Virginia could be a battleground state in the upcoming presidential election, according to a Roanoke College poll released Wednesday.
The poll showed President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are tied (42% to 42%) in a head-to-head matchup in the commonwealth, while Biden holds a two-point lead (40% to 38%) when other candidates are included.
Roanoke’s Institute for Policy and Opinion Research interviewed 711 likely voters in Virginia between May 12 and May 21. The survey has a weighted margin of error of 4.24%.
“These results suggest that Virginia could be ‘in play’ in November, but five months is an eternity in politics,” Harry Wilson, the institute’s senior political analyst and professor emeritus of political science at Roanoke College, said in a statement.
“This tie or two-point lead seems dramatic, but they are within the margin of error of the results of the February 2024 and November 2023 Roanoke College Polls. Still, it seems that Trump is narrowing Biden’s lead, which has all but disappeared.”
The poll further found 2% of likely voters said they were undecided at this point. Another 14% to 20% said they will vote for a candidate other than Biden or Trump, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (8%), Jill Stein (3%), Cornel West 1%, or other (8%).
The majority of those surveyed (44%) ranked the economy as the most important issue, followed by immigration (14%), abortion (13%), foreign affairs (8%) and crime (5%).
Job approval ratings for Biden (35%), Gov. Glenn Youngkin (52%), and Congress (19%) barely changed from February.
Other findings from the poll indicate political polarization is alive and well in Virginia.
A majority of likely voters (63%) think that Biden legitimately won the election in 2020, but one-third (34%) say he won because of election irregularities. Seventy-three percent think that Trump legitimately won in 2016, but 21% think he won because he colluded with Russians. Partisans see those elections differently with 94% of Republicans saying Trump won legitimately, compared with 53% of Democrats, while 91% of Democrats say Biden won legitimately, while only 29% of Republicans agree.
“While it isn’t anything ‘new,’ we continue to see evidence that Democrats are from Mercury and Republicans are from Neptune,” Wilson said. “They view American politics through very different lenses or, perhaps, from different planets. It’s difficult to find consensus on anything when two-thirds (67%) of Republicans think Biden’s win was illegitimate and 41% of Democrats think Trump’s victory was illegitimate.”
Katie King, katie.king@virginiamedia.com
