The Virginia Cavaliers roll into week two against a much more formidable opponent in ACC foe Wake Forest, who pulled off a 45-13 win over NC A&T. With UVA looking to improve to 2-0, here are our five keys to a Virginia victory on Saturday night. 

Hank Bachmeier commands the slow mesh offense for the Demon Deacons, which hinges on the offensive line that ranked 8th last year in FBS football, allowing their plays to develop. If the Cavaliers want to leave Winston-Salem with a win, it’ll be essential for the defensive line to put pressure on Bachmeier, something they struggled with against Richmond last week. The Cavaliers only recorded one sack against the Spiders, and it came towards the end of the game. Against Wake Forest, Virginia needs to get pressure early and often. 

Wake Forest loses four of the five members from their starting secondary in 2023, and it will be critical for the Cavaliers to take advantage by exposing one-on-one matchups and testing the integrity and chemistry of this group. This will come down to quarterback Anthony Colandrea seeing openings in this defense, making pre-snap adjustments, and trusting his wide receiver corps to make catches in tight spaces. This involves throwing the ball more in the middle of the field on quick slants, something the Cavaliers showed little of last week against the Spiders. 

Winning the turnover battle will be critical for the Cavaliers to get their first road win of the 2024 campaign. Avoiding turning the ball over starts with Colandrea protecting the football and making no careless hero plays that could jeopardize possession. Defensively, it is about making a play similar to the forced fumble by Corey Thomas Jr. last week that shifted the momentum of the game early on in favor of Virginia. Since 2001, teams that have won the turnover battle have won more than 75% of the time, according to the football perspective. 

The Cavaliers rushed for 200 yards against Richmond. To give Colandrea some help, the Virginia backfield, which was outstanding last week, will need to continue to complement the passing game. The lead tailback, Kobe Pace, rushed for 93 yards and one touchdown while averaging over eight yards a carry, and it will be critical the Cavaliers lean on Pace in addition to Jack Griese and Xavier Brown once again against the Demon Deacons. 

Wake Forest’s Taylor Morin had a 73-yard punt return last week. The Cavaliers ranked 90th in special teams in 2022, allowed two blocked punts for touchdowns, and had only 58 touchbacks (second-fewest in the ACC) in 2023. Luckily for the Cavaliers, Daniel Sparks looked good during kickoffs, allowing only one non-touchback in game one. If Virginia wants to defeat Wake Forest, reversing the trend from last season and winning the special teams battle will be critical.

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Virginia is trapped in a political no-man’s land as the 2024 presidential election enters the home stretch – with its status still very much uncertain as to whether it is anywhere close to being a swing state. 

Former President Donald Trump would like the commonwealth to be contested, and his campaign insists it still has a chance this November at winning its prized 13 Electoral College votes. 

But try telling that to Vice President Kamala Harris and Democrats who insist a state that flipped from red to blue in 2008 will be anything but blue again on Election Day.

Trump’s team has its reasons to be optimistic – or at least reasons to suggest it should be in Virginia. In the last statewide election voters picked Republican Glenn Youngkin, a relative new-comer to politics, as their governor over a popular Democrat with deep roots in the party. 

And, the Trump campaign got a much more recent boost on Tuesday when Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign successfully removed his name from the state’s 2024 ballot. The now-former independent presidential candidate was seen as someone who could have otherwise siphoned votes away from Trump but who now is actively campaigning on behalf of the former Republican president.

“We’re not taking anything for granted and Vice President Harris has made clear that she’s running as the underdog,” Rep. Jennifer McClellan, D-Virginia, said at a campaign event for Harris on Thursday in Ettrick, though she did not weigh on whether Virginia is a battleground. “The only poll that really matters is on Election Day, and we need to make sure people know to come out to vote.”

Ultimately, though, Democrats say that Republicans are fighting an uphill battle in the commonwealth given recent presidential election history. Before President Barack Obama in 2008, Virginia hadn’t voted blue since President Lyndon B. Johnson in his 1964 landslide victory over Barry Goldwater. Since 2008, the state has gone to the Democratic presidential candidate in every general election.

Virginia’s southern neighbor, North Carolina, however, has seen a resurgence as a clear battleground in recent weeks, with Harris leading Trump in a state that he won in 2020 and 2016.

Trump camp asserts Virginia’s ‘battleground’ status despite reporting

On Thursday, Axios reported that the Trump campaign may not view Virginia as winnable, citing a lack of campaigning by the former president or his running mate in the commonwealth in the last six weeks, as well as polling that shows Harris pulling ahead, albeit slightly.

