Virginia Dem Susanna Gibson down big in new poll after sex video scandal
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A Democratic candidate for the Virginia legislature who was caught performing sex acts with her husband for “tips” during online webcam shows is down more than 10 percentage points among likely voters in her district, according to a poll conducted after the scandal surfaced.
Susanna Gibson, who is running to represent the 57th District in the Old Dominion’s House of Delegates, trails Republican David Owen by 49.5% to 38.9%, a Cygnal poll exclusively obtained by The Post shows.
Owen, a businessman, held a 4% lead among those voters when Cygnal conducted a previous survey of the race in August — before the Washington Post broke the news of Gibson’s online sex shows.
Since then, Gibson’s unfavorability rating has increased from 12.5% to 45.2% among likely district voters. Meanwhile, her favorability rating has declined from 28.1% to 27.3% between August and September.
The poll also found “more than 80% of voters have already heard about Susanna Gibson’s online business and behaviors.”
The Gibson campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“It’s no surprise that Ms. Gibson’s polling poorly,” Aaron Evans, a spokesman for Owen’s campaign, told The Post. “David Owen is remaining focused on his common-sense agenda of renewing the economy, lowering crime, and improving our schools for the future of Virginia families.”
The 57th District, which covers an area northwest of Richmond, is one of several competitive races in Virginia as Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin looks to gain a majority in both houses.
The 57th backed Youngkin in 2021 by 51.2% to 48.3% — but flipped blue in the 2022 midterm elections, with 50.1% voting Democratic and 49.1% voting Republican.
The GOP currently holds a narrow three-vote majority in the House of Delegates, 49 to 46. All 100 seats will be up for election, and five are vacant.
Democrats hold a four-vote majority in the state Senate, 22 to 18, with no vacancies.
The Cygnal poll was commissioned by Virginia Speaker of the House Todd Gilbert’s Republican Commonwealth Leadership PAC, which also commissioned 57th District polls in August and May, campaign filings show.
Gibson, 40, streamed more than a dozen live romps with her husband to 5,770 followers on the adult website Chaturbate — using an account which she maintained even after declaring her candidacy in July 2022, according to archived screenshots reviewed by The Post.
She last updated a picture to her profile — with the user name HotWifeExperience — on Sept. 5, 2022, but it has since been taken down.
By day a nurse practitioner, Gibson moonlighted as an adult performer who pressed her online audience for more “tokens” in exchange for certain sex acts in “private” showings, saying she was “raising money for a good cause.”
Her husband, John David Gibson, who is a lawyer and echoed her request for tips in at least one of the videos, contributed $5,000 to her campaign, according to Virginia campaign finance filings.
In a statement following reports of her sex-cursions, the Democratic candidate decried her political opponents for engaging in “the worst gutter politics” and calling the proliferation of the videos “an illegal invasion of my privacy designed to humiliate me.”
“My political opponents and their Republican allies have proven they’re willing to commit a sex crime to attack me and my family because there’s no line they won’t cross to silence women when they speak up,” Gibson told CNN in a statement.
“There’s too much at stake in this election and I’ll never stop fighting for our community.”
Gibson’s attorney, Daniel Watkins, previously told The Post that circulation of the videos violated Virginia’s revenge porn law, which makes it a crime to “maliciously” disseminate or sell nude or sexual images of another person with the intent to “coerce, harass, or intimidate.”
“We are working directly with federal and local law enforcement to hold the wrongdoers accountable and to protect Mrs. Gibson’s rights as the victim of a crime,” said Watkins, the founder of Meier Watkins Phillips Pusch LLP.
The Cygnal poll showed 65% of likely general election voters in Gibson’s district don’t believe a “candidate for public office who posts publicly available videos online should be allowed to claim they should have privacy.”
Gibson previously showcased endorsements on her campaign website from Democratic former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, US Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) and Virginia Democratic Senate President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas.
But all of her endorsements have been scrubbed since her online activity became public, according to an archived webpage.
Lucas, without evidence, blamed “Glenn Youngkin’s team” when the scandal surfaced on Sept. 11 for having “leaked videos” of Gibson “to try to embarrass and humiliate her,” before pivoting to ask Democrats for contributions.
“Now we are going to make this the biggest fundraising day of her campaign,” Lucas posted on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, sharing a link to Gibson’s donation webpage.
Gibson has raised $972,197 for her campaign and as of Aug. 31 held $467,747 cash on hand — nearly $600,000 of which she got in July and August before her scandal broke, according to the Washington Examiner.
Owen has raised $527,908 for his campaign and as of Aug. 31 had $247,924 cash on hand.
The Cygnal poll surveyed 325 likely voters in the 57th District between Sept. 19 and 21, with a margin of error of plus or minus 5.4%.
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