Virginia remains in play for former President Donald Trump, even with some polls showing Vice President Kamala Harris ahead, state GOP Chair Richard Anderson told Newsmax on Saturday.
"Our Protect the Vote program is firing on all cylinders, and I sincerely believe to the depth of my being Virginia is, in fact, in play," Anderson told Newsmax's "Saturday Agenda." "If you follow the polls too closely, the breadth of those things will drive you absolutely nuts. So my thing is, I don't look at one picture in a moment in time. I want to look at the entire photo album, and I feel very good about where we are in Virginia."
Further, Anderson said that Republicans have been beating Democrats in early polling in all of Virginia's congressional districts, so "I just feel very good about this."
He pointed out that in 2021, Virginia had a "clean sweep" of its executive branch, and the legislative branch flipped in 2022.
"We've opened some three dozen offices around the state — huge staff that's working on the ground," said Anderson. "We've hired or recruited, trained, and certified an original goal of 5,000 volunteer poll watchers. We are now at 11,000. We also have 500 energetic, focused, aggressive elections attorneys that are being present at all of our polling locations."
Further, he noted that Democrats are saying that Virginia is not in play.
"Why do they have some three dozen offices open and a like number of employees on the ground?" asked Anderson. "They are worried about Virginia."
Meanwhile, Virginia does have the "urban crescent" stretching from the Washington, D.C., suburbs and then through Fredericksburg to Richmond and toward Hampton Roads, which is traditionally Democrat.
However, in 2021, Gov. Glenn Youngkin used a strategy that included losing Democrat areas of the state by a lower amount and then working to turn out Republican voters and ended up winning his election by 2%.
"That is the way to do it," said Anderson. "That's the way we are working on it, and so far, these early numbers we're seeing in early voting give me great confidence about the Commonwealth of Virginia."
Meanwhile, the southwest part of Virginia was hit hard by Hurricane Helene, but there is a "sincere effort underway" to make sure residents can still get out to vote, said Anderson.
"We have teams on the ground down there who are engaged on that very activity right now," he said. "We still have slightly a month, so there is plenty of time for those people in those hard-hit areas to get to the polls and cast their ballot for their candidate of choice."
Anderson added that GOP Senate candidate Hung Cao is running a strong race against incumbent Sen. Tim Kaine.
"[He] is working it very hard," said Anderson. "He has planned a very extensive trip around the state of Virginia starting next week. I plan on being with him, and I have seen him in action. He electrifies crowds. He knows how to connect strongly. He is the underdog, but the best fights are those that are hard-fought and hard-won."
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