RICHMOND – Two recent polls show President Biden and former President Donald Trump tied in Virginia, a surprising finding. for a blue-leaning state that Biden won by 10 points in 2020 and that independent analysts still see as a stretch for the presumptive Republican nominee.
Trump was deeply unpopular in Old Dominion while in the White House, allowing Democrats to score big victories in the state during those four years. But Biden’s popularity plummeted after winning the state.
A KeynoteUSA poll released Thursday puts Biden and Trump at 48 percent each, and a Roanoke College poll late last month put them both at 42 percent. While some independent analysts say they are having trouble squaring those polls with other surveys showing a tight race across the country, they see potential warning signs for Biden.
“I think it’s another sign that they have a lot of work ahead of them,” said Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia and self-described polling skeptic, referring to Biden’s national campaign. “Whether the figures are completely accurate or not, you get a general indication of what is happening. …Things are not going well for Joe Biden. “They just aren’t.”
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), appearing on KeynoteUSA Thursday, called the Fox poll “pretty surprising” given Biden’s 10-point win in 2020.
“Americans and Virginians are ready for strong leadership in the White House,” he said.
Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign, also celebrated the results.
“Joe Biden is so weak, and the Democrats are so disorganized, that not only does President Trump dominate in all the traditional battleground states, but long-Democratic states like Minnesota are now in play. Virginia and New Jersey,” he said in a text message to the Washington Post. “President Trump is on the offensive with a winning message and growing his movement every day. “Joe Biden’s campaign should be terrified.”
The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan watchdog, rates Virginia and New Jersey as “strongly Democratic” states in this year’s presidential election, and Minnesota as “likely Democratic.”
Virginia Democratic Party Chairwoman Susan Swecker expressed confidence in Biden’s ability to win the state and highlighted the campaign’s investments in Virginia, including six campaign offices across the state and more to come. So far, the Trump campaign has not announced any Virginia-based offices and did not respond to a question about whether he has opened any or plans to do so.
“I really don’t care what any poll says at any time,” Swecker said. “We know what our job is. We know what is at stake. And we’re just focused on that.”
Nathan L. Gonzales, editor and publisher of Inside Elections, said it’s difficult to understand how Biden could be tied with Trump in Virginia if polls also show him tied or just behind Trump nationally and in polls of battleground states in the battlefield. If the race is that close in Virginia, he said, he would expect Trump to take the race in the swing states.
“It’s difficult to align these Virginia results with what we’re seeing across the country,” he said. “It’s not impossible, but that would mean that the current battleground states are a lost cause for Biden and I think it’s too early to declare that.”
Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the University of Virginia Politics Center, said that if Virginia ends up participating, it will be because Trump is winning in a landslide.
“We wouldn’t be talking about Virginia as the state that decides the election,” he said. “It would be, ‘Hey, it’s 1980 again and Jimmy Carter is hitting rock bottom.'”
Trump has never enjoyed great popularity in the Commonwealth, where his “drain the swamp” mantra had an especially poor effect in the northern Virginia suburbs, where much of the federal workforce resides. He lost the state by more than 5 points to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and did not seriously campaign in the state in 2020. His only campaign appearance in 2020 was aimed at the North Carolina media market.
While Trump was in office, anti-Trump sentiment allowed Democrats to gain full control of state government in 2019 for the first time in a generation.
Virginia returned to its more typical purple tendencies a year after Biden became president, helping Youngkin narrowly win the Executive Mansion in 2021. But Youngkin did so by walking a tightrope with Trump, leaning into some themes of MAGA “culture war,” but with a softer approach. style that helped him sell himself as a moderate or undecided voter.
“I think 2021 definitely reminded us that while the state is definitely blue, it is not a Democratic stronghold,” said Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report. “And when I think about where we are politically today and compare it to how things were in 2021, it feels very familiar.”
Walter recalled that by then Biden’s numbers had fallen and that there had been “a real lack of enthusiasm among voters in the Democratic base” for Youngkin’s rival, former Governor Terry McAuliffe.
“The big difference, of course, is that Donald Trump is not Glenn Youngkin and his ability to improve his numbers in some of these suburban areas is going to be very, very difficult,” he said. “It’s really more about whether those people stay home, and I suspect they won’t once we get to the fall.”
Trump has solidified his support among Republicans since 2016, when he won the state’s crowded primary with less than 35 percent of the vote. He won 63 percent of the primary vote this year, although nearly 245,000 voters cast ballots in the March 5 race for former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, who dropped her candidacy the next day.
“Trump has a Republican problem in Virginia,” said state Sen. L. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth), a prominent lawmaker. “Where do you think those people are going?”
Scott Clement contributed to this report.
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