New Poll: Voters Prefer Spanberger For Virginia Governor On Transgender Issues By Wide Margin, Despite Anti-Trans Ads

The issue also ranked lowest among issues polled. The CNU poll is the second poll showing Spanberger pulling ahead.

Abigail Spanberger Campagin

In Virginia’s governor’s race, Republicans appear to be running the same playbook they’ve leaned on for years: using transgender people as political fodder. The contest between Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger and current Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears has been blanketed with anti-trans ads attacking Spanberger over her support for transgender students’ access to bathrooms and sports teams. But the strategy may finally be wearing thin. A poll last week showed Spanberger pulling ahead as voters dismissed transgender issues as a low priority. Now, a new survey of likely voters goes even further: not only are Earle-Sears’s attacks failing to land, but voters actually prefer Spanberger’s stance on transgender rights by a wide margin.

The poll, conducted by Christopher Newport University, shows Spanberger with a commanding +10 lead in the governor’s race—the strongest margin of any Democrat on the statewide ticket. When asked which candidate would better handle transgender issues, voters sided with Spanberger over Earle-Sears by a 50–37 margin, giving Spanberger a whopping +13 advantage. Just as telling, only 3% of Virginians listed transgender issues as a top priority—the lowest of any issue polled. Despite the wave of anti-transgender ads saturating the airwaves, the numbers suggest that Earle-Sears’s culture-war strategy simply isn’t resonating with voters.

CNU poll

The new survey is the second in two weeks to cast serious doubt on Earle-Sears’s strategy. A Hill/Emerson College poll last week showed Spanberger with a similar 10-point lead, and a striking 19-point advantage among independent voters. That earlier poll found that most Virginians are focused on the economy, while transgender issues ranked among the least important topics measured. Although it didn’t test which candidate voters trusted more on transgender issues, it revealed that Democrats were actually more likely than Republicans to say the issue mattered to them—suggesting not only that anti-trans messaging fails to mobilize voters, but that it may energize Spanberger’s base instead.

Earle-Sears has embraced the same playbook used by Trump and several Republican Senate candidates during the 2024 election cycle, leaning hard into anti-transgender advertising. In September alone, she reportedly spent more than $2 million on anti-trans ads—more than on any other issue in the race. The spots recycle familiar talking points, including the “Spanberger is for they/them” slogan that dominated Republican messaging two years ago. But this time, the attacks appear to be losing their sting. You can see one of the ads here:

Many conservative commentators and political analysts are beginning to turn on Earle-Sears’s campaign strategy. Former Republican Virginia Lt. Governor Bill Bolling vented his frustration in a Facebook post: “Winsome Earle-Sears is out with a new TV ad. Anyone want to guess what it’s about? You guessed it, another ad about transgender issues! Look, I don’t support biological males participating in girl’s sports, and I certainly don’t support letting biological males use girl’s restrooms or locker rooms, but is this the only issue the Sears campaign has to talk about?” Anonymous GOP strategists have echoed that sentiment in interviews with The Hill. “Some Republicans note that Earle-Sears’s strategy of focusing on trans issues may not be salient enough this cycle and may end up being insufficient,” the outlet reported, adding that one strategist contrasted her narrow messaging with Glenn Youngkin’s broader 2021 pitch to “make Virginia the best place to live, work and raise a family.”

All eyes are on Virginia, a purple state still shaped by the legacy of Glenn Youngkin, whose governorship has been defined by anti-trans policies and rhetoric. Youngkin’s rise was fueled by appeals to “parental rights” — a rallying cry that, in practice, meant the rights of parents who oppose transgender students’ existence and autonomy. His campaign helped ignite the modern wave of anti-trans panic that swept Republican politics nationwide. If Earle-Sears fails to win running the same playbook, it may signal something larger: that the politics of scapegoating transgender people are losing their grip on American voters.