Black PAC just issued the findings of their latest poll, and the results aren’t precisely encouraging for embattled Democratic nominee Ralph Northam. From Politico:
OL’ VIRGINNY – Poll finds Northam needs to improve with voters of color: A survey released Thursday by BlackPAC and Brilliant Corners Research and Strategies found Democratic Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam was trailing Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s performance with voters of color in the state. Fifty-nine percent of voters of color backed Northam, and while just 15 percent backed Republican Ed Gillespie, another 15 percent were undecided. A polling memo warns that the Democratic ticket needs to do more to encourage black voters to turn out, and specifically notes black women are trailing in vote likelihood, although Latino voters indicated they are more likely to turn out. The poll also found a majority of voters of color feel under attack in 2017 and also believe voting in November can send a message.
If Gillespie is set to perform at 15% among black voters in Virginia? Even if the undecideds break 2:1 in favor of Northam, that means Gillespie will receive the largest share of the black vote since Governor Jim Gilmore’s stellar performance 15 years ago.
How bad is it? From the Black PAC presentation:
Currently, Northam at the top of the ticket is underperforming McAuliffe’s election day mark amongst African American voters. Fairfax and Herring are also under performing and are broadly still not well defined among the Old Dominion’s voters of color. Progressives will need to aggressively change the enthusiasm dynamic by better positioning and defining our statewide candidates around the issues and concerns most important to these voters or we will lose Virginia.
Education, law and order, and taking a firm stand against the Alt-Right all ranked highly in the survey.
The entire Black PAC survey presentation can be found by clicking here.