Trump’s trip to Salem comes as Republican insiders have openly been floating since the summer that 2024 will be the year that Virginia could shift from the Democratic column and into the battleground category. Virginia used to be a top battleground in 2008 and 2012 but has gone to the Democrats in the last four presidential cycles.

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While Trump lost Virginia in both 2016 and 2020, some GOP insiders in the state think victory remains within reach, pointing to two separate polls, one conducted by the conservative-leaning Rasmussen Reports and another from the University of Mary Washington, that show the former president is cutting into Vice President Kamala Harris’s lead, putting Trump within striking distance.

Trump’s detour to a non-battleground state just days before Tuesday’s election reflected that sentiment and he assured his supporters there’s a real shot at victory.

“I’ll tell you what if we win Virginia, we will win the whole thing,” Trump said at the rally on Saturday evening. “It’s possible that without winning Virginia, we will still win the whole thing. We’re going to win Virginia, your governor felt it, I felt it for a long time.”

However, the majority of voters who spoke to the Washington Examiner at Trump’s rally on Saturday were doubtful about Trump’s prospects of flipping the commonwealth red, aware of what a heavy lift it would be to overpower voters in the Washington, D.C., suburbs.

“I think it’s probably a long shot that Virginia goes red, but I’m not going to give up,” said Sharon Bibb, 68, who lives in Fishersville.

Rebecca Bane, 77, who lives in Salem and works as a bookkeeper for a family business, also questioned whether the state could be flipped in this presidential cycle.

“I think it’s sad that we are such a state with long roots and being very conservative, and then we’ve got this whole group up near the D.C. area that votes against us. They swing the vote of Virginia because of all the people that work in D.C. area,” she said, although she emphasized she was happy to see the former president in her town.

“I think it’s special. It really is. He came to Roanoke eight years ago. We saw him over at the Roanoke Civic Center. And now he even got better. He came to Salem,” Bane added.

Joshua Francisco, 35, an industrial maintenance foreman, expressed frustration about the power of the northern Virginia vote.

“We have a lot of Democratic voters that live up north towards Richmond, that actually they live in Virginia, so they get to vote in Virginia, but they’re Democratic,” he said. “Virginia is the majority Republican state, and just the population up there, how many there is, it turns our state blue.”

“I hope he will flip it because of all the residents in [the] northern part of Virginia. I doubt if he can really,” Francisco added.

Although, not everyone was skeptical about Virginia’s prospects of becoming a Republican state this cycle. 

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Sandra Duncan, 56, who lives in Blacksburg and works as a software engineer, said she was surprised that Trump would visit Virginia in the final push before the election, but added that she trusts the campaign must have some encouraging internal data.

“Well, we were surprised that he would come and spend his time here, because typically in Virginia, you know, goes Democrat, and it’s just great to see that he’s so enthusiastic and so bullish that maybe there’s a chance to flip this state,” Duncan explained. “We’re just seeing a ton of enthusiasm. So we believe it can happen.”