President Joe Biden won Virginia by ten points in 2020, but the Trump campaign isn’t writing the state off in 2024.
In 2021, in a state that had decisively chosen a Democratic candidate for president, Glenn Youngkin ran a campaign that had even the White House concerned about former Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s fate. While harping on education and culture issues, Youngkin ran an extensive get-out-the-vote (GOTV) effort throughout the state of Virginia that stunned the nation.
At the end of August, polling from Roanoke College showed that Vice President Kamala Harris doesn’t have the big lead Biden captured in 2020 in Virginia. Instead, she’s holding just a three point lead, slightly better than Biden was doing earlier in the year.
With talk of the state being in play, the Trump campaign has plans to tap into Youngkin’s star power and his 2021 get-out-the-vote efforts to turn the state red, state officials told the Daily Caller. Trump himself said during an August press conference that “he’s leading our whole campaign in Virginia,” referring to Youngkin.
“As the campaign goes further on and we get into the early vote rallies and to get-out-the-vote events, the governor is going to be pivoting not just to making the case for us, but also bringing all those [get-out-the-vote] volunteers together in a coordinated effort in the different parts of the state,” Jeff Ryer, Virginia Trump campaign spokesperson, told the Caller. Ryer added that Youngkin is scheduled in the coming weeks to appear at at least a dozen rallies for Trump’s get-out-the-vote effort — Trump Force 47.
Trump Force 47 has been largely touted as the former president’s ground game. While a portion of the party’s get-out-the-vote efforts are outsourced to grassroots organizations, Trump Force 47 has found footing in several states such as Virginia.
In 2021, the governor’s campaign focused on the promotion of early voting through rallies and messaging. Youngkin held rallies across the street from early polling locations to encourage attendees to vote. The Youngkin campaign also poured $7.1 million into his early vote promotion which funded a door-knocking effort to help Virginians find a voting site or request a mail-in ballot.
Rich Anderson, chairman of the Virginia Republican Party, told the Caller that the GOP is working with the Trump campaign to replicate the ground game that won Youngkin the state in 2021. To do so, the GOP has established 15 regional campaign offices all around the state and Youngkin has even attended a few of the grand openings, Anderson told the Caller.
“The joint goal of the Trump 2024 campaign team and [Republican Party of Virginia] is to certify 5,000 Trump Force 47 volunteers for GOTV operations. With less than 70 days to election day, we’ve now certified 75% of our goal and therefore forecast that we will exceed our goal by the time early voting starts on Sep. 20th,” Anderson told the Caller.
“These 5,000+ GOTV volunteers will be augmented by 500 election attorneys at polling locations across Virginia,” Anderson said, adding that they party does not have an estimate for how many doors it will knock on.
The party chair added that in addition to its GOTV efforts, the GOP has a strong election integrity presence throughout the state. Alongside the campaign, the Virginia GOP is deploying 5,000 poll watchers 45 days before election day in addition to 500 election attorneys.
“I think that Trump Force 47 fits in very neatly to what the Youngkin campaign accomplished in the state in 2021,” Ryer told the Caller.
A Youngkin adviser told the Daily Caller that the governor plans to be very present on the campaign trail and will participate in early vote rallies in the coming weeks. The adviser added that the governor is focused on making the election fair, secure and something that Virginians can be confident in. In August, Youngkin issued Executive Orders 31 and 35 which addressed various election security precautions such as strengthening Virginia’s voter rolls and counting machine testing.
“The governor previously said this, you really got to turn out the rural parts of the southwest and south side, and you’ve got to do better than Republicans usually do in Northern Virginia. And then a lot of it comes down to Richmond and Hampton Roads,” a Youngkin adviser told the Caller. Anderson told the Caller that the party has set its targets on Culpeper, Farmville, Fairfax, Stafford, Gloucester, Manassas, Virginia Beach, Williamsburg, Yorktown, Richmond and Chesterfield.
Virginia voters have a 45-day window to vote early in person or by mail. In 2021, Youngkin brought in early vote numbers that exceeded expectations, which many attributed his success to. In that off election year, 1.2 million ballots were cast during the early voting period. Youngkin won 46% of early in-person votes and 24% of absentee ballots cast.
“The governor has been incredibly focused on keeping the party united. He didn’t endorse any primaries this year, and I think a big piece of it too, would be the election executive order that he issued. Which is part of making sure Republicans understand that in Virginia we have fair and secure elections and voters can be confident that their ballot is going to be counted,” the Youngkin adviser told the Caller.
Targeting specific voter demographics was a key part of the Youngkin ground game, former top Youngkin strategists Jeff Roe and Kristin Davison told Politico. The campaign went after the vote of “African-American Virginians, Asians, Hispanics [and] women,” Davison told the outlet.
Anderson explained that its operation was targeting different demographics ahead of the election, but stressed the importance of the veteran vote in the 2024 campaign.
“We have significant immersion in the Veterans Committee. I spent 30 years in the Air Force as a veteran so that’s especially important to me,” the state party chairman explained.
“In 2021, we stood up in Virginia an organization called AVV, which is the American Veterans Vote. And they have pivoted and are playing a prominent role in turning out the veterans vote here in Virginia. It’s great because a majority of veterans are conservative in their thinking and in their politics, not all of them, but a majority of them. And so we were able to leverage that in 2021 for Glenn Youngkin, such that it made a significant impact on his eventual election. He won by two points,” he added.
But the 2024 operation doesn’t just come down to its get-out-the-vote efforts — the party is focused on tactical messaging similar to what was deployed in 2021.
As Davison explained to Politico in 2021, Youngkin chose to focus his campaign messaging around “cost of living, education and safety.” By contrast, Davison added, Democrats on a national level were talking about defunding the police, higher taxes and eliminating parents’ oversight in the classroom. McAuliffe put himself in the middle of the education talk, and in direct contrast to Youngkin.
“I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions,” McAuliffe said in 2021. “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
Youngkin capitalized on the message, and his focus on education and cultural issues such as abortion helped him defeat McAuliffe.
Trump and Vance stand in direct contrast to Harris and Walz on issues like education and parental rights within the classroom. Anderson told the Caller he expects Youngkin’s 2021 messaging to be embraced in 2024.
“In 2021, Gov. Youngkin spoke to the issue of up-to-the-moment-of-birth abortion in a way that aligned with the views of Virginia voters. He also gave voice to the role that parents feel they must play in the education of their children,” he said.
“Senior Republican officials and the Republican Party of Virginia will continue to remind voters of the extremist views held by Ms. Harris and Mr. Walz on life and education. Republicans will continue to represent the views broadly held by Virginia voters,” Anderson added.
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