Virginia Slim: The Race Tightens

Thanks to two polls, Trump partisans are no longer glum about Virginia, a state that President Obama won twice and Hillary Clinton led by 16 percentage points over Trump in a Roanoke College poll last month.

Indeed, Trump was doing so poorly following the Republican convention in July that the Clinton campaign cut back on its effort in Virginia. This made sense once Virginia senator Tim Kaine was tapped as Clinton’s vice presidential running mate. Many Republican strategists agreed a Clinton victory was baked in the cake.

No more. Oddly enough, it was a poll by UMW, directed by Farns-worth and released on September 15, that roused Trump backers. It showed him trailing Hillary by three points, 40-37 percent. And in Roanoke College’s new poll, Clinton lost nine points and now leads Trump 44 to 37 percent.

Even before the encouraging polls, the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee, and the Virginia GOP had quietly begun building a ground game in Virginia with nearly 350 paid staffers and 30 offices. “The last three weeks have been crazy in terms of investment,” says Republican state chairman John Whitbeck. “We’ve given Donald Trump the greatest ground game possible.”

Trump has spent little on TV ads and has no plans to unleash an advertising blitz. He is relying instead on “earned media”—that is, press coverage—social media, troops in the field, and Trump himself. As of last week, he had visited the state five times since the convention and running mate Mike Pence four times. Whitbeck says the GOP ground game is the third biggest in the country after Ohio and Florida.

“I think Trump has a good chance to win,” says Virginia house speaker William Howell. And Farnsworth suggests the Clinton campaign made a mistake in scaling back its emphasis on the state. It “needs to stick to the Obama playbook,” he says, in which Virginia was seen as a critical part of a winning coalition.

Trump can defeat Clinton without Virginia, but winning would help. Except that winning Virginia may be one of the most difficult tasks his campaign faces. The reason is simple: The demographics of the state scarcely resemble those of the years from 1968 to 2004 when Republican presidential candidates won the state in 10 straight elections.

Over the past decade, “it’s like a dam broke,” says Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia, an authority on the state’s politics. Virginia has changed from a conservative “museum piece,” as scholar V. O. Key called it, to a highly diversified state with a slightly Democratic tilt in national elections.

In 1910, 90 percent of Virginians were born in the state. In 2016, 51 percent were born elsewhere. A half-century ago, only 10 percent of the statewide vote came from Northern Virginia. Today, more than 30 percent does.

And Sabato says there are “little Northern Virginias” around the state, with diversified and racially mixed populations. One is Henrico County in the Richmond suburbs, which votes Democratic in most state and national elections. Another is the Hampton Roads area.

The fastest growing areas are the state’s 20 college towns. They tend to be liberal and Democratic. Charlottesville, the home of the University of Virginia, and surrounding Albemarle County once voted Republican in presidential races but are now lopsidedly Democratic.

The biggest question for Trump is where to find voters to close the gap with Clinton. Northern Virginia is a major target, but Sabato says Trump “has very little chance connecting with people” there.

Corey Stewart, the Trump campaign chairman in Virginia, disagrees. He says the outer suburban counties of Washington are ripe for the taking by Trump—Loudoun, Prince William, and western Fairfax. Stewart is chairman of the board of supervisors of Prince William County.

This swath of Virginia was largely rural before a residential growth spurt over the past several decades. “There are lots of independent voters, swing voters,” Stewart insists. “The number of persuadables is huge, a few hundred thousand.”

When Mitt Romney lost Virginia by four percentage points in 2012, it was in Northern Virginia that his campaign died. A rule of thumb is that a Republican needs at least 40 percent in Fairfax County to win statewide. He got 39 percent. And a Republican must win in Loudoun and Prince William. Romney lost both.

Pulling off a landslide in the Shenandoah Valley and the coal country of southwest Virginia—and Trump will need one—should be less difficult. Romney won 59 percent and 63 percent in the region’s two congression-al districts. Trump will need 70 percent in each, according to Whitbeck.

Why are Trump’s prospects better in 2016? Stewart says Romney’s opponent, Obama, was an exciting candidate. But Clinton isn’t. “In 2016 we have the exciting candidate,” he says, referring to Trump. “Clinton is really stumbling and Trump continues to strengthen.”

Douglas Wilder, who became Virginia’s and the nation’s first elected black governor when he won in 1989, told the Washington Post that many Democrats “don’t see the need” to vote for Clinton. “It’s not so much that people are turned off by Hillary as it is they’re not turned on by anybody.”

Wilder said Clinton can’t win in Virginia without a strong turnout by African Americans. And Clinton has yet to give African Americans a “detailed” agenda for better schools, less crime, and more jobs. “If she doesn’t, the excitement that she needs may not be there,” he said.

Wilder is often mentioned these days in Virginia, but not because of his sage political advice. It’s the way he won. Wilder trailed in polls throughout the race, as many white voters declined to say they would vote for a black governor. “It’s the Wilder effect,” Howell, the House speaker, says. “It’s probably the same with Trump.”

Fred Barnes is an executive editor at The Weekly Standard.