Donald Trump’s campaign announced late Wednesday that it is pulling its resources out of Virginia and reallocating them to other battleground states where Trump is more competitive.
According to NBC News, the decision was announced on a conference call and came from Trump headquarters in New York. The decision also leaves the Trump camp to focus on four states that are critical to its success in November: Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
The Trump campaign pushed back against reports that he is giving up on the state, and said that while they are “reallocating” personnel to other states for early voting purposes, they will continue to push ahead in Virginia.
“We remain absolutely committed to winning in Virginia,” said John Ullyot, the campaign’s deputy political director, said in a statement. “While we’re reallocating some of our staff strategically to accommodate early voting in nearby priority states such as North Carolina, our campaign leadership and staffing remains strong in Virginia.”
“Together with the RNC and the state Party, we will have all the resources we need to re-take the Commonwealth at the Presidential level in November, as historically early voting in Virginia is much less of a focus for both parties than in some other states such as North Carolina,” Ullyot continued.
Corey Stewart, who served as Trump’s Virginia chairman until his recent firing, was dismayed at the decision and made a public “plea” for Trump to continue operations in the state. Stewart was recently fired by the campaign after organizing a protest outside of the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington.
“A plea to the Trump campaign: Don’t pull out of Virginia,” Stewart wrote on Facebook. “Thousands of dedicated volunteers have spent millions of hours knocking on doors, making phone calls and raising money for Mr. Trump over the past 15 months. Virginia is winnable. An aggressive ad campaign — in combination with the efforts of these volunteers — will produce results. Pulling out now would be a betrayal to these volunteers.”
According to the latest RealClearPolitics average, Clinton leads Trump by 7.5 points in the commonwealth, which voted for President Obama in both 2008 and 2012.
