Biden will return to Virginia campaign trail in final week
President Joe Biden is returning to the trail to campaign for former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe in the closing days of the state’s hotly contested governor's race.
Biden and McAuliffe will rally in Arlington on Tuesday, a week before the election in the commonwealth. It is the second time the president will stump for McAuliffe in the D.C. suburbs, following an event in the area in late July.
McAuliffe and his Republican opponent, Glenn Youngkin, a first-time candidate and former private equity executive, are deadlocked in a tight election. A poll from Monmouth University released on Wednesday had the two men tied at 46 percent each among registered voters.
Why Northern Virginia: The suburbs of the nation’s capital in the state are a voter-rich area where McAuliffe is expected to dominate in the election. In the recent Monmouth poll, McAuliffe led in Northern Virginia, 58 percent to 34 percent, which represented a slight gain for Youngkin from a September poll from the university.
Democrats have also been battling a consistent enthusiasm gap in the state, and are flooding the zone with surrogates to try to energize tuned out supporters.
Vice President Kamala Harris will campaign with the Democratic ticket in Prince William County, which is also in Northern Virginia, on Thursday. And former President Barack Obama is headlining a rally in Richmond, the state’s capital in the central part of the state, on Saturday.
Biden’s popularity has tumbled in a state he won by 10 points a year ago, with 43 percent saying they approve of the job he is doing as president and 52 percent saying they disapprove in the Monmouth poll. But in Northern Virginia, those numbers are flipped: 52 percent approve of Biden, and 42 percent disapprove.
