Joseph R. Biden has a 5-point lead over President Trump in Virginia, a state that hasn’t been top of mind for either side compared to other battlegrounds this cycle, according to polling released Thursday.
The Democratic presidential nominee had a 5-point, 48% to 43% lead over Mr. Trump among likely voters, according to the Christopher Newport University poll.
Mr. Biden had an 8-point, 51% to 43% lead among the “most enthusiastic” voters, the poll found.
“Enthusiasm is a key to Biden’s lead and will be a key to turnout on Election Day,” said Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo, research director at CNU’s Wason Center for Public Policy. “We saw an enthusiasm gap of 6 points between Democrats and Republicans in this survey.”
In Virginia’s U.S. Senate race, Democratic Sen. Mark R. Warner had a 13-point, 52% to 39% lead over Republican Daniel Gade among likely voters and an 11-point, 52% to 41% lead over Mr. Gade among “very likely” voters.
Republicans haven’t won a statewide race in the commonwealth in more than a decade, but Mr. Trump is hoping to put it in play after losing to Hillary Clinton in 2016 by about 5 points.
The president is scheduled to make a campaign stop in Newport News on Friday evening.
The overall survey of 796 registered voters was taken from Sept. 9-21 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.
