Former President Donald Trump appears poised to invest heavily in Virginia in the 2024 election as new polling data suggests the Old Dominion could be competitive for Republicans for the first time in 20 years.
The state has not backed a Republican for president since George W. Bush in 2004 and trended increasingly Democratic over the years until GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s upset win in 2021 reignited Republican hopes in the commonwealth. The GOP struggled, however, in the 2023 legislative elections, with many analysts pinning the blame on the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which forced Republicans to play defense on the issue of abortion during that cycle. The party lost control of the House of Delegates and failed to seize control of the state Senate in those elections.
Trump’s own electoral performance in the state has not been exceptionally strong throughout his political career either. In the 2016 election, he lost Virginia to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who took 49.7% of the vote to his 44.4%. President Joe Biden’s margin of victory in 2020 nearly doubled that figure, with the current commander-in-chief claiming 54.1% of the vote to Trump’s 44.0%.
Current polling data, however, suggests that Trump could be poised to reverse the trend and potentially flip the state red in November. Biden currently boasts a slim 2.2% lead over Trump in the RealClearPolitics polling average, claiming 45.5% support to his Republican rival’s 43.3%. Notably, the average includes four polls, two of which featured survey periods from December and January.
