And yet, even as Trump leads the GOP ticket once more, two recent polls from Fox News and Roanoke College found him tied in a head-to-head matchup with Biden in Virginia. When several third-party candidates were included, Biden pulled ahead by 1 point in Fox’s poll and 2 points in Roanoke’s. This is obviously a limited polling sample, and while the Trump campaign is making noise about attempting to put the state in play, it has yet to demonstrate that it will back that talk up with a full-throated push. Still, if these early numbers showing a tight race persist, the Electoral College implications would be significant. Currently, Trump’s clearest path to 270 electoral votes involves clawing back Georgia and Arizona and flipping Nevada — all states with diverse populations where Trump’s polling gains among nonwhite voters stand to boost him. Even if he picks up those three, though, he’d still likely need to win back one of the three Big Ten states Biden flipped in 2020 — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, states with higher concentrations of white voters. But if Trump won Virginia, he could take back the White House without any of those northern states. Of course, that’s a very big if. The current polls paint a clear enough picture of why the state could be competitive. Biden’s job approval sits at 43% in the Fox poll and 35% in the Roanoke survey. And when respondents in the Roanoke poll were asked how they now view Trump’s four years as president, 44% rated them “mostly good,” compared with just 25% who said the same for Biden’s tenure. The inroads Trump has made with nonwhite voters in national polling are also seen here. The Fox poll has him at 25% with Black voters, up from the 10% the 2020 Virginia exit poll pegged him at. The state also has a significant population of Latinos and Asian Americans. But when the fall comes around, the picture could look different in Virginia. Trump himself remains enormously unpopular (a 55% unfavorable rating in the Fox poll). And there’s a higher concentration of college degrees among the state’s population of white adults than the national average. Not only has this demographic group become increasingly Democratic in recent times, it has also been intensely anti-Trump, turning out at disproportionately high levels in nonpresidential elections, motivated by any and every chance to express displeasure with the former president. It’s a trend that could help Biden outperform his polling numbers in a state like Virginia. |