Virginia Election Eve Poll: GOP’s Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric Backfired

Nov 8, 2017
4:23 PM

An Election Eve poll about the Virginia race from Latino Decisions, CASA in Action, NextGen America, and America’s Voice reported that an “over-reliance on anti-immigrant race-baiting” from Republican candidate Ed Gillespie failed with voters of color. Gillespie loss the governor’s race by nine percentage points to Democrat Ralph Northam.

Other takeaways from the poll included the following:

  • “Voters were aware the campaign had become heavily racialized and moved from Gillespie, towards Northam.”
  • “In the final three weeks, there was a significant increase in outreach with communities of color.”
  • “Among people who reported seeing ads or discussions of Gillespie as anti-immigrant, there was an overwhelming vote in favor of Northam.”
  • “Virginians are pro-immigration and support welcoming policy towards immigrants.”

You can access the poll’s toplines here or check the the following deck for other conclusions.