‘We are seeing real momentum’: Republicans think Virginia could be in play this year

Republicans are openly floating that this will finally be the year that Virginia shifts from the Democratic column it’s been in for several presidential elections and back into the battleground category where Donald Trump could win.

Republicans are openly floating that this will finally be the year that Virginia shifts from the Democratic column it’s been in for several presidential elections and back into the battleground category where Donald Trump could win. The prospect of turning the state red was the topic of discussion between the former president and Virginia GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin when they met last week, according to a source with knowledge of the meeting. That hope, which GOP strategists and the chair of the Republican National Committee have aired publicly, is partially based on a recent poll showing the presidential race tightening there, and partially the fact that the state has a Republican governor and a state legislature narrowly controlled by Democrats. “We are seeing real momentum on the ground in Virginia,” RNC chair Michael Whatley said on X recently. Zack Roday, a Republican strategist who works for Youngkin’s political action committee, pointed to recent elections in the state as signs that it is truly a battleground, and, in a year where Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is polling competitively with President Joe Biden nationally, that means the commonwealth is winnable for Republicans. In 2021, Youngkin defeated former Gov. Terry McAuliffe by 2 points, a year after Biden carried the commonwealth by 10 points. Republicans also flipped a US House seat in the 2nd congressional district in 2022 and came close in the state’s 7th congressional district that same year.