As a result of President Joe Biden’s continued polling woes, several states previously considered out of reach for former President Donald Trump may now be in play this November. One of the most intriguing is Virginia, where Governor Glenn Youngkin’s victory three years ago proved Republicans can still be competitive statewide.
According to recent internal polling released by the Trump campaign, Biden is leading Trump 40 percent to 37 percent in Virginia with third-party candidates included, and 48 percent to 44 percent in a two-way race. If those findings are accurate, it would mark a stunning turnaround for Trump after Biden carried the state 54.4 percent to 44.2 percent in 2020.
During an appearance on Fox News last week, Youngkin likewise asserted that Trump has a real opportunity to flip the state. “In 2021, Virginians made a decision for common-sense conservative leadership,” he said. “Virginians like it, and they see the economy that Donald Trump built in his previous presidency… they want more of it. They want leadership.”
Virginia was once a solidly Republican state, with the GOP presidential nominee winning there in every election but one between 1952 and 2004. But exploding growth in the suburbs outside of D.C. slowly began turning the state from red to purple.
In 2008, Barack Obama carried the state, ushering in a Democrat resurgence in the Old Dominion. He won there again in 2012, and Clinton and Biden expanded upon his margin of victory in 2016 and 2020, respectively.
Democrats simultaneously began wrestling control of the state government away from Republicans, in 2019 winning control of the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the legislature for the first time since 1991. The liberal party also won four out of five gubernatorial contests from 2001 to 2021, leading many pundits to believe that the state had become solidly Democrat and was set to only get bluer.
But that year, Youngkin, a former business executive, shocked many political insiders by becoming the first Republican elected statewide in Virginia since 2009, defeating former Governor Terry McAuliffe on a platform of lower taxes and opposition to left-wing ideology in education. Republicans Winsome Sears and Jason Miyares also won races for lieutenant governor and attorney general, respectively, and the GOP retook control of the House of Delegates.
Youngkin’s victory gave Republicans hope that the right political environment and candidate could still produce a GOP victory in Virginia. Since then, he has remained popular, with 53 percent of Virginians saying they approve of the job he is doing as governor in the latest Roanoke College poll.
Nonetheless, Democrats have re-asserted themselves in the state, winning back control of the House of Delegates and holding the senate in the state’s midterm elections last year. Since then, Youngkin has been locked in a number of high-profile battles with Democrat leaders, but has retained his positive image with the public.
The same Roanoke College poll also found Biden’s approval rating in Virginia to be a shocking 33 percent – down nine points from the previous May. Just 35 percent of respondents said they had a positive view of Biden, while 61 percent said they had a negative view of the president – up from 37 percent in the same poll back in 2020.
Notably, Biden still led Trump in the Roanoke College poll, 47 percent to 43 percent. Trump also had low positivity ratings – exactly matching Biden’s 35 percent.
But the fact remains that Biden is moving in the wrong direction in Virginia with less than six months to go until Election Day. Moreover, multiple polls have now found that Trump has good reason to believe he can compete in the Old Dominion.
If the Trump campaign does make a serious play for Virginia, Governor Youngkin will likely be instrumental in those efforts. His victory in 2021 and continued popularity means he could be an influential ambassador for the former president, helping rally support from Republicans and independents.
Trump will also likely have to follow Youngkin’s model of winning suburban voters in northern Virginia and around Richmond to win the state. These swing voters have inched leftward in recent decades but turned out for Youngkin in 2021.
The dynamics of the 2021 race present more reason for optimism in Trump’s camp. While Youngkin ran a strong campaign, a significant portion of the 2021 swing to Republicans in Virginia was undoubtedly due to backlash against Biden’s policies, as the Afghanistan debacle was still fresh in the minds of voters, along with sky-high gas prices, mounting inflation, and the border crisis.
Since then, all of those factors have only gotten worse, and Republicans have an even stronger argument to make with Biden actually on the ballot.
Even if Trump does not manage to secure a victory in Virginia this November, forcing Democrats to commit resources to a state Biden won by 10 points four years ago would still be a win for the former president in the broader landscape of the race. Every dollar Democrats feel compelled to spend in Virginia is another dollar they aren’t spending in true swing states like Pennsylvania and Nevada, where Biden is struggling mightily.
Shane Harris is a writer and political consultant from Southwest Ohio. You can follow him on X @shaneharris513.
