Virginia governor’s race in dead heat in early polling

The two leading candidates in next year’s Virginia gubernatorial election are in a dead heat.  

Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears and Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger are tied at 39%, according to a new statewide poll by the University of Mary Washington’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies.

The rest of the 22% of respondents in the survey said they were undecided, did not plan to vote, would back another candidate or declined to respond.

Pollsters also found that, if Virginia Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares was his party’s nominee, he would also be just as competitive against Ms. Spanberger in a general election.

If Ms. Spanberger and Mr. Miyares faced off, 40% of survey respondents said they would support Ms. Spanberger while 39% they would favor Mr. Miyares.

Mr. Miyares has not announced he’s running for governor but has strongly hinted that he’s eyeing the job.

The poll is similar to results from another UMW survey that found Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump in a dead heat in Virginia. That poll of likely voters showed Ms. Harris at 47% and Mr. Trump at 46%.

Ms. Spanberger, who has represented Virginia’s 7th Congressional District since 2019, launched her gubernatorial bid in November 2023.

Ms. Earle-Sears, the first Black woman to serve as lieutenant governor in Virginia and is looking to make history again as the state’s first Black woman governor. She previously served in the state legislature.

She announced her campaign earlier in the month.

Virginia does not allow its governors to serve consecutive terms, so the commonwealth’s popular Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, must leave office in January 2026.

Mr. Youngkin became the first Republican elected governor of Virginia since Bob McDonnell in 2009. He defeated former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who was running for a second non-consecutive term, by just over 60,000 votes.

“Virginia elections are often close, and the look ahead to next year suggests more of the same in the campaign for governor,” said Stephen J. Farnsworth, a political scientist at the University of Mary Washington and director of UMW’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies. “The big challenge for these potential candidates is becoming better known across the commonwealth.”

Virginia voters were less optimistic about the direction of the country than where they thought the commonwealth was going.

Twenty-four percent said Virginia was going in the right direction and 26% believed it was headed in the wrong direction. The remainder suggested mixed opinions.

However, 51% said the country was headed in the wrong direction, while 16% thought the U.S. was headed in the right direction. Thirty percent offered mixed views.

“Elections never stop in Virginia, and 2025 looks to be another very interesting electoral year in the commonwealth,” Mr. Farnsworth said.

Research America Inc. conducted the UMW poll between Sept. 3 and 9, 2024. The survey included a total of 1,000 Virginia residents, consisting of 870 registered voters and 774 likely voters. The margin of error was +/- 4.1%.