Former President Trump is stepping up his efforts in Virginia, a sign that Republicans view the state as winnable in November.
As President Biden headed to battleground North Carolina to hold his post-debate rally, traveled to Chesapeake, Virginia.to share the stage for the first time with Governor Glenn Youngkin (R).
The governor avoided running with Trump in his 2021 campaign because of the political implications. However, recent polls show that the Old Dominion could be a favorable environment for Republicans in the 2024 campaign, despite recent Democratic victories.
“We are not talking about Florida and Texas or other peripheral states that the left would like to target, but about a state that Biden carries with 10.2 [points]”said Zack Roday, a Virginia-based Republican strategist who formerly worked with Youngkin’s Spirit of Virginia PAC.
“Virginia could still be under severe pressure, but that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been a significant turnaround in the polls,” he continued.
Recent polls suggest the president could be neck and neck with five months to go before Election Day. A Roanoke College poll released in May found Trump and Biden tied at 42 percent in the state, with a margin of error of 4.2 percent. Other polls showed Biden with a tiny lead over Trump. The Hill’s Decision Desk HQ polling average shows Trump just under 0.2 percent ahead of Biden.
The Republican enthusiasm in Virginia is being fueled by Thursday night’s debate. While Trump was criticized for spreading falsehoods during the forum, coverage of the debate was dominated by what Democrats and Republicans called a disastrous performance by Biden. Biden’s voice sounded hoarse and frail on stage, and at times he seemed to struggle to form coherent sentences.
“If it’s still Biden versus Trump after last night’s events, then Virginia is in play,” said Tucker Martin, a Virginia-based GOP strategist and former communications director for former Gov. Bob McDonnell (R).
“You have to remember that the average voter probably saw the first 20 minutes of it and then turned it off,” he added. “That’s most of what they’re going to pour into this campaign, maybe until after Labor Day. How do you get over a performance like that? I don’t know.”
Trump took the stage in Virginia on Friday afternoon and wasted no time in attacking Biden for his performance in the debate.
“He studied so hard he didn’t know what the hell he was doing,” Trump joked to a crowd of his supporters. “He got the rules he wanted, he got the date he wanted, he got the network he wanted with the moderators he wanted. No amount of calm and no amount of manipulation helped.”
While Biden’s supporters argue that his performance at the debate was not perfect and that he got off to a snail-paced start, they say the debate does not change the momentous decision between Trump and Biden.
“Virginia has been a wall to Trump’s MAGA policies,” Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly said in a statement. “We know democracy is at stake, and the choice between President Biden and the twice-impeached, convicted felon couldn’t be clearer. We are not tired of winning, and we will not reverse the progress Democrats have made. We will win Virginia.”
The Biden team also rejected the idea that the state was at stake for the Republicans.
“If Trump wants to spend his time and money campaigning in Democratic states, go ahead,” a Biden campaign spokesman said.
The Biden team sought to capitalize on Trump’s Chesapeake Bay rally in the Hampton Roads area by focusing on the region’s huge military population. The team focused on comments Trump allegedly made about deceased U.S. soldiers, comments that Biden also seized on during the debate.
“Today, Donald Trump thinks he can travel to Virginia, home to over half a million former and active military personnel and their families, after calling veterans ‘suckers’ and ‘losers,'” VoteVets senior adviser and retired Major General Paul D. Eaton said in a statement from the Biden campaign.
Trump denied ever making those remarks during Thursday’s debate.
In Virginia, Republicans still face an uphill battle. Biden defeated Trump in Virginia by 10 points in 2020, and former President George W. Bush was the last Republican to win the state in 2004. In addition, Democrats have won numerous lower-ballot victories in the 2022 midterm elections and the 2023 state legislative elections.
For the state to become fertile ground for the former president’s campaign, several factors would have to come into play. Trump would have to significantly augment his vote in the deep-red, rural parts of the state that voted for Youngkin in 2021. In addition, he would have to win over swing voters from the suburbs in the greater Hampton Roads and Richmond areas. The densely populated Democratic stronghold of Northern Virginia could prove the former president’s biggest obstacle. Republicans say Democratic turnout and enthusiasm would have to decline and Trump would have to poach voters from the region’s suburbs.
“If Trump wins Virginia, it’s going to look very different than it did in 2021,” Martin said. “The turnout is just so different, so much higher, because the electorate is just so much bigger and people tend to go back to their camps, so it’s not going to be a landslide.”
“I just think that because of Biden’s performance last night, a lot of voters who fell into the ‘I don’t like either of them’ category were probably pushed into the Trump camp,” he said.
Republican strategist Ford O’Connell noted that Trump’s presence in Virginia on Friday was also a sign of strength because it showed that “the map is expanding.”
“This suits Trump just fine because he doesn’t want to let up,” O’Connell said. “As long as the map expands, you’re in a great position to win the election in November.”
Democrats say the map is expanding for them, pointing to their recent focus on North Carolina. Raleigh was the site of Biden’s first post-debate rally on Friday.
But Republicans are painting a picture that only heightens the urgency.
“The question on many voters’ minds is not whether Biden can stay in office for another four years, but whether he can stay in office for another four months,” O’Connell said.
