(CNN) – The importance of the presidential vote in Virginia was not lost on Mitt Romney when he appeared in the state on Thursday beside popular Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell, ahead of President Barack Obama's official re-election launch in the state on Saturday.

"Now politics is underway, it's underway again. You're going to hear it all right here in Virginia," Romney said at an event in Portsmouth, Virginia. "This may well be the state who decides who the next president is."
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(CNN) – Mitt Romney poked fun at President Barack Obama's new campaign slogan while speaking at a fundraiser on Wednesday.

Though he was attempting to mock the new motto, "Forward," which Team Obama rolled out in a video released Monday, Romney initially tripped up in trying to remember the word.
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(CNN) – Former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann will endorse Mitt Romney on Thursday, a Romney campaign official confirmed to CNN.

Bachmann is set to appear with the presumptive Republican presidential nominee at an event in Portsmouth, Virginia at 1:15 p.m.
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Chantilly, Virginia (CNN) - At a small business in a northern Virginia suburb, Mitt Romney compared President Barack Obama's economic policies Wednesday to one-term Democratic President Jimmy Carter.

"Who would have guessed we would look back at the Carter years as the good old days," Romney said, after calling the Obama administration "the most anti-small business administration I've seen probably since Carter."
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Washington (CNN) - President Barack Obama arrives in Richmond this weekend for his first official campaign visit to the battleground state of Virginia, a hyped rally that is mobilizing both Republican and Democratic ground troops for the general election.

But the fight for Virginia begins in earnest Wednesday in the Washington suburb of Chantilly, a warren of office parks and shopping malls near Dulles International Airport and just 10 miles from where the first major battle of the Civil War unfolded.

(CNN) – Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will appear with Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell during a visit to the Old Dominion on Thursday, a campaign official told CNN.

As governor of a likely battleground state, McDonnell is frequently floated as a possible running mate pick for the likely GOP presidential nominee.
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(CNN) – Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell is not running for re-election next year. He can't by law. Yet a glowing ad buy from his political action committee has hit the airwaves and sparked questions as to why he needs the publicity.

The ad, released last week, features a stream of Virginians pointing to the state's job growth and budget surplus. "Jobs and opportunity are thriving again," McDonnell said at the end of the spot. "Virginia is growing strong, and so is our future."
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(CNN) - In an appearance Sunday alongside President Barack Obama at a fund-raiser for Obama's re-election effort, former President Bill Clinton took a shot at the president’s likely Republican presidential rival, Mitt Romney.

The president has “got an opponent who basically wants to do what they did before – on steroids,” Clinton said, according to pool reports. "Which will get you the same consequences you got before, on steroids."
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(CNN) – Former President Bill Clinton will appear Sunday alongside President Barack Obama at a fund-raiser for Obama's re-election effort, a campaign official told CNN.

The fund-raiser will take place in Virginia at the home of former Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe.
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(CNN) – Tareq Salahi, a reality star best known for crashing a White House state dinner, is mulling a run for governor in Virginia and believes his time in the spotlight will help sway voters to his side.

"The social media, those people that have associated me with television or reality TV, opens up a whole new audience, and frankly the younger audience is going to be very important in winning this governor's race," Salahi said on CNN's "Starting Point."
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