Both presidential campaigns have shifted away from their 2016 strategy in Virginia, with few ad buys and no appearances from Trump or Biden. Danny Barefoot, a partner with Democratic ad agency Anvil Strategies, said this is because both sides think Biden will win the commonwealth. However, chairman of the Trump Virginia Delegation, John Fredericks, disagrees. “I think this is a very competitive race, and so no, we haven’t given up [on Virginia] at all. We’re going to continue to put resources into Virginia.”
“Look, the Trump campaign isn’t on TV [in Virginia]. This is bipartisan,” Barefoot told The Virginia Star. “Look, it’s the final stretch, everybody is deciding where they need resources and what’s competitive. And I think that even Trump is starting to give up on Michigan, which is a far closer state. So, yeah no, I don’t think Trump has a shot.”
“We’re relying on a ground game,” Fredericks explained. “We know how many people the Democrats are going to turn out. We know what that number is. They’ve maxed out. Their vote in Virginia is a rock. They got what they have, it is what it is, it’s not going to grow and it’s not going to shrink.”
Fredericks added, “Our objective is, we have to grow our vote over that and get a massive turnout in early voting and election day. I’m confident that we’re going to be able to do that.”
Both Barefoot and Fredericks agree that Trump needs new voters to support him. “Last time, the polls underestimated Trump, but it wasn’t because of swing voters. The race changed really quickly, at the last minute, and polling has had trouble capturing that.” Barefoot said the Trump campaign needs a last-minute scandal. He said, “Then you’ll start to see an argument that the polling could be wrong, but there are no secret Trump voters.”
Fredericks said Trump’s Virginia ground game is the key. “We have an army of 5000 trained volunteers. Our ground game in Virginia is like nothing I’ve ever seen, and it absolutely dwarfs the Biden campaign, [which] does not have any door knockers and does not have anywhere near the ground game that we have.”
“We have made over two million person-to-person contacts of likely voters, which is unprecedented for any campaign in the history of Virginia.” Fredericks said there are only four million likely voters in the commonwealth. He said, “We’ve registered a ton of voters in southwest and southside Virginia, and also in Hampton Roads, that are turning out that haven’t turned out in the past.”
Fredericks said the 2016 election is not a reliable guide to the 2020 election. “Different story, different landscape, they got their voters, we know who they are, you’re going to be shocked at the number of people that we turn out,” Fredericks said. “We believe that Virginia is going to be one of the states they’re talking about at midnight on November the third.”
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Eric Burk is a reporter at The Virginia Star and the Star News Digital Network. Email tips to [email protected].
John Fredericks is the publisher and editor-in-chief of The Virginia Star. He is also a Trump 2020 delegate and the chairman of the Trump Virginia Delegation.
