Roanoke College Poll: Virginians have mixed opinions on direction of Virginia and the nation

 
Virginians have mixed opinions on direction of Virginia and nation; Virginians skeptical about expected impact of legislative elections on state government; Political anxiety up overall. 
 
The Institute for Policy and Opinion Research (IPOR) at Roanoke College interviewed 686 adult residents of Virginia between Nov. 12 and Nov. 20, 2023, in a survey of public attitudes related to national political anxiety, satisfaction with democracy and trust in governmental institutions. The survey has a margin of error of 4.31%. 
 
Approval, Favorability, and Directions of Virginia and Nation 
 
Virginians’ approval of Gov. Glenn Youngkin and President Joe Biden remains approximately the same as our most recent polls in August and May, with 52% of Virginians approving of the way Youngkin is handling his job as governor and 37% approving of the way Biden is handling his job as president. Biden’s approval rating is down a few points since August, but it is within the poll’s margin of error. The percentage of Virginians who believe things are generally on the wrong track in Virginia and the nation remains stable from our last poll, with 43% reporting that things are on the wrong track in Virginia and 74% reporting that things are on the wrong track in the nation. As for the legislatures at the national and state levels, 14% of Virginians approve of the way Congress is handling its job and 45% approve of the way the Virginia General Assembly is handling its job. The approval rating for the General Assembly has dropped about five points since May of this year. Finally, approximately 63% of Virginians say they at least somewhat closely followed the General Assembly elections held earlier this month, though only about a third (32%) of Virginians think the results of the elections will make a difference in getting things done in Richmond. 
 
Virginians’ favorability ratings for key political figures such as Youngkin, Biden and former President Donald Trump also remain somewhat stable from the last Roanoke College poll. Approximately 50% of Virginians report a favorable impression of Youngkin, while 39% report an unfavorable impression. At the national level, 39% of Virginians report a favorable impression of Biden, which is a four-point drop from our last poll in August. About a third (33%) of Virginians report a favorable view of Trump. We also asked Virginians about their impressions of the U.S. Supreme Court, with 42% reporting a favorable view of the court. 
 
As we have reported before, there are substantial partisan gaps in Virginians’ attitudes, including 51- and 54-point gaps in Youngkin’s approval and favorability ratings, 67- and 74-point gaps in Biden’s approval and favorability ratings, and a 64-point gap in Trump’s favorability rating. These gaps also appear in Virginians’ attitudes about the direction of the nation (35-point gap) and favorability rating of the U.S. Supreme Court (28-point gap).    
 
2024 Republican Nomination and Potential General Election Matchup 
 
The Roanoke College Poll continued measuring Virginians’ opinions about the current race for the Republican presidential nomination , including who they would most prefer to be the Republican candidate for president in 2024. With former Vice President Mike Pence suspending his presidential campaign earlier this fall, we provided survey respondents with an updated field of candidates based on recent national polling, including Trump, Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy and Tim Scott. Although he has still not entered the race, we also included Youngkin in the list of candidates. 
 
Trump maintains a commanding lead of 51% as the first choice among self-reported Virginia Republicans, followed by DeSantis at 14%, Haley at 10%, Youngkin at 10% and the rest of the candidates in single digits. While Trump’s level of support increased about four points from our last poll in August, Haley has seen the most significant shift in support since the August poll (+8% as a first-choice candidate). We also asked Virginians to report their second-choice candidate for the Republican nomination, where the results showed a more competitive field. Approximately 26% of Republicans reported DeSantis as their second choice, followed by Youngkin (19%), Haley (17%), Trump (15%), Ramaswamy (10%), Scott (3%) and Christie (3%). 
 
