Roanoke College’s Institute for Policy and Opinion Research (IPOR) interviewed 678 adult Virginia residents between May 14 and May 23, 2023, in a survey that covered topics such as approval and ratings of favorability for Governor Glenn Youngkin and other political figures, the 2024 Republican presidential nomination field, a possible 2024 presidential election showdown, and attitudes related to national political anxiety. The poll has a margin of error of 4.43%.
Approval/favorability of political figures and leadership of Virginia and country
Governor Youngkin’s approval rating is down six points from February, with 51% of Virginians saying they approve of the way he is handling his job as governor (up from 57% in February). Youngkin’s favorability rating also dropped six points to 46% (from 52% in February). Significant partisan gaps in Youngkin’s approval and favorability continue from previous polls, with a 52-point gap in approval (34% Democrats, 86% Republicans) and a 54-point gap in favorability (27% of Democrats, 81% of Republicans). .
As for the Virginia General Assembly, 50% of Virginians approve of the way the legislature is doing its job (up from 48% in February), including a 10-point partisan gap in approval (58% Democrats, 48% Republicans). When asked if things in Virginia are going in the right direction or going in the wrong direction, 48% of Virginians say things are going in the right direction, down 7% from 55% in February. There is a modest 12-point partisan gap, with 47% of Democrats and 59% of Republicans thinking things in Virginia are moving in the right direction.
Nationally, President Biden’s approval and favorability ratings are up slightly to 42% (from 38% in February) and 43% (from 40% in February), respectively, although both changes are within the survey’s statistical margin of error. As for former President Trump, about six in 10 Virginians report an unfavorable view of him, up five points from February and the highest unfavorable rating in our poll since January 2016. From again, there are substantial partisan gaps in favorability ratings for both Biden. and Trump, which includes a gap of 73 points for Biden (80% of Democrats, 7% of Republicans) and 65 points for Trump (11% of Democrats, 76% of Republicans). As for the US Congress, Virginians’ approval rating is down about four points to 19% (from 23% in February and 27% in November). This is the lowest approval rating recorded by IPOR for Congress since August 2021. One in four Virginians believe things are moving in the right direction in the country, while seven in 10 believe things are they are going the wrong way, which has not changed statistically since the last survey. (27% and 69% in February, respectively). There is a 37-point partisan gap in Virginians’ belief that things in the country are going in the right direction (45% of Democrats, 8% of Republicans).
2024 GOP Presidential Nomination and Hypothetical General Election
The Roanoke College poll asked Virginians for their views on the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race, including who they would prefer to be the Republican nominee for president, as well as their second-choice preference. The poll provided a field of candidates including Trump, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, US Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina and former Vice President Mike Pence.
Among Republicans, the candidates they would most prefer to be the Republican presidential nominee are Trump (48%) and DeSantis (28%), with the rest of the candidates in single digits. Virginia Republicans’ preference for Trump as their first choice is up nine points from February (39%), while their first-choice preference for DeSantis remains unchanged at 28%. We also asked respondents what their second choice for the Republican nomination would be. Among Republicans, the second most popular choices are DeSantis (24%), Pence (20%), Trump (19%), Haley (11%) and Scott (10%), with the rest of the candidates again at one digits
The poll also asked Virginians who they would vote for if the presidential election were held today in a possible showdown between the two major candidates in both political parties: Biden and Trump. Biden currently has a 16-point lead over Trump at 54% to 38%, which is a significant change from our February poll that had Biden at 47% and Trump at 45%. The shift is due to a shift among independents, where Biden currently has a 21-point lead over Trump. By comparison, our February poll had Biden and Trump in a statistical tie among independents.
Political anxiety and attitudes about national government
Since 2016, IPOR has been tracking the national political sentiment of Virginians using an index of political anxiety, which is constructed from six questions that measure Virginians’ attitudes about (1) trust in the national government, (2) the ability of citizens to influence government, (3) whether their side has won more often than it has lost, (4) satisfaction with how the government is working, (5) whether the country’s best years are ahead or behind it, and (6) whether Americans are united or divided in confronting our greatest challenges. We last reported the results of the Political Anxiety Index in November 2022.
About 79 percent of Virginians say they trust Washington government to do the right thing only occasionally or never, which is statistically unchanged since November. A slight majority (52%) believe that ordinary citizens can do a lot to influence the federal government, down six points from November. The poll finds that six in 10 Virginians (61%) believe their party is losing more than winning in politics today. Less than half (41%) believe the country’s best years are ahead, while a majority (55%) believe its best years are past. That represents a nine-point change for both responses from our November survey, and is the highest percentage of Virginians reporting that the nation’s best years are behind them since IPOR began asking this question in 2016. Nearly seven in 10 (69%) Virginians are dissatisfied or angry with how the federal government is doing, which has not changed since November. A large majority of Virginians (84 percent) also continue to see the nation as divided on the important issues facing the country.
The IPOR Political Anxiety Index has a maximum possible value of 300 and a minimum possible value of -300, with higher values representing greater degrees of national political anxiety. The chart below shows trends in the Political Anxiety Index from 2017 to our current May 2023 survey, including the overall trend and the trend disaggregated by party affiliation. For additional differences between the parties to the six questions, see the selected crosstabs at the end of the topline document linked at the end of this release.
One of the consistent findings we reported earlier is that party differences in national political anxiety reflect party control of the White House. Put another way, Virginians tend to report higher levels of political anxiety when the current president is not aligned with their political party. Republicans (red line) currently report a higher degree of anxiety on our index at 154.5, which has remained relatively stable during the Biden administration. Democrats (blue line) report the lowest degree of anxiety at 2.2, representing a 38-point increase in anxiety among Democrats from our November survey. While overall national political anxiety (gray line) has remained relatively stable for most of the time IPOR has tracked the index, there has been a gradual increase of approximately 50 points since the beginning of 2021.
