Pollster · Academic

Virginia Commonwealth University L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs

Also published as Virginia Commonwealth University.

Research draft
Polls since 2024
10
Latest poll ended
October 14, 2025
Record vs. results, relative
R+0.6

Polls from the VoteHub polling API, used under CC BY 4.0. Each result links to the pollster's or sponsor's own release. Imported once a day; a poll VoteHub later changes keeps its earlier version on record here.

§1About

Drafted by AI from the public sources cited. Each sentence links to its source.

The L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond runs the Commonwealth Poll, a statewide survey of Virginians that the school says has been a bellwether for policymakers for nearly three decades.2,3 Its September 2025 release lists L. Douglas Wilder, a distinguished professor, and Robyn McDougle, associate dean of research and outreach, as contacts, and says the poll was sponsored by the university.2 The school says CNN selected the poll as an official 2020 presidential election poll.3,4

Kind
Academic2,3

§2Who it works with

Why this matters: Owners, news partners and the firms behind a poll's interviews shape what gets asked, how, and what gets published.

Part of

  • Virginia Commonwealth University. The Commonwealth Poll is run by the Wilder School, a school of Virginia Commonwealth University, which the September 2025 release names as the poll's sponsor.2,3

Fieldwork or panel by

  • Responsive Management (2025–now). The September 2025 release says Responsive Management conducted the poll's telephone interviews, with some cell phone respondents completing it online through a text message link.2

§3Whom it works for

Why this matters: A firm that also works for one party's campaigns can still publish accurate polls, but readers deserve to know.

Doesn’t say whom it works for. The Wilder School poll pages and the release read do not describe the poll as nonpartisan or say anything about work for candidates or parties.2,3

Of its 10 polls listed since the 2024 election, VoteHub flags 0 as paid for by a Democratic-aligned sponsor and 0 by a Republican-aligned sponsor5.

§4Record against results

Why this matters: The one test that doesn't depend on other polls: how close a firm's final polls came to what voters did.

From FiveThirtyEight's final public data6,7: general-election polls between a Democrat and a Republican in the last three weeks before each election, compared with the certified result. FiveThirtyEight rated each name polls were published under separately. Across all 8,957 such polls, the average miss was D+0.7, so the relative figure takes out the misses every pollster shared that year.

Error is the poll's D−R margin minus the result's; D+ means it showed Democrats doing better than they did.
Published asPollsElectionsAverage missRelative to other pollsTypical size of miss538's last rating
Virginia Commonwealth University L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs82000–2021D+0.3R+0.64.5 pts2.1 of 3

ABC News closed FiveThirtyEight in March 2025; its data stops at the 2022 elections. 2026 results will be added once states certify them.

§5Its polls

The 10 polls of its we list, newest first.
In the fieldQuestionResultWithPaid for bySample
October 6–October 14, 2025Attorney general · 2025 VirginiaJason Miyares 44 · Jay Jones 43842 A
October 6–October 14, 2025Attorney general · 2025 VirginiaJason Miyares 45 · Jay Jones 42784 A
October 6–October 14, 2025Governor · 2025 VirginiaAbigail Spanberger 49 · Winsome Earle-Sears 42784 RV
October 6–October 14, 2025Governor · 2025 VirginiaAbigail Spanberger 49 · Winsome Earle-Sears 41842 A
August 18–August 28, 2025Governor · 2025 VirginiaAbigail Spanberger 48.6 · Winsome Earle-Sears 40.3764 RV
August 18–August 28, 2025Governor · 2025 VirginiaAbigail Spanberger 48 · Winsome Earle-Sears 39804 A
August 18–August 28, 2025Attorney general · 2025 VirginiaJay Jones 46 · Jason Miyares 40764 RV
June 19–July 3, 2025Attorney general · 2025 VirginiaJay Jones 47 · Jason Miyares 38756 RV
June 19–July 3, 2025Governor · 2025 VirginiaAbigail Spanberger 48 · Winsome Earle-Sears 36764 RV
December 18–January 15, 2025Governor · 2025 VirginiaAbigail Spanberger 44 · Winsome Earle-Sears 34806 A

§6What we looked for and didn't find

  • No founding year was found; the September 2025 release says only that the poll has run for nearly three decades.
  • No named poll director was found on the pages read; the release lists contacts only.
  • The fieldwork vendor is confirmed only for 2025 waves; earlier waves and the July 2026 wave were not checked.
  • No standing news partner was found; the CNN selection in 2020 is not recorded as a media partnership.
  • Three of its sample releases are Google Drive files that were not read.