Democrats and analysts say Virginia is not a battleground, Trump's campaign soldiers on

RICHMOND, Virginia - Virginia is trapped in a political no-man's land as the 2024 presidential election enters the home stretch - with its status still very much uncertain as to whether it is anywhere close to being a swing state.

Former President Donald Trump would like the commonwealth to be contested, and his campaign insists it still has a chance this November at winning its prized 13 Electoral College votes.

But try telling that to Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats who insist a state that flipped from red to blue in 2008 will be anything but blue again on Election Day.

Trump's team has its reasons to be optimistic - or at least reasons to suggest it should be in Virginia. In the last statewide election voters picked Republican Glenn Youngkin, a relative new-comer to politics, as their governor over a popular Democrat with deep roots in the party.

And, the Trump campaign got a much more recent boost on Tuesday when Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s campaign successfully removed his name from the state's 2024 ballot. The now-former independent presidential candidate was seen as someone who could have otherwise siphoned votes away from Trump but who now is actively campaigning on behalf of the former Republican president.

“We’re not taking anything for granted and Vice President Harris has made clear that she’s running as the underdog,” Rep. Jennifer McClellan, D-Virginia, said at a campaign event for Harris on Thursday in Ettrick, though she did not weigh on whether Virginia is a battleground. “The only poll that really matters is on Election Day, and we need to make sure people know to come out to vote.”

Ultimately, though, Democrats say that Republicans are fighting an uphill battle in the commonwealth given recent presidential election history. Before President Barack Obama in 2008, Virginia hadn't voted blue since President Lyndon B. Johnson in his 1964 landslide victory over Barry Goldwater. Since 2008, the state has gone to the Democratic presidential candidate in every general election.

Virginia’s southern neighbor, North Carolina, however, has seen a resurgence as a clear battleground in recent weeks, with Harris leading Trump in a state that he won in 2020 and 2016.

Trump camp asserts Virginia’s 'battleground' status despite reporting

On Thursday, Axios reported that the Trump campaign may not view Virginia as winnable, citing a lack of campaigning by the former president or his running mate in the commonwealth in the last six weeks, as well as polling that shows Harris pulling ahead, albeit slightly.

Jeff Ryer, spokesperson for the Trump campaign in Virginia, pushed back against the reporting in a text message. And, he argued, recent visits of Harris’ surrogates to the commonwealth are proof that the Democratic Party sees Virginia as a battleground as well.

“In just the last week, Tim Walz, Gwen Walz, and Doug Emhoff have campaigned in Virginia. I don’t think they were making barbecue runs,” Ryer said, and pointed to the fact that the Kennedy campaign removed their candidate's name from the ballot. "He said he would remove himself from the ballot in battleground states and Virginia is a battleground state."

Other Republicans, including the Virginia party chair, Rich Anderson, and Republican candidates up and down the ballot in the state have asserted that the commonwealth is a "battleground state."

Experts argue, however, that Virginia may have been a "battleground" prior to President Joe Biden’s decision to step aside and clear the field for Harris as the Democratic nominee in July.

Democrats, political scientists don’t believe Virginia is a “battleground”

J. Miles Coleman, editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, said the commonwealth was leaning more toward battleground status before Biden stepped aside as the Democratic candidate. Sabato’s Crystal Ball is a newsletter from the University of Virginia Center for Politics that focuses on American campaigns and elections.

The Crystal Ball has maintained a “likely Democrat” victory in Virginia in its presidential prediction model. The Cook Political Report and Inside Elections - both non-partisan outlets for political analysis - have Virginia listed as "likely Democrat" in the presidential race in their prediction models as well.

“I’m kind of skeptical,” Coleman said, of Virginia being a “legit battleground state.”

He cited a dearth of Virginia-specific polling and said it could suggest that neither side is interested in the commonwealth, compared to other battleground states like Wisconsin or Michigan which seem to have a new poll released every week.

The first Virginia-specific poll since Harris stepped into the top of the ticket was released in mid-August. It showed the Democratic nominee with a slim 3% lead over Trump. That August margin was an improvement for Democrats over a May poll conducted by Roanoke College which showed Biden and Trump in a dead heat. That poll, along with Youngkin’s 2021 victory over former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, led the Trump campaign and Republicans to claim a tenuous battleground status in Virginia early in the election season.

“I could see a replay of that [2021 outcome] more easily if Biden was the nominee still, instead of Harris,” Coleman said.

He pointed to Biden’s weak polling with Democratic core groups, such as young voters and minority voters to support his point. After Biden stepped aside, however, Harris has appeared to shore up support among those wayward members of the Democratic Party’s base, he said.

Harris' campaign has seen over 11,000 volunteers sign up in Virginia since the vice president announced her candidacy, the campaign said, with 25 offices currently open and 132 staffers stationed across the state.

Virginia’s Democratic leaders, including U.S. Senator Mark Warner, McAuliffe and House of Delegates Speaker Don Scott, have all expressed their skepticism about Virginia’s status as a battleground in interviews with the media.

How did Kennedy remove his name from the ballot in Virginia, anyway?

Regardless of that skepticism from Democrats and political analysts about the commonwealth’s status as a battleground, the Trump campaign has opened 19 offices across the state between July and September and has 30 staffers working across Virginia, Ryer said.

And skepticism from Democrats and political scientists hasn’t stopped the Kennedy campaign from removing their candidate’s name from the ballot, in an apparent effort to tip the scales.

In Virginia, the process to get RFK Jr.’s name off the ballot was relatively easy compared to states like Wisconsin and Michigan where the campaign has launched legal battles to remove the Independent’s name.

The Department of Elections received the request to remove Kennedy from the ballot Tuesday and removed his name from the qualified candidate list, Andrea Gaines, spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Election said in an email. In this instance, the ease of which Kennedy’s name was removed is owed to the fact that ballots have not yet been printed in the commonwealth.

This article originally appeared on Staunton News Leader: Is Virginia a 2024 battleground state? That depends on who you talk to