by Paul Goldman
The latest poll from Virginia Commonwealth University has Donald Trump up 3% — 39% to 36% — over Joe Biden after being behind by six in the school’s previous survey of public opinion. Top Trump advisor Chris LaCivita has been telling people publicly and privately Trump will win Virginia as part of a coming MAGA landslide.
Not so fast.
Having done a few polls in my lifetime, I view these results as more a reflection of Biden’s current weakness than any new Trump strength. In 2020, then-incumbent President Donald Trump lost Virginia by a whopping ten percentage points, considered a landslide defeat in the world of elections. Candidate Biden got 54% of the vote, the biggest Democratic winning margin in Virginia since FDR crushed Thomas Dewey in 1944 when Virginia was still part of the “solid South“ of Democratic segregation states. Even President Lyndon Johnson, while winning the biggest Democratic national landslide ever, carried Virginia by only 7% over GOP loser Barry Goldwater in 1964.
Sure, there was a time between 1968 and 2004 when the Commonwealth had proven to be the most reliable GOP bastion among the Southern states in presidential elections. The GOP “lock” on Virginia got picked by Barack Obama in 2008. Even defeated Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton carried Virginia by a comfortable 5% in 2016.
Bottom line: with Mark Warner, Don Beyer and other top Democrats attacking President Biden, it is understandable why Virginia has been put in the “toss-up” column by certain wishful-thinking Republicans. As famed political columnist Will Rogers one said, “I don’t belong to an organized political party. I’m a Democrat.“
But LaCivita knows he is blowing smoke, if not from legal weed then whatever they’re using down at Mar-a- Largo, when trying to convince reporters the Trump campaign has expanded the winnable electoral map to Virginia.
Trump will lose Virginia once again even worse than he lost to Hillary. Repeating the 10 percentage-point Biden landslide of 2020, though, is likely not gonna happen given the residual damage done to Biden by Warner, Beyer and other Democrats.
But, you say: what if Warner, Beyer and the others — which many Biden advisors privately believe includes Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton — are successful in pressuring President Biden to drop out of the race for re-election?
Forcing a Democratic incumbent to drop a reelection bid is not unknown in the modern history of the Democratic Party. President Harry Truman in 1952 and President Johnson in 1968 tried to get re-nominated, but ultimately were convinced by their Democratic opposition to drop out. But the major catalyst for both men abandoning dreams of another term were disastrous results in the New Hampshire primary, then a key contest in American nomination politics.
But here in 2024, Biden has already won enough delegates in primary contests to have a legal right to the nomination. Accordingly, unless Warner and company lead the first successful floor fight revolt against a presumptive presidential nominee in the 160-year history of the two-party system, or Biden gives in to their pressure, then the president will get a rematch against Trump here in the Commonwealth.
Even assuming, arguendo, the Democratic presidential nominee is other than Biden, Virginia will stay solidly in the Democratic column this November. Unless Virginia Democratic officials prove incredibly incompetent.
Paul Goldman is former Chair of the VA Democratic Party, a candidate for mayor of the City of Richmond, and author of “Remaking Virginia Politics.”