SAUNDERS: There are signs Trump has a shot in Virginia

WASHINGTON

The RealClearPolitics polling average shows Kamala Harris ahead of Donald Trump by two points nationally, but Trump leading by a whisker in the seven battleground states. (Harris is ahead by less than half a percentage in Nevada.)

A University of Mary Washington’s Center for Leadership and Media Studies showed the Trump-Harris race in a dead heat, but RCP rates Virginia as a state that “leans” toward Harris-Walz.

I’ve been doing my own polling, which admittedly is in no way scientific. During daily dog walks in liberal Alexandria, Virginia, which voted 80 percent for Biden in 2020, I use the time for fact-finding missions. I count candidate signs on front lawns because they tell you not only who has the most votes, but which candidates have generated voter enthusiasm. Or not.

It’s sort of like seeing crowd size at rallies — big rallies demonstrate enthusiasm among the base — as a proxy for actual ballots. That was Trump’s approach and it worked for Trump in 2016, but not 2020.

With fewer than 40 days until the election, Harris wins the Alexandria sign competition hands down, but there are cracks in the wall.

In 2020, Biden-Harris signs proliferated, signaling an inevitable and robust Biden win. During the entire campaign season, I saw two lonely Trump signs in my vicinity. One was placed on a bench not attached to a townhouse — it wasn’t bold, it was furtive — and another small Trump sign peaked out on a front porch behind some greenery.

This year, the imbalance continues, but it tells a different story.

Tuesday morning during a one-mile walk I counted 24 Harris-Walz signs — fewer than I recall seeing four years ago — but four Trump signs — way more than in 2020. Four signs — whoa, that’s more than the number of Teslas I saw in the ’hood that morning.

Understand, a pro-Trump sign signifies more than support. It signals a willingness to engage with neighbors who hate him. It’s another sign enthusiasm is down for the Democrats and up for the GOP.

“I am seeing this election cycle a bravery among Republican voters that I have not seen” in previous campaign cycles, Arlington GOP chairman Matthew Hurtt told me, “and I think it started in 2021.”

I remember. That was the year fleece-vest-wearing Republican Glenn Youngkin won the governor’s race. Blue-city Republicans felt safe displaying Youngkin signs before their neighbors and the whole world.

Virginia doesn’t rate a slot in the list of swing battleground states because, well, the last time Old Dominion voters preferred a Republican in a presidential race was in 2004 when George W. Bush won re-election.

In 2020, Joe Biden garnered more than 2.4 million votes in Virginia, or 54 percent of the vote compared to Trump’s 44 percent. In 2016, Hillary Clinton came in a nose under 50 percent, while Trump won 44 percent of Virginia’s votes.

The most recent RealClearPolitics polling average factors a 4.5 percent lead for Harris in Virginia.

Hurtt merrily posts photos and videos of Arlington Democrats as enraged as bulls who see red when they see Trump/Vance volunteers and signs.

As I write this, I see on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said of Trump, “Let’s extinguish him for good.” She meant at the ballot box, but really, that’s not how people behave when they expect to win.

Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.