Former Governor Terry McAuliffe on Thursday disputed the results of a Virginia poll that showed former President Donald Trump statistically tied with Vice President Kamala Harris in the commonwealth, raising allegations about the pollster’s credibility and claims its data was skewed, before arguing federal workers would turnout in sufficient numbers to propel the Harris-Walz ticket to victory.
McAuliffe claimed the pollster who released the Tuesday survey showing Trump and Harris statistically tied, with the Democrat leading the former president by just 3 percent, “has never had a poll that’s been correct in their life,” according to The Washington Times.
The poll was released by Roanoke College on Tuesday, and the pollsters reported a margin of error of 4.5 percent, meaning the survey suggests Trump and Harris are statistically tied in Virginia.
While being interviewed at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Chicago, Illinois, The Times reported McAuliffe (pictured above) told the outlet, “When I ran for governor, they had me losing by 500 points, and I won the state.”
McAuliffe also reportedly raised questions about the survey’s methodology, with The Times reporting he claimed too many Virginians who live outside the commonwealth’s urban areas were polled.
Despite McAuliffe’s denunciation of the Roanoke College pollsters, the rating system used by FiveThirtyEight gives the pollster a positive 2.6 rating in a scale where 3 is the highest. Pollsters at Gallup, Pew Research Center and Virginia Commonwealth University all received lower ratings than Roanoke College.
The Democrat also reportedly highlighted the 35-day government shutdown that occurred under Trump’s first administration, as well as the claim Trump disparaged veterans, as evidence he will do poorly in Virginia. Trump has repeatedly denied he made such statements, and his campaign released a list of individuals who denied the president made them.
McAuliffe ultimately told the outlet that, while it may benefit Virginia Democrats to claim the race between Harris and Trump will be “tight,” it is actually “not possible” for the Republican to win the commonwealth.
The Democrat told The Times, “let me say it’s a tight race because I want the Harris campaign to keep sending a lot of money to our state, and I’d like to keep it going, but it’s not going to be close. It’s not possible.”
McAuliffe most recently ran for a second term as Virginia’s governor in 2021, when Governor Glenn Youngkin ultimately beat the Democrat by 2 percent of the vote.
A postmortem of his campaign suggested McAuliffe overestimated his ability to tie Youngkin to Trump, who was then considered by Democrats to be a liability to Republicans, and suggested voters instead found Youngkin likable to the former governor.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Terry McAuliffe” by Terry McAuliffe.
