The 2021 polls all show the race essentially tied. What’s interesting is that the shifts they show among White and Black voters do not explain why the race is so close. Youngkin’s 16.4 percent advantage with White voters is not much more than Gillespie’s 15 points. And given that White and Black voters have not changed much in terms of the share of likely voters, McAuliffe should be well ahead of Youngkin, even if his margin is tighter than Northam’s.

The fact that this is not the case means other forces must be at play: Hispanics, Asians and other non-White voters must have shifted dramatically toward the GOP since 2017. These are smaller, but still significant, demographics in the state. Most of the polls don’t report these subgroups separately because they are too small to be individually reliable. But those who do support this conclusion. Emerson College’s poll, for example, shows Youngkin and McAuliffe running almost even among Hispanics.

This would be consistent with the election’s overall narrative. Asian people make up 20 percent of voters in Loudoun County, the epicenter of the debate over critical race theory, which has come to define the contest. Hispanic and Asian people make up large segments of other Northern Virginia communities that are also experiencing debates over school safety and parental involvement in their children’s education. Polls increasingly show education to be a winning issue for Youngkin, so it makes sense that he would make significant gains among the voters directly affected by the issue.