Steve Burns
WMAL.com
NEWPORT NEWS, VIRGINIA — (WMAL) A new poll of likely Virginia voters shows surprising success for Libertarian Gary Johnson, but still a comfortable lead for Hillary Clinton when she’s polled exclusively with Donald Trump.
The Christopher Newport University poll finds Clinton has a 10-point lead over Trump in a head-to-head scenario, 48 to 38 percent.
When Gary Johnson is factored in, he claims 15 percent of support, to Clinton’s 39 and Trump’s 33, but his popularity is even more pronounced among millennials – 18 to 34-year-olds put Johnson in second place – seven points behind Clinton.
“He’s got a contingent of national security Republicans or independents that lean Republican in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads,” CNU political scientist Dr. Rachel Bitecofer tells WMAL. “And they are not comfortable with Donald Trump.”
She says Virginia is unique in its concentration of ‘Never Trump’ Republicans, and that status has pushed the Commonwealth out of its customary ‘toss-up’ category this year.
“Both candidates are losing support to the Libertarian ticket, which is really doing very well in Virginia compared to their numbers nationally,” Bitecofer says. “But Clinton is losing more voters to the Libertarian ticket than Trump is.”
The poll also found 53 percent of likely Virginia voters find Trump to be racist, which Bitecofer calls “astounding.”
“Virginia is not really what we would call a toss-up category for the 2016 election,” she says. “But I would also caution that we should not stop thinking about it as a battleground state. I believe that purely is a function of this particular election cycle.”
Copyright 2016 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (Photo: CNN)