Looking ahead to the 2024 presidential election, we asked Virginians who they would vote for in a hypothetical matchup between the two parties’ leading candidates. Biden leads Trump by about four points at 48% to 44%, which is a continued drop from his 9- and 16-point leads we reported in our August and May polls, respectively. Looking at a breakdown by party identification, while both Biden and Trump have solidified support among Democrats and Republicans, respectively, our poll finds that Biden no longer has an advantage among independents. Biden and Trump are currently splitting independents at 46% each. We also asked Virginians whether they would consider voting for an independent presidential candidate if Biden and Trump are the party nominees in 2024. Approximately 45% of Virginians said they would consider an independent candidate, while 53% said they would not. Looking at the results by party identification, 56% of independents said they would consider voting for an independent presidential candidate. 
 
Issues in Virginia and Nation 
 
The Roanoke College Poll again asked Virginians what they feel is the most important issue facing Virginia today. A plurality (42%) of Virginians cited the economy, jobs or inflation as the most important issue in the commonwealth, though the percentage citing inflation has dropped about seven points from December 2022. (Note: full report on Virginia Consumer Sentiment expected next week.) The percentage citing abortion as the most important issue is up six points from our February poll earlier this year (11% now, 5% in February). Issues related to crime (11%) and education (12%) were also cited by about one in 10 Virginians as the most important issues facing Virginia. The percentage of Virginians who think other issues are most important remained relatively constant at 5% for climate change, 4% for immigration and 3% for voting/elections. There were no respondents who cited COVID-19 as the most important issue facing Virginia, which continued a downward trend over the past few years. 
 
We also asked Virginians for their opinions on a range of public policy issues, such as the issue of abortion. Approximately 89% of Virginians think abortion should be legal in at least some cases. Since the last time we measured this in August of this year, the percentage who think it should be illegal in all cases is down four points and the percentage who think it should be legal in some cases is up five points.  
 
Political Anxiety 
 
Since 2016, IPOR has been tracking Virginians’ national political sentiment using an index of political anxiety, which is constructed using six questions that measure Virginians’ attitudes about (1) trust in the national government, (2) citizens’ ability to influence government, (3) whether their side has been winning more often than losing, (4) satisfaction with how government is working, (5) whether the country’s best years are ahead or behind, and (6) whether Americans are united or divided in facing our most important challenges. We last reported results of the political anxiety index in our May poll.  

IPOR’s Political Anxiety Index has a maximum possible value of 300 and minimum possible value of -300, with higher values representing greater degrees of national political anxiety. The graph below displays trends in the Political Anxiety Index from 2017 through our current November 2023 poll, including the overall trend and the trend disaggregated by party affiliation. For additional party differences on the six questions, see the selected crosstabs at the end of the topline document linked at the end of this release.  
 
As reported previously, party differences in national political anxiety often reflect party control of the White House. In other words, 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 in our index, which has remained relatively stable during the Biden administration. Democrats (blue line) currently report a lower degree of anxiety, but with an approximately 80-point increase since our November 2022 poll. While overall national political anxiety (grey line) has remained relatively stable for most of the time IPOR has tracked the index, there has been a gradual increase of approximately 80 points since early 2021.   

 
Satisfaction with Democracy, Trust in Institutions and the Election Campaign 
 
IPOR is partnering with Dr. Matthew Bergman, formerly of the University of Vienna and joining Corvinus University as assistant professor, to measure the public’s satisfaction with democracy, trust in governmental institutions and attitudes about campaign messaging.  
 
On a 10-point scale, Virginians were overall more satisfied with how democracy works within the state (6.3) and their city or counties (6.4) than in the nation overall (5.1). There were notable party differences between these. On all three measures, Virginia Democrats had notably greater satisfaction than Virginia Republicans, with independents in the middle. At the national level, this difference was most stark, with Democrats having 0.9 greater satisfaction than Republicans. This drops to 0.4 greater at the local level. While back in August, Democrats were only 0.2 more satisfied at the state level, they now are 0.7 more satisfied, likely the result of the legislative elections going in their favor.  
 
Regionally, those living in Southwest and Central Virginia are the least satisfied with the way the democracy works at the country level while those in Northern Virginia and Southside are the most satisfied. At the state level, Tidewater is the most satisfied while Southwest Virginia and Southside are least satisfied. Such differences suggest that the underlying dynamics of the public’s satisfaction with democracy differ when they are asked about their national- versus state-level satisfaction. 
 
