And CBS News doesn’t appear too happy about it, either. Their report leans heavily into “dog whistles” and the declaration that CRT doesn’t get taught in Virginia, but voters aren’t buying that in the commonwealth:

New polling shows Republican Glenn Youngkin pulling slightly ahead of Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the race for Virginia's governor — a key race for Biden and Washington Democrats. pic.twitter.com/27V5QVJRqp

— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) November 1, 2021

We’ll put that nonsense aside for a moment to take a look at the other potential nonsense — the polling. RCP’s new averaging in the gubernatorial race rests mainly on two new-ish polls that aggregated in from the weekend, both from Fox. Friday evening, the national Fox News organization released its poll from Virginia, which showed Youngkin up by a literally unbelievable eight points:

Republican Glenn Youngkin has moved ahead of Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia governor’s race, less than a week before the election.

McAuliffe receives 45 percent to Youngkin’s 53 percent in a new Fox News survey of Virginia likely voters. Youngkin’s eight-point advantage is outside the poll’s margin of sampling error.

That’s a big shift from two weeks ago, when McAuliffe was ahead by five, 51-46 percent.

That’s not a “big shift.” It’s a ginormous leap of thirteen points in the gap in a mere fourteen days. How did that happen? It would be difficult to imagine a Democratic nominee in a blue state like Virginia losing thirteen points in two weeks even if he’d dropped trou on national television and exposed his genitalia. This looks even more suspicious:

That’s one hell of a likely-voter screen Fox employs here. It’s possible that Youngkin scores five points better in a blue state among likely voters and that Terry McAuliffe does two points worse, but … I certainly wouldn’t bet that way. The best and most reliable news from this poll is that Youngkin has a lead among RVs too, or at least an edge. That in itself is pretty remarkable in a state that Joe Biden just won by ten points one year ago.

Fox’s DC affiliate has a more believable poll result. Partnering with Insider Advantage, their survey shows Youngkin edging McAuliffe by two, and that the trendline is breaking in Youngkin’s favor:

In an exclusive new FOX 5 poll, Republican Glenn Youngkin has a two-point advantage over Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia’s gubernatorial race.

The Insider Advantage poll shows Youngkin at 47% with McAuliffe at 45%. Princess Blandin has 2% of the vote with 6% undecided and with a 4.4% margin of error.

Matt Towery also scoffs at the FNC poll result, saying that this won’t be an eight-point race. Towery also acknowledges that these results fall squarely in the middle of the margin of error, so it’s tough to say which candidate is ahead — at least on that basis. However, Towery tells Fox 5 that he wanted to look for momentum among voters and a sense of the turnout that will materialize on Election Day. That momentum is going to Youngkin, Towery feels, at least in some measure.

Can Youngkin really cross the finish line ahead of McAuliffe in a state that went Biden +10 a year ago, though? McAuliffe and CBS seem to think so, and McAuliffe’s desperation tactics more or less confirm that he’s seeing the same dynamic as Towery. The question will be whether it came too late. Virginia voters have been casting ballots for over six weeks, so late-breaking momentum might need to be in the +8 range for Youngkin to overcome any significant lead McAuliffe has built up already.

Let’s put it this way — Youngkin shouldn’t even be in sight of the finish line under normal circumstances. At this point, nothing should surprise us.