Gillespie Leads in 2017 Gubernatorial Race New UMW Poll Finds

In their latest polling on the 2017 governor’s race, the University of Mary Washington’s data shows former Senate candidate Ed Gillespie in the lead for the Republican nomination for governor in 2017.

Gillespie commands 19% of respondents, 11% for Virginia Beach Senator Frank Wagner, 8% for Congressman Rob Wittman, 6% for Prince William County Board of Supervisors Chairman Corey Stewart, with 40% undecided. 12% did not like any of the candidates named.

At this point, any polling on the 2017 governor’s race is simply reflecting the name ID of the various candidates.  With Gillespie having run a close statewide Senate race two years ago, his lead in the polling is not surprising.  What is surprising is Frank Wagner’s 11% in the second place slot – Wagner only announced he was running for Governor less than a month ago.   Given that he has never run statewide and his district is smaller than Rob Wittman’s territory in the 1st District, his second place standing should give a boost to the Senator’s nascent campaign.

Another surprising fact is Stewart’s 6% showing.  Despite being very visible, often in a bad way, as one of Donald Trump’s Virginia Co-Chairs, the conventional wisdom has held that Stewart was likely either the front-runner or close to the top in the governor’s race at this point.  His 6% showing, despite significant media attention for his role in the Trump campaign may indicate that the bouncing that many observers and activists expected Stewart to receive from Trump – a bounce he was likely counting on – hasn’t happened yet.

The polling also revealed that Virginians these days don’t have very long memories, at least for losing candidates.  Despite running statewide just two years ago, Ed Gillespie’s favorable opinion rating was only 16% with 71% saying they hadn’t heard enough about him to offer an opinion.  Given that Gillespie got over 1 million votes in 2014, that statistic is troubling.

At the bottom, Corey Stewart had a 7% favorable to 4% unfavorable rating, with 85% of respondents hearing too little to form an opinion.

In a head-to-head matchup against presumed Democratic nominee Ralph Northam, Gillespie lead with likely voters 44-32%, with Wagner beating Northam by a slim 40-39% margin.  Wittman and Stewart both tied.  When that universe is widened to both likely and registered voters, only Gillespie lead, 39-36.

As an aside, the poll also indicated that 76% of Virginians supporting a path to legal citizenship for illegal immigrants, with only 21% opposing it – a surprising number given the vehemence of “amnesty” opponents.  68% of Virginians supported expanding Medicaid, versus 26% who oppose it.

The breakdown of respondents was 32% Democrat, 26% Republican, 38% independent. 34% viewed themselves as moderates, with 28% liberal or very liberal, and 35% conservative or very conservative.

The full poll, including the data on the Trump/Clinton head to head, can be found here.