President Barack Obama plans to return to Virginia in two weeks as part of a three-day bus tour to talk about jobs and the economy.
He is scheduled to swing through Virginia and North Carolina on Oct. 17-19, according to a White House official. No other trip details have been released.
News of the tour through key battleground states comes as the president's clash with House Republicans over his American Jobs Act is escalating.
Obama wants Congress to take up his $447 billion package in its entirety, but House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-7th, said this week that the House will not do so, instead acting on pieces of the bill that both sides support.
The president responded to Cantor's remark by calling him out Tuesday, saying during a speech in Texas that he'd like Cantor to travel to Dallas and explain exactly what in the bill he doesn't like.
Since early September, when Obama unveiled his jobs bill — intended to jump-start a stagnant unemployment rate and sluggish economic recovery — he has taken the plan on the road to key states. His first trip outside of Washington was to the University of Richmond in Cantor's home district.
That presidential visit, on Sept. 9, prompted Cantor to return to his district and hold a jobs event of his own after Obama's.
Cantor told reporters Monday that he had heard the president may return to Virginia and said, "I think that all of the folks who live in the commonwealth will welcome him once again."
"And as I said to the constituents that I represent several weeks ago when the president was in Richmond, we are going to continue to look for ways to find common areas that we can improve the economy together," he said.
The Republican Party of Virginia sent out an e-mail Wednesday taunting Democratic state Senate candidates with: "You have TWO WEEKS to clear your schedule to appear with the leader of your party!"
"Do you still stand with Barack Obama? Then make sure you're on stage with THE face of the Democratic Party in Virginia!"
Republicans are battling to win the majority of the state Senate, the last bastion of Democratic control at the state Capitol. Democrats hold 22 seats, Republicans 18.
Obama won Virginia in 2008, becoming the first Democrat to capture the state's electoral votes since President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. He'll make a play for the state again in 2012 but in a much different political climate.
Republicans swept the statewide offices in 2009, and a recent poll here shows that more Virginians disapprove of the way Obama is handing his job than approve.
Still, the Quinnipiac University poll taken Sept. 7-12 also showed that Obama ran neck and neck with two leading GOP presidential primary candidates, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, in possible 2012 matchups.
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