Saxman: Emerson poll shows Youngkin ever so slightly ahead

Projected 6,200 vote lead with 89,900 undecided. It’s that close.

Emerson’s new poll has the Virginia gubernatorial race tied with both Terry McAuliffe and Glenn Youngkin at 48.

Wait…exactly 48? Good question. No. In fact, if you dive into the shallow cross tabs in the poll, you find that Youngkin actually leads 48.1 to 47.9 for McAuliffe.

C’mon…that’s a tie. Nope. Extrapolate that out ball parking a 3.1 million voter turnout.

Why 3.1? I seem to recall CNU’s Quentin Kidd saying that would be the expected turnout this year. Regardless, one has to start somewhere and the point is to show you just how close this election actually is. It is tick tight, folks.

So, at 3.1MM- Youngkin would lead McAuliffe by 6,200 votes. Emerson has the Undecided at just 2.9%. That means 89,900 votes are still up for grabs. This is a super close race.

3MM turnout? Youngkin leads by 6,000 with 87,000 undecided. 3.2MM turnout? 6,400 lead and 92,800 undecided.

Does Youngkin REALLY lead McAuliffe? No. If the early vote were to be counted, McAuliffe likely has a pretty big lead over Youngkin at this stage. This was just done to show you how close the race is projected to be at the end of Election Night; however, the trend line favors Glenn Youngkin to be the next governor of Virginia.

Emerson’s poll captures the electorate’s slow move to the political newcomer:

Of course, polls could be wrong. But every indication is that this race is inside the Margin of Error (MOE) and has been for awhile. Emerson’s MOE is 3.2% so McAuliffe could be at 51 and Youngkin 45 or vice versa.

One week to go! The mad dash is on.

Other points from Emerson:

“Since the last Emerson/Nexstar poll in early October, McAuliffe has lost 1 point of support, while the undecided number of voters has gone up 1 point, and Youngkin’s support has stayed the same.

McAuliffe leads with women (52% to 44%), voters under 50 (54% to 41%), Black voters (71% to 24%), and Hispanic voters (48% to 47%). Youngkin leads with men (53% to 44%), voters over 50 (61% to 42%), and White voters (56% to 42%).”