VIRGINIA STATEWIDE – SURVEY MEMORANDUM

DATE: Monday, October 25, 2021

FROM: Brent Buchanan – CEO & Founder
RE: Survey of Likely 2021 General Election Voters
The political environment has worsened to record lows for Democrats in Virginia
• Our February 2021 polling had a D+4 generic ballot which was the best we’d seen in two cycles.
• A generic Republican now leads by 1pt for the first time in modern Virginia political history.
• Democrats only lead among women by 3pts; in 2020 exit polls, Biden led women in VA by 23pts.
• Voters under the age of 55 are driving all the change for Republicans (54% R / 42% D on generic).
• K-12 parents are choosing the generic Republican by a major margin (58% R / 38% D on generic).
• 98% of 2020 Trump voters are sticking with Republicans; 91% of Biden voters are with Democrats.
• Religion plays a major role in vote choice; 65% of non-religious voters want a generic Democrat to
win; 52% of mainline Protestants and 69% of Evangelical Protestants want the Republican;
Catholics are tied.
Early voting which is lower than normal, favors McAuliffe and other Democratic candidates
• Younger voters (<55) are more likely to vote in-person on November 2 and are heavily Republican.
• Independents and Republicans are most likely to wait to vote in-person on Election Day.
• Urban voters (57%) and parents (59%) are most likely to vote on Election Day.
• Among “Election Day” voters, Youngkin leads 65% to 39%.
Biden and McAuliffe are underwater on their images
• Virginia voters are losing faith in Joe Biden; he’s viewed 50% unfavorably and 48% favorably.
• Terry McAuliffe is also now viewed more negatively than positively (-1%).
• Women are only +3 favorable for McAuliffe, which is usually a bad sign for a Democratic candidate.
• McAuliffe is 71% unfavorable with Independents and only winning 32% of them on the ballot.
Republicans have overcome political obstacles to get to a competitive place on the ballot
• The gubernatorial race is tied despite Biden winning the state by 10pts in 2020.
• Women support McAuliffe by 5 points, which is incredibly low compared to what Biden won.
• Younger voters are driving the gubernatorial race to Youngkin by historic margins.
• Youngkin is winning white voters by 7pts, which is a large margin for Virginia standards.
• The attorney general and lieutenant governor races are neck-and-neck thanks to Virginia voters
rejecting the Democrats on the generic level and key voter groups shifting to support a Republican
gubernatorial candidate over the former Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe.
• The trends driving the gubernatorial race also apply to the lieutenant governor and attorney general
races, dragging down the Democratic candidates for those elections who actually have good name
identification ratios compared to McAuliffe.
MEDIA STATEMENT: Cygnal has polled privately in Virginia in 2021 for multiple private Republican stakeholders. The poll released
was conducted at Cygnal’s expense for internal testing purposes. No clients were consulted for questions, methodology, or
approach. Cygnal chose to release the results of the survey because so much has changed in Virginia since it’s last private polls.

METHODOLOGY: This probabilistic survey was conducted October 19 – 21, 2021, with 816 likely 2021 general election voters. It
has a margin of error of ±3.43%. Known registered voters were interviewed via SMS, IVR, and email invitation. This survey was
weighted to a likely 2021 general election voter universe.

ABOUT CYGNAL: Cygnal is an award-winning national public opinion and predictive analytics firm that pioneered multi-mode
polling, peer-to-peer text collection, and Political Emotive Analysis. Cygnal is named the #1 Republican private pollster by Nate
Silver’s FiveThirtyEight two cycles running, as well as the #1 most accurate polling and research firm in the country for 2018 by The
New York Times. Its team members have worked in 47 states and countries on more than 2,100 corporate, public affairs, and
political campaigns.