President Biden and former President Trump are tied in a head-to-head Virginia match-up, new polling shows.
A Roanoke College survey puts the pair of presidential hopefuls at 42 percent each in a one-on-one contest in the state, the first time the pollster has found Biden and Trump tied.
Biden is boosted to a 2-point lead over Trump — 40 percent to 38 percent — when other candidates are included, but that difference is within the poll’s margin of error.
Just 2 percent of likely voters in Old Dominion said they’re undecided at this point in the campaign, but 14 percent in a Biden-Trump match-up and 20 percent in a five-way race said they’ll vote for a candidate other than the two major party nominees.
“These results suggest that Virginia could be ‘in play’ in November,” said Dr. Harry Wilson, senior political analyst for IPOR and a professor emeritus at Roanoke College, “but five months is an eternity in politics.”
Trump has name-dropped Virginia as one of several traditionally blue states that he hopes to flip in the fall. His campaign senior adviser, Chris LaCivita, told NBC News earlier this month that Trump has “a real, real opportunity in expanding the map in Virginia and Minnesota.”
Biden beat Trump in Virginia by nearly half a million votes four years ago, and Hilary Clinton scored a five-point win over Trump in 2016.
Polling averages from Decision Desk HQ/The Hill now show Biden up just 1 point over the former president in the state.
“Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by ten points in 2020 in Virginia, and then Trump’s anti-abortion agenda cost Republicans the state legislature in 2023. Trump is toxic and has no campaign presence in Virginia, while the Biden campaign is working to win every vote across the commonwealth,” said President pro tempore of the Virginia Senate, Louise Lucas, in a statement. “He’s welcome to waste his time campaigning here.”
The Institute for Policy and Opinion Research at Roanoke College surveyed 711 likely Virginia voters May 12-21, and the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.24 percentage points.