With the election only 38 days away the majority of Virginians (66%) say they are not paying attention to the news about the candidates while 90% of them claim they will vote on November 3rd, according to a recent survey completed by Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University.
“only 41 percent said they are paying attention to the election, and 66 percent said they are not following news about the candidates,” said professor Quentin Kidd, director of the Wason Center.
“These results demonstrate a classic pattern with Virginia’s off-off-year elections,” said Kidd. “A far greater proportion of voters say they intend to vote than are actually paying attention.”
This leads Kidd to predict a turnout of 23 to 29%.
The survey revealed a tie between the parties among those voting for state senate candidates although Republicans have the advantage among ‘likely voters’, with 48% of them saying they would vote Republican and 35% said they would vote for the Democrat candidate for state senate.
“However, these results also suggest that Democrats have time to engage their likely voters, especially in the six highly contested Senate races that will decide whether they can break the Republican hold on the legislature,” said Kidd.
More details on the survey here.
