Republicans are increasingly looking to Virginia as a state that is in play ahead of November, signaling yet another potential shift in the electoral map toward former President Trump.
A number of polls out this week show Trump and President Biden within 2 to 5 points of each other in the state, which has not gone Republican at the presidential level since 2004.
Despite recent Democratic victories in Virginia, Republicans say the lack of Democratic enthusiasm, coupled with newfound Republican unity, establishes the perfect conditions for a GOP victory in the commonwealth.
“It’s a toss-up in Virginia. Biden is at his low point and I don’t believe Trump has reached his high point yet,” said Zack Roday, a Virginia-based Republican strategist who formerly worked with Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s Spirit of Virginia PAC.
The polling continues a disastrous news cycle for Biden that began with his shaky debate performance against Trump last month. A growing list of Democratic donors and lawmakers has publicly called on Biden to drop out of the race. Major figures in the party, including former President Obama, are reportedly said to have grave concerns about Biden’s chances of winning nationally in November. Since the debate, Trump has improved his polling not only in key swing states, but in states once thought to be out of reach for Democrats at the presidential level, such as Virginia.
“He’s proven incapable of making up any ground, and so he may be in a spiral here that drives himself to a position where he really can’t recover,” Roday said.
Virginia has been a reliable state for Democrats at the presidential level over the past two decades. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton beat Trump in the state by just more than 5 points in 2016. Obama took the state by nearly 4 points in 2012 and by more than 6 points in 2008. In 2020, Biden exceeded those margins, defeating Trump by 10 points.
An Emerson College Polling/The Hill survey released Thursday showed Biden trailing Trump in Virginia, 45 percent to 43 percent, within the poll’s 3-point margin of error. Those results came on the heels of a Florida Atlantic University survey released Thursday showing Biden leading Trump, 47 percent to 42 percent. On Monday, a Virginia Commonwealth University poll found Trump leading Biden by 3 points, while a New York Times-Siena College poll showed Biden leading Trump by 3 points in the commonwealth.
The Emerson College/The Hill poll did have some good news for Democrats. The survey found Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine (Va.) leading his GOP challenger, Hung Cao, by 10 points — 49 percent to 39 percent. That is reflective of a broader trend across battleground states in which Democratic Senate incumbents have performed better than Biden.
But Democrats point to what they say is their campaign infrastructure advantage in Virginia, boasting the Biden campaign’s 12 offices with more than 50 staffers. On top of that, the Biden campaign has held 1,049 events since the beginning of the campaign.
“If you’re a football team trying to break a 10-game losing streak, you want to at least put 11 players on the field,“ said Jared Leopold, a Virginia-based Democratic strategist. “Republicans are trying to break a 10-election losing streak in Virginia, and they haven’t even opened a single field office yet.”
CBS News reported last month that the Trump campaign was in the process of securing leases for 11 campaign offices in Virginia, according to a memo obtained by the outlet.
Republicans acknowledge Democrats have a “sturdy” infrastructure in the state, but argue the same exists for the GOP as well.
“There’s lots of ways to do voter contact outside of brick-and-mortar offices and huge overhead, which I think the Trump campaign has been very wise and explicit about,” Roday said.
But Democrats have seen recent successes in Virginia, performing better than expected in the 2022 midterm elections and retaking control of the General Assembly.
“I don’t know if they’re paying attention, but we just won with an unprecedented governor who was supposed to be a moderate Republican,” Virginia House of Delegates Speaker Don Scott (D) said, referring to Youngkin. “We know how to win Virginia.”
Scott predicted Virginia would be “unusually competitive,” adding that it is still a blue state at the presidential level.
“It’s a very purple state when we start talking about the House of Delegates,” he said. “I don’t put too much stock into any one poll or any couple of polls this time of year.”
Democrats cite past election cycles showing tight polling in Virginia at this point in the campaign. A Quinnipiac University poll released in July 2012 showed Obama tied with then-Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney at 44 percent.
“It’s really easy to make assumptions in July that don’t look so good in November,” Leopold said. “Even two years ago, we saw that Republicans were predicting a red wave including in Virginia and it didn’t materialize in any way, shape or form.”
Democrats also point to what they say was Trump’s weakness in Virginia’s Republican primary March 12, where then-candidate Nikki Haley walked away with 244,527 votes six days after she dropped out of the race. While Haley and Trump’s contentious relationship has been evident this year, Haley delivered a strong endorsement of Trump at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday, urging the GOP to unite.
Flipping Virginia would be a monumental task for Republicans. In addition to winning the most competitive portions of the state, Trump would need to maximize turnout in the state’s rural regions and improve on past Republican performance in the Democratic stronghold of Northern Virginia. On top of that, Democrats have already proved in the past two cycles in Virginia to have successful messaging on issues.
But Republicans say the top of both parties’ tickets could change that.
“I believe that [with] the Glenn Youngkin-Donald Trump-JD Vance coalition here, you can max out your vote in the Republican terrain, compete in the battleground swing areas of Fredericksburg and the Tidewater, certainly Richmond suburbs and exurbs, and then the very, very far exurbs of Northern Virginia,” Roday said.
Trump’s postdebate rally was notably in Hampton Roads, one of the swingiest areas of the country. Youngkin’s team says the governor, who was at the rally with Trump, is encouraging him to continue to campaign throughout the commonwealth.
“Gov. Youngkin went everywhere and campaigned in every community and brought his message of common sense, conservative leadership and positive change to every community in Virginia,” said Justin Discigil, an aide for Youngkin’s political operation. “That’s how he won and that’s what he’s encouraging President Trump to do as well.”
Bring it on, Virginia Democrats are saying.
“I’m kind of happy,” Scott said. “I want them to spend all their time [in Virginia], I want Donald Trump to come to Virginia. I want them to spend their resources right here in Virginia, because they will lose Virginia.”
“The more time they spend in Virginia, the less time they’ll spend in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona, which are the states that I know we need to win,” he added.
Still, Republicans argue that the close poll numbers coming out of Virginia could spell bad news for Democrats in key battlegrounds.
“What [it] portends for the rest of the country, for the battlegrounds and the Rust Belt — it’s over,” Roday said. “I really wouldn’t be too tongue-in-cheek happy over there like they seem to be.”
Updated at 12:48 p.m.