After the elections, we also asked Virginians if they have noticed any advertisements related to political campaigns. Approximately 74% or our respondents, up from 55% in August, recalled seeing some sort of campaign advertisement. Of these, only 19% recall seeing a positive advertisement while 65% recall seeing one that was negative, which is up from 50% in August. Approximately 5% thought that the ad has both positive and negative aspects. Respondents were also asked the topics that were covered in the advertisement, including 53% who said that the topic was related to a candidate’s competence or character and 37% who said that the focus was on an issue or specific policy. The ads were moderately memorable such that 51% of respondents were able to recall information contained in the ad (up from 44% in August), with many respondents reporting how they did not appreciate the attacks contained therein and that the topic of abortion seemed to be the most pressing, followed by crime and parents’ rights. 

Analysis  
 
“Virginians’ attitudes about the direction of Virginia and the country remain mixed, yet stable,” said Bryan Parsons, senior political analyst at IPOR. “This is also true in their approval and favorability ratings for political figures like Youngkin, Biden and Trump. With that said, partisanship continues to shape the way Virginians evaluate key political figures and events.” 
 
“As far as the Republican presidential nomination process goes, Trump maintains a commanding lead over the rest of the Republican field. While the Republican presidential field is heating up with numerous debates, as well as some candidates — like Nikki Haley — seeing a modest rise in support in our poll, these dynamics do not seem to be affecting the most constant feature of the Republican nomination race so far; that is, Trump continues to be widely popular within the party and remains the favorite for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.” 
 
“The takeaway from this poll is that partisanship continues to shape Virginians’ views on everything from the direction of Virginia and the country to positions on key issues in public policy. There are substantial partisan differences in national political anxiety, but the common thread is that national political anxiety has seen a modest increase over the past year or so. Our poll results add to the evidence of the depths of polarization in American politics.” 
 
“While the national values on satisfaction with democracy are similar to our results in August, the state and city/county values increased slightly. This is consistent with our understanding of the impact of elections on satisfaction with democracy. The state and local elections remind citizens of the democratic process and their ability to keep politicians that they like and replace those they do not,” explained Matthew Bergman. 
 
Methodology  
 
Interviewing for the Roanoke College Poll was conducted by The Institute for Policy and Opinion Research at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia, between Nov. 12 and Nov. 20, 2023. A total of 686 completed interviews came from random telephone calls to 407 Virginians, and 279 responses were drawn from a proprietary online panel of Virginians. Telephone interviews were conducted in English. Cellphones constituted 64% of the completed phone interviews. Marketing Systems Group provided the telephone dialing frame, and Lucid, LLC facilitated the online panel.  
 
Questions answered by the sample of 686 respondents are subject to a sampling error of plus or minus approximately 4.31% at the 95% confidence level. This means that in 95 out of 100 samples like the one used here, the results should be at most 4.31 percentage points above or below the figure obtained by interviewing all Virginians with a home telephone or a cellphone. Where the results of subgroups are reported, the sampling error is higher.  
 
Quotas were used to ensure that different regions of the commonwealth were proportionately represented. The data were statistically weighted for gender, race and age. Weighting was done to match Virginia data in the 2021 one-year American Community Survey (ACS). The design effect was 1.327; the reported margin of error above reflects this design effect.  
 
A copy of the questions and all toplines may be found here. 
 
More information about the Roanoke College Poll may be obtained by contacting Bryan Parsons at parsons@roanoke.edu or 540-375-4967, or the Roanoke College Public Relations Office at 540-375-2282 or rcnews@roanoke.edu.  roanoke.edu/IPOR  
 
More information about the satisfaction with democracy, trust in institutions, and campaign advertisement questions and results may be obtained by contacting Matthew Bergman at matthew.bergman@univie.ac.at.