Jeff Ryer, spokesperson for the Trump campaign in Virginia, pushed back against the reporting in a text message. And, he argued, recent visits of Harris’ surrogates to the commonwealth are proof that the Democratic Party sees Virginia as a battleground as well.

“In just the last week, Tim Walz, Gwen Walz, and Doug Emhoff have campaigned in Virginia. I don’t think they were making barbecue runs,” Ryer said, and pointed to the fact that the Kennedy campaign removed their candidate’s name from the ballot. “He said he would remove himself from the ballot in battleground states and Virginia is a battleground state.”

Other Republicans, including the Virginia party chair, Rich Anderson, and Republican candidates up and down the ballot in the state have asserted that the commonwealth a “battleground state.”

Experts argue, however, that Virginia may have been a “battleground” prior to President Joe Biden’s decision to step aside and clear the field for Harris as the Democratic nominee in July.

Democrats, political scientists don’t believe Virginia is a “battleground”

J. Miles Coleman, editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, said the commonwealth was leaning more toward battleground status before Biden stepped aside as the Democratic candidate. Sabato’s Crystal Ball is a newsletter from the University of Virginia Center for Politics that focuses on American campaigns and elections.

The Crystal Ball has maintained a “likely Democrat” victory in Virginia in its presidential prediction model. The Cook Political Report and Inside Elections – both non-partisan outlets for political analysis – have Virginia listed as “likely Democrat” in the presidential race in their prediction models as well.

“I’m kind of skeptical,” Coleman said, of Virginia being a “legit battleground state.”

He cited a dearth of Virginia-specific polling and said it could suggest that neither side is interested in the commonwealth, compared to other battleground states like Wisconsin or Michigan which seem to have a new poll released every week.

The first Virginia-specific poll since Harris stepped into the top of the ticket was released in mid-August. It showed the Democratic nominee with a slim 3% lead over former Trump. That August margin was an improvement for Democrats over a May poll conducted by Roanoke College which showed Biden and Trump in a dead heat. That poll, along with Youngkin’s 2021 victory over former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, led the Trump campaign and Republicans to claim a tenuous battleground status in Virginia early in the election season.

“I could see a replay of that [2021 outcome] more easily if Biden was the nominee still, instead of Harris,” Coleman said.

He pointed to Biden’s weak polling with Democratic core groups, such as young voters and minority voters to support his point. After Biden stepped aside, however, Harris has appeared to shore up support among those wayward members of the Democratic Party’s base, he said.

Harris’ campaign has seen over 11,000 volunteers sign up in Virginia since the vice president announced her candidacy, the campaign said, with 25 offices currently open and 132 staffers stationed across the state.

Virginia’s Democratic leaders, including U.S. Senator Mark Warner, McAuliffe and House of Delegates Speaker Don Scott, have all expressed their skepticism about Virginia’s status as a battleground in interviews with the media.

How did Kennedy remove his name from the ballot in Virginia, anyway?

Regardless of that skepticism from Democrats and political analysts about the commonwealth’s status as a battleground, the Trump campaign has opened 19 offices across the state between July and September and has 30 staffers working across Virginia, Ryer said.

And skepticism from Democrats and political scientists hasn’t stopped the Kennedy campaign from removing their candidate’s name from the ballot, in an apparent effort to tip the scales.

In Virginia, the process to get RFK Jr.’s name off the ballot was relatively easy compared to states like Wisconsin and Michigan where the campaign has launched legal battles to remove the Independent’s name.

The Department of Elections received the request to remove Kennedy from the ballot Tuesday and removed his name from the qualified candidate list, Andrea Gaines, spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Election said in an email. In this instance, the ease of which Kennedy’s name was removed is owed to the fact that ballots have not yet been printed in the commonwealth.

Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears said Thursday she will seek the Republican nomination for governor next year, setting the stage for one of the most historic contests in Virginia history. 

Earle-Sears, who rode the GOP wave in 2021 into the second of the three highest political offices in the state, announced her candidacy at a rally in Virginia Beach. If no one else steps forward for the nomination, she would face presumed Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger, with the winner becoming the first woman to be a Virginia governor. 

Should she win, the 60-year-old Earle-Sears would become the second Black person – and the first Black woman – to be the state’s chief executive. 

In her announcement, accompanied by the release of a YouTube campaign video, Earle-Sears acknowledged the historical significance of her run. However, she said, more than history was at stake in the campaign. 

“Yes, this is an opportunity to make history, but our campaign is about making life better for every Virginian right here, right now,” she said.  

Earle-Sears has already put her name in Virginia’s history books by becoming the first Black woman to serve as lieutenant governor. She is the third Black person to hold that post, following L. Douglas Wilder in 1986 and Justin Fairfax in 2018, her immediate predecessor.

