Kaine 51%, Cao 41%
New survey from Emerson College Polling/The Hill/WAVY/WRIC/WFXR/WDCW finds 52% of Virginia voters support Vice President Kamala Harris for president in 2024, while 44% support former President Donald Trump. Three percent are undecided and one percent support someone else.
Emerson’s latest Virginia poll July 2024 was before Biden withdrew from the race. It found that 45% of voters supported Trump and 43% supported President Biden, with 11% undecided.
“Trump’s support in Virginia hasn’t changed much since Harris became the nominee; instead, undecided voters decided to support Kamala Harris,” said Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling.
“Underlying demographic shifts in party affiliation and gender are driving the shifts in key lines: in July, independents overtook Trump 46% to 38%, now they overshoot by 52% to 38% for Harris. One of the most significant shifts occurred among female voters: They beat Biden by six points over Trump in July (47% to 41%), and now Harris by 20 points, 58% to 38%.
Outgoing Democratic Senator Tim Kaine leads Republican opponent Hung Cao by ten points, 51% to 41%, including 6% undecided. Kaine has maintained a ten-point lead since July surveywhen he led Cao from 49% to 39%.
The economy is the top issue for Virginia voters, followed by housing affordability (14%), threats to democracy (12%), immigration (8%), abortion (6%) , health care (6%) and education (6%). ).
“Voters who say the economy is the top issue for Trump, 68% to 30%, while voters who say housing affordability is the top issue facing Virginia for Harris, 76% to 15 %,” Kimball added.
A majority of Virginia voters (40%) would like the state’s abortion laws to be less strict, while 39% think they should remain as is and 22% think they should be made more strict.
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin holds a 44% approval rating, while 34% disapprove of the job he is doing as governor. President Biden holds a 40% approval rating among Virginia voters, while 51% disapprove of the job he is doing in office.
METHODOLOGY
The Emerson College Polling/The Hill Virginia survey was conducted September 22-24, 2024. The sample of likely voters, n=860, has a credibility interval, similar to the margin of error (MOE) of a poll, +/- 3.3%. points. The data sets were weighted by gender, education, race, age, party affiliation, and region based on modeling of likely voters in 2024. Turnout modeling is based on information provided by voter registration and statewide demographic databases.
It is important to remember that subsets based on demographics, such as gender, age, education, and race/ethnicity, have higher credibility intervals as the size of the sample is reduced. Survey results must be within the score range of the survey, and with a 95% confidence interval, a survey will fall outside the score range 1 in 20 times.
Data was collected by contacting cell phones via SMS to Web (list provided by Aristotle) and an online voter panel provided by CINT. The survey was offered in English.
All questions asked in this survey with exact wording, as well as full results, demographics, and crosstabs can be found under Full Results. This investigation was funded by Nexstar Media.
