“I Voted” stickers spread out on a table at a polling place in Richmond. (Ned Oliver/Virginia Mercury)
Virginia isn’t believed to be a battleground state in the 2024 presidential election, but a new poll from Roanoke College suggests the matchup between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump could be closer than expected.
Poll results from the Southwest Virginia school’s Institute for Policy and Opinion Research released Wednesday showed Biden and Trump statistically tied in a head-to-head matchup, with both earning 42% of polled voters’ support.
The poll showed Biden leading Trump by two percentage points when potential independent and third-party candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Jill Stein and Cornel West were added to the mix.
“These results suggest that Virginia could be ‘in play’ in November, but five months is an eternity in politics,” Harry Wilson, a senior political analyst and Roanoke College professor said in a news release announcing the poll numbers. “This tie or two-point lead seems dramatic, but they are within the margin of error of the results of the February 2024 and November 2023 Roanoke College polls. Still, it seems that Trump is narrowing Biden’s lead, which has all but disappeared.”
The poll, which involved 711 likely Virginia voters surveyed via phone and through a “propriety online panel,” had a 4.24% margin of error.
Biden is considered a solid favorite in Virginia, where he defeated Trump by double digits in 2020. Trump also lost in Virginia in 2016, and it’s been two decades since a Republican presidential contender won the state.
Virginia showed its purple side in 2021 when Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin won an unexpected victory. But the state GOP has had two disappointing election years in a row, flipping just one of three targeted congressional seats in 2022 and failing to win control of the General Assembly in 2023 when abortion rights were a major issue.
The state also has a U.S. Senate race this year, but there’s been little indication national Republicans intend to invest major resources trying to defeat Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat seeking a third Senate term. In the GOP primary that will be decided in June, Trump endorsed Hung Cao, a military veteran from Northern Virginia who has recently come under fire from all sides for remarks critics said came across as dismissive of rural areas.
The latest Roanoke College poll found just 2% of Virginia voters undecided, and 14% to 20% indicated they would vote for someone other than Biden or Trump.
“This suggests that those voters who say they will vote for another candidate will possibly swing the election one way or the other,” Wilson said in his analysis. “Do they vote for a third-party candidate? Do they move to one of the major party candidates? Or do they decide to abstain from voting?”
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