Trump speaks at Chesapeake rally

Youngkin’s appearance alongside Trump puts to rest longstanding questions about whether the Virginia legislator would ever fully embrace the former president. Until recently, Youngkin and Trump had a tepid relationship. While Youngkin didn’t criticize the former president, he avoided appearing with him in public and waited until Trump clinched the Republican nomination to endorse his campaign. Amid speculations in 2022 that Youngkin might be launching his own bid for the presidency, Trump lashed out over social media, asserting Youngkin never would have been elected without his support and mocking the governor’s last name.

One attendee, Theresa Evans of Chesapeake, said it was her first time at a Trump rally. Evans said she was most concerned about the state of the American economy and believes Trump to “get us back on track.”

“Our country is very divided and that is not a good thing either,” Evans said.

The last time Trump held a rally in Hampton Roads was September 2020, when the then-president addressed thousands on the tarmac at the Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport.

Trump lost Virginia in 2016 and 2020, but a poll last month from Roanoke College indicated Trump and Biden are tied in a head-to-head matchup in the commonwealth, with Biden holding a narrow two-point lead when other candidates are included.

Before Thursday’s debate in Atlanta, the two men had not been on the same stage or even spoken since their last debate weeks before the 2020 presidential election. Trump skipped Biden’s inauguration after leading an unprecedented and unsuccessful effort to overturn his loss to Biden that culminated in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection by his supporters.

Personal animosity between the two men was palpable during Thursday’s debate as they argued, sometimes in deeply personal terms, over abortion, the economy, age, the criminal convictions of Trump and Biden’s son Hunter, and even their mettle on the golf course.

As crowds were gathering for Trump in Virginia, Biden spoke at his own afternoon campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina.

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