

Princeton Survey Research Associates/International/University of Mary Washington:
Sept. 5-12; 1,000 Virginia adults; 867 registered Virginia voters; 562 likely Virginia voters
Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam (D) — 44%
Ex-RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie (R) — 39%
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New Virginia Polling

By Jim Ellis

June 26, 2017 — Despite the vast majority of survey research firms again failing to predict the correct outcome for a recent political campaign — this time the GA-6 special election — we do have new data to analyze for the Virginia governor’s race.

While it is too early to tell whether the pollsters are correctly projecting the turnout model and whether they are using the proper formula to pull a representative sample, it is still worthwhile to look at all the published polls in order to establish a moving trend.

As was reported immediately after the Virginia primary concluded, Harper Polling went into the field the day after Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam (D) and former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie won their respective party nominations for governor. According to their results (June 14-16; 500 registered Virginia voters), both Northam and Gillespie were tied at 46 percent. The conclusion was even a bit better for Gillespie because within the eight percent group who reported themselves as undecided, 19 percent indicated a preference for the Republican, while seven percent said they were leaning toward Northam, the new Democratic candidate.

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Gillespie Digging Out

By Jim Ellis

June 19, 2017 — As has been discussed since the Virginia gubernatorial primary votes were counted last Tuesday, the election’s end result was much different for both parties than expected even though the favored candidates won. For Republican nominee Ed Gillespie, the primary vote distribution could have only been worse if he had lost.

At week’s end, GOP second-place finisher Corey Stewart announced that he would not challenge the vote totals –- it is unlikely that a recount would have produced enough to overcome his 4,320 statewide vote deficit -– but he stopped short of formally endorsing the new party nominee; though Stewart did indicate that he would vote for Gillespie.

The breadth of his former opponent’s comments indicates that Gillespie has quite a gap to fill in order to attract the Stewart vote base for the general election. These are people Gillespie must have if he is to seriously compete with Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam, who won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in surprisingly easy fashion.

“The real question is, will [Gillespie] support my supporters? Unless he stands up and takes clear positions on defending our heritage and our history, supporting the president, cracking down on illegal immigration, those who supported me are not going to go with him. This isn’t old-style politics anymore. I just can’t tell 155,000 folks to go ahead and vote for Ed despite the fact that he’s not a fighter,” Stewart said in a post-election Washington Post interview.

https://youtu.be/PPTL9m33SpA

Gillespie had hoped to be in the opposite position that he now faces. Forecasts suggested he would easily win the party nomination, while it appeared that the Democrats were in the closer contest. Possibly the best case Gillespie scenario was seeing a close Northam win after strongly securing his own nomination. Since the lieutenant governor moved far to the left to counter the Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren-supported Tom Perriello, Gillespie wanted maneuvering room to move closer to the center while Northam was trapped on the far left perch of his party.

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Virginia Opposite Than Predicted

By Jim Ellis

June 14, 2017 — The Virginia governor primaries actually produced the expected winners for both sides last night, but the margins and the candidates’ points of geographical strength turned the pre-election predictions upside down.

Going into yesterday’s vote, Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam was generally favored to prevail in a close Democratic contest over former US Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Charlottesville). The tangible result, however, provided Northam a substantial 56-44 percent win, a performance that saw him easily carrying the areas where Perriello had to make major inroads if the latter was to construct a winning statewide bid.

Specifically, vote-rich northern Virginia, where Perriello was making a strong campaign effort and went as far left as possible in an attempt to attract the region’s Democratic primary voters, failed to come through for him. Northam took the city of Alexandria, and Arlington and Fairfax Counties with percentages of 61, 62, and 60 percent, respectively, far above his projected vote performance.

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Virginia’s Perriello Peaking

By Jim Ellis

June 9, 2017 — According to his internal polling, former US Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Charlottesville) has caught Virginia Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam as the two head into next Tuesday’s gubernatorial primary election.

Wednesday, the Perriello camp released a series of internal Haystaq DNA surveys that portend the former congressman now maintains a slight edge over Northam, 36.8 to 36.0 percent, with the undecideds overwhelmingly breaking to their candidate. (See Perriello ad below)

https://youtu.be/kad9lGbc_xI

Though it appears their polling results are at odds with previous independent studies that project Lt. Gov. Northam to be holding a large, and in some cases double-digit, lead, the Perriello data progression acknowledges that their candidate was significantly behind at the beginning of May.

The Haystaq DNA release actually covers three polls conducted within the last five weeks. The firm developed a sampling pool of 2,000 respondents and began questioning them on May 2. The series ended with a third and final polling snapshot (June 1-6; 455 likely Virginia Democratic primary voters drawn from the original 2,000) that yielded the aforementioned dead-heat split.

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Conflicting Virginia Polls

By Jim Ellis

May 22, 2017 — Early in this election cycle we’ve already seen several special and odd-numbered year campaigns produce conflicting polling data, and at the end of last week, a new example came forth. Two new polls from the Virginia governor’s race, Democratic primary, produced opposite results and both can be questioned in terms of reliability.

Earlier in the week, the Virginia Education Association released a Public Policy Polling survey (May 9-10; 745 likely Virginia Democratic primary voters), which projects Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam leading former US Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Charlottesville) by a substantial 45-35 percent margin.

Late last week, the Washington Post and the Schar School of George Mason University released their sponsored Abt Associates poll (May 9-14; 1,604 Virginia adults; 351 likely Democratic primary voters; 264 likely Republican primary voters) that produced a much different result. According to this polling sample, it is Perriello who actually holds a 40-38 percent preference lead among the most likely June 13 Democratic primary voters.

Not only do we see inconsistent conclusions from this pair of surveys, but also methodological questions arise. The Public Policy Polling survey has the stronger sampling group particulars, but may have bias problems. PPP features a robust sample of 745 Democratic primary voter respondents but the poll was conducted for an organization that is outwardly supporting Northam, and the 10-point advantage for their candidate is beyond any previously released independent figures.

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