Donald Trump is claiming credit for Republican Glenn Youngkin's election win in the Virginia gubernatorial race, but an analysis of the poll numbers show he was actually more of a liability in that race.
Republican National Committee chairwoman agreed the twice-impeached one-term president had been a "huge boost" in the off-year election, but both exit polls and pre-election polls in Virginia suggest those claims are nothing more than a boost to a narcissist's ego, reported Slate.
"It's true that Trump has a lot of supporters, and many turned out for Youngkin," wrote columnist William Saletan. "In the network exit poll, 42 percent of people who cast ballots in the Virginia gubernatorial race said they had a favorable view of the former president, and they voted almost unanimously for Youngkin. But these people were outnumbered by the 54 percent of respondents who expressed an unfavorable view of Trump. If that majority had voted for [Democrat Terry] McAuliffe with anywhere near the same degree of unanimity, Youngkin would have lost. Instead, the Republican won by peeling away one of every six anti-Trump voters."
Pre-election polls showed Virginia voters had a generally unfavorable view of the former president, but a survey taken two weeks ago showed that Youngkin was picking up 16 percent of his support from voters with a strongly unfavorable view of Trump, compared to the 3-percent support McAuliffe was getting from anti-Biden voters.
"Without those anti-Trump voters, Youngkin would have trailed badly," Saletan wrote. "When you measure the anti-Trump vote by how people voted in 2020, as opposed to the former president's favorable ratings, you get the same result. In every survey of likely or actual voters taken in Virginia this year, people who said they had cast ballots for Biden in 2020 outnumbered people who said they had cast ballots for Trump. The margins ranged from 6 to 10 points."
"So how did Youngkin win?" Saletan added. "On average, in these polls, Youngkin got more than 7 percent of Biden voters, while McAuliffe got only 2 percent of Trump voters. Biden voters, not Trump voters, were decisive."