Wilder went on to become the nation’s first Black governor. Fairfax lost a crowded Democratic gubernatorial primary in 2021.

Running on Youngkin platform

The Jamaican native and former Marine said she wants to build on the run of her predecessor, Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who under Virginia law cannot seek a second term. Youngkin, a Republican who flirted with the possibility of being former President Donald Trump’s running mate this year, has pushed traditional conservative agendas on business growth, support for law enforcement and giving parents choices for their children’s education – and Earle-Sears vowed to follow that same course. 

“We cannot go backwards now,” Earle-Sears said in a statement announcing her campaign. “Little girls and boys, from Fairfax to Fincastle, from Haysi to Henry, from Phoebus to Port Republic, and from Wachapreague to Wise … they are all counting on us to win and succeed in Virginia. I will not be outworked. And I will not let them down.”  

Thursday night’s announcement was not a surprise. Earlier in the day, Earle-Sears filed paperwork with the state Department of Elections to run. 

Earle-Sears’ announcement essentially ends speculation about whether state Attorney General Jason Miyares would also seek the top spot on the ticket. Miyares, who made history in 2021 by becoming the first person of Hispanic descent to win the AG office, issued his own statement shortly before Earle-Sears’ announcement saying that his political attention was squarely on the 2024 presidential election. 

“My focus right now is on November 2024 and electing as many Repubicans in Virginia as we can,” Miyares posted on X (formerly Twitter). Miyares said the U.S. “cannot afford four more years of the failed policies” of the Biden administration. 

“It is clear we cannot allow Democrats to seize complete control of power in Washington or Richmond,” he wrote. 

Currently, Democrats hold six of Virginia’s 11 House of Representatives seats, as well as both U.S. Senate seats. The GOP is facing its toughest battles in the Second and Seventh districts. 

In the Second, freshman Rep. Jen Kiggans – who won the seat two years ago with just a 51% majority – is being challenged by Democrat Missy Cotter Smasal. The Second District covers much of coastal Virginia with its political center being Virginia Beach. 

In the Seventh, which stretches from central to northern Virginia, millions of dollars are being spent in the contest between Republican Derrick Anderson and Democrat Eugene Vindman. Republicans are hoping to flip the district which has been represented by Spanberger the past four years.  

Spanberger opted out of re-election to focus on her Democratic bid for governor. 

Democrats call her ‘extremist’

Virginia Democrats wasted no time in going after Earle-Sears. A statement from state party chair Susan Swecker called the lieutenant governor an “extremist” on such issues as reproductive rights and serving the LGBTQ+ community. 

“Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears has dedicated more time to boosting her far-right profile as an extremist on Newsmax and Fox News than actually addressing the needs of hard-working Virginians,” Swecker said in the statement. “If elected governor, she’d unleash her radical agenda: outlawing abortions, rolling back gun safety measures, dismantling LGBTQ+ rights, gutting healthcare for millions, and slashing funding for public schools.” 

Swecker called Earle-Sears’ vision “divisive, toxic leadership that hurts the middle-class and tears us apart instead of bringing us together.” 

Earlier this year, Earle-Sears caused a stir in the Senate when she referred to Democratic Sen. Danica Roem of Prince William County – the first transgender legislator in Virginia – as “sir” during a Senate floor debate. While she eventually apologized for the mistake, Earle-Sears appeared agitated in doing so, accusing Senate Democrats of “showing disrespect towards me.” 

Who is Winsome Earle-Sears? 

Earle-Sears came to the U.S. with her parents from Jamaica at the age of six. Her first foray into political office was 2001 when she ran for and won as a Republican a Black-majority House district seat in Norfolk. But she was out of politics two years later, losing a bid for the Third Congressional District seat to Democratic incumbent Bobby Scott. 

A former member of the state Board of Education, Earle-Sears ran a write-in campaign in the 2018 U.S. Senate election, protesting the candidacy of Republican Corey Stewart and his reported ties to white nationalists. 

She supported Trump’s re-election bid in 2020. The next year, she became the first Black woman to win Virginia’s lieutenant governorship. 

In 2022, following the GOP’s dismal midterm election performance, Earle-Sears appeared to distance herself from Trump, calling him a “liability” to the Republican party and vowing to not support another White House bid by him. 

However, like many other Republicans across the nation, she seemed to soften her stand on Trump as it became clear he would be the GOP nominee in 2024.  

Bill Atkinson (he/him/his) is an award-winning journalist who covers breaking news, government and politics. Reach him at batkinson@progress-index.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @BAtkinson_PI.