New polling of the Old Dominion State presents a good-news-bad-news scenario for Donald Trump.
The good news?
His 2024 Democratic opponent is underperforming Joe Biden in 2020.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ 8-point lead (50% to 42%) is putting her on track to finish worse in Virginia than her boss, who got 54% support four years ago, per The Washington Post-Schar School poll of 1,005 likely voters conducted between Sept. 4 and 8.
The bad news, of course, is this is the fifth straight Virginia poll to show Harris with a lead between 7% and 10%, a reversal from July surveys showing a toss-up race with Biden and August polls giving Harris a slim lead.
“Most notable not only is the size of Harris’s lead but that Trump does not have any issue advantage, unlike national polls in which he enjoys some advantage on the economy, immigration and fighting crime,” Mark Rozell, dean of the Schar School, told WaPo.
Decided advantages for Trump in many swing states simply aren’t in play for him here.
The former president, for example, is below 50% with men, who back him strongly elsewhere on the map. His slender 48% to 43% lead is swamped by Harris’ strong 55% to 37% edge with women.
As in most states, Harris benefits from concentrations of population, and that’s particularly true in Northern Virginia’s DC suburbs, where so much of the workforce is monied and dependent on a strong federal government. She’s up 60% to 31% in the areas abutting the nation’s capital and 56% to 37% in NoVa’s exurbs, along with having double-digit leads in Richmond and Tidewater.
Trump does best in rural areas, with a 60% to 30% lead in central and western Virginia. But the concentration of voters just isn’t there for him.
Harris also seems to be inspiring more party loyalty than the former president. She’s at 96% with Democrats, while Trump’s only pulling 88% of Republicans.
The veep is also appealing to voters outside what Trump and allies call her “dangerously liberal” ideology. She’s backed by 60% of self-styled moderates and 19% of those who say they’re conservative.
Harris is also ahead among every age group, with her strongest lead being a 56% to 39% advantage among 40-somethings.
Trump is at 50% with those who only went to high school and 49% among those who did not get college degrees, but he only has 33% support among college grads, which is a staggering 27 points behind Harris.