Poll: Dead Heat for McAuliffe and Youngkin in Virginia Governor’s Race

Virginia’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin is in the midst of a dead heat with Democrat challenger Terry McAuliffe in the state’s governor’s race, a Trafalgar Group survey released Tuesday revealed.

The survey, taken August 26-29 among 1,074 likely general election voters, asked, “If the election for Governor were held tomorrow, who are you most likely to support?”

Only .3 percent separate the two candidates. McAuliffe garnered 46.6 percent, while Youngkin claimed 46.3 percent. The difference is well within the survey’s +/- 2.99 percent margin of error.

While 2.1 percent indicated a vote for a third party or write-in candidate, five percent remain undecided — well enough to sway the election in one way or the other:

McAuliffe, the Democrat candidate, made headlines this month after taking aggressive positions on vaccine mandates, urging all employers in the state to mandate the shot following the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) full approval of the Pfizer vaccine.

“Today, I am calling on every Virginia employer to require all eligible employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19,” he said at the time, expressing a sentiment similar to President Biden, who urged private businesses to “step up with vaccine requirements.”

Speaking at a conference in Las Vegas over the summer, the gubernatorial hopeful pushed vaccine mandates even further, explaining the goal of making “life difficult” for the unvaccinated.

“I tell my private businesses all the time, ‘I hope you mandate vaccines for people coming in.’ Until we make it hard for people to get on planes or go to movie theaters, people just aren’t going to do it,” he said, adding, “We’re not going door to door, but you make life difficult.”

While Youngkin is a proponent of the vaccines, he has made it clear that the decision should be left up to the individual:

The survey comes just over two months away from the November 2 election.