Vice President Kamala Harris has a small lead over Donald Trump in Virginia, which has in recent presidential elections voted Democratic, according to new polling.
The poll conducted by the University of Mary Washington between September 3 and 9 showed that Harris is just 1 point ahead of Trump in the Old Dominion state, on 47 percent to his 46 percent, among 756 Virginia likely voters—a lead well within the survey’s margin of error of +/- 4.1 percent.
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In a head-to-head matchup, Harris’ lead increased to 2 points, the poll showed, while the two candidates were tied at 44 percent each when all 1,000 adult respondents were polled.
Newsweek has contacted the Harris and Trump campaigns for comment.
“This new survey suggests Virginia should be getting a much closer look from both presidential campaigns,” said Stephen J. Farnsworth, professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington and director of UMW’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies. “Virginia may deserve to be treated as a ‘swing state’ once again this year.”
Virginia, which has voted Democrat in every presidential election since 2008, is not considered a swing state. Before 2008, the state was solidly Republican.
Since the 1990s, Virginia has seen vast changes in its population, with demographics that typically vote Democratic growing.
Between 2010 and 2022, the Hispanic/Latino population had the most growth in the state, increasing by more than 270,000 between 2010 and 2022, according to Census data.
At the same time, the white population decreased by 5 percent from 64.9 percent of the population to 59.8 percent of the population, while one in 10 people who are now eligible to vote in the state were born outside the United States as of 2022, up from one in 28 in 1990, according to the Pew Research Center.
It is these demographic shifts, along with the spread of high-density suburbs, that, experts have said, contributed to Democratic victories in the state since 2004, including President Joe Biden’s 10-point victory in 2020, and Hillary Clinton’s 5-point victory in 2016. And despite Harris’ marginal lead in the University of Mary Washington survey, other polls from the state show that Harris is on track to follow in the footsteps of her predecessors and beat Trump by a solid 7 to 10-point margin this year.
The most recent ActiVote poll, conducted between August 19 and September 17, showed that Harris was 10 points ahead among likely voters.
A Washington Post poll, conducted between September 4 and 8 among 1,005 likely voters, showed Harris was 8 points ahead.
However, other polls have given Harris a smaller lead. A Morning Consult poll from August 9 to 18 gave Harris a 6-point lead among likely voters. A Quantus poll from August 22 gave Harris a 3 point lead among registered voters.
Nonetheless, FiveThirtyEight’s aggregate poll tracker still shows Harris with an overall lead of 7 points in the state, on 49.7 percent to Trump’s 42.7 percent.
RealClearPolitics’ polling average gives Harris a lead of 4.5 points.
Before Harris became the candidate, several polls had shown Trump with a lead of up to 5 points over Biden, with others giving Biden a marginal lead of just 1 or 2 points.
