Former President Donald Trump‘s hopes of pulling off an election upset in Virginia look unlikely but possible, according to recent polling results.
A poll released by the Virginia Commonwealth University L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs on Thursday finds Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump by 47.4 percent to 36.6 percent among registered voters. Harris slips to an advantage of just 6 points among all adults.
While the new poll shows a significant drop in support for Harris since last month’s edition, when she held a 14-point advantage over the ex-president among registered voters, the results are still well outside the survey’s 4.6 percent margin of error.
An average of recent polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight also shows that the vice president is leading the former president by 6.9 points as of Thursday, with her lead having remained relatively steady over the past month.
Former President Donald Trump is pictured during a campaign stop in Milwaukee on October 1. In Virginia, Trump trails Vice President Kamala Harris by a significant margin in nearly every recent poll of the state’s presidential election.
Jim Vondruska
Newsweek reached out for comment to the Trump and Harris campaigns via email on Thursday.
Despite Trump trailing in nearly every recent poll, there have been a few bright spots for the ex-president in the state. A poll released on September 9 by the Center for Leadership and Media Studies at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia, found that Trump was level with Harris among all adults.
The survey conducted by Research America showed the vice president with a slight 2 percent lead among likely voters—a result within the 4.1 percent margin of error for the voting bloc.
Several hypothetical Trump-Harris polls conducted before President Joe Biden dropped out of the race also showed the former president with a small but significant lead over the vice president as late as July 15.
The Democratic ticket, however, improved its polling position almost across the board after Harris became the presidential candidate. No polls that have been publicly released since that point have shown Trump leading in Virginia.
Trump lost Virginia to Biden by a 10-point margin in 2020 and to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by 5 points in 2016. No Republican presidential candidate has won the state since former President George W. Bush in 2004.
While Virginia is not generally considered among the at least seven battleground states likely to decide this year’s election, the former president flipping Old Dominion would greatly improve his chances of returning to the White House.
Virginia political scientist and election expert Larry Sabato previously told Newsweek that it was “highly probable” Harris would maintain the Democratic winning streak, arguing that most Virginians do not have favorable opinions of Trump.
“While upsets are always possible, it is highly probable that Harris will take Virginia,” Sabato said. “The demographics of the state’s large, likely presidential electorate are clearly tilted to the Democrats.”
“Trump has never been popular in the state, and that hasn’t changed,” he added.
