Late last summer, there was talk that Donald Trump was threatening to flip Virginia in the upcoming presidential election. Well, don’t believe the hype.
I live in Northern Virginia (Washington, DC suburbs) and have seen no indication Trump will be competitive here.
A recent poll revealed that Vice President Kamala Harris is leading former President Donald Trump by a significant margin of 52% to 41% among likely Virginia voters for the 2024 presidential election. And more importantly, Harris leads Trump by 6.4 percentage points in the Real Clear Politics aggregate. President Joe Biden defeated Trump in Virginia by by 9.4 percentage points in 2020.
A Republican stronghold for decades, Virginia turned blue in 2008 and hasn’t looked back.
MAGA Confusion
On Election Night, it’s important to understand why the Republican presidential candidate often appears to have a significant early lead in Virginia. This is primarily because votes from the left-leaning, densely populated northern regions are counted last. So, don’t be alarmed if you see Trump leading by 25 percentage points after an hour of vote tallying.
Republicans often feel optimistic as they see their candidate dominating when 70 to 80 percent of the state’s geography has reported results. However, once Northern Virginia’s votes are tallied, that substantial lead evaporates rapidly. And by the end of the night, the Democrat candidate has secured a comfortable victory.
I first observed this pattern in 2012 when President Barack Obama ran against Sen. Mitt Romney.
Of course, MAGA followers cried, “Fraud” when it happened in 2016 and 2020.
How could such a big lead after an hour diminish so quickly? And isn’t Virginia conservative?
Considering Virginia’s location in the South and Richmond’s historical role as the capital of the Confederacy during the Civil War, it’s easy to see why some might mistakenly equate its political landscape with that of Mississippi or Alabama. However, while this comparison holds for many counties, Virginia’s diverse political climate offers a more nuanced picture.
Virginia’s political landscape is distinctly divided, with the densely populated northern region leaning strongly Democratic, while most of the rest of the state, which is geographically much larger, leans Republican.
Demographics: As of April 2020, there were 3,197,076 people in Northern Virginia; approximately 37 percent of the state’s population. Northern Virginia as a whole is 51.2% White, 17.4% Hispanic, 16.3% Asian, 14.1% Black, and 2.4% Other.
Fairfax County, my home, is Virginia’s largest county with a population of 1.2 million, and it consistently supports Democratic candidates by a rough margin of 70 to 30. Neighboring Arlington County leans even further to the left, while Alexandria, and Prince William and Loudoun Counties are also reliably Democratic strongholds.
Incidentally, the areas are also different culturally as the Northern part of the state, the highly populated DC suburbs, bears little resemblance to the ”American South.” We are far more like the Philadelphia, Boston, and New York City suburbs than the Charleston or New Orleans outer regions.
Recognizing this voting pattern can help manage expectations and provide a clearer understanding of the election dynamics in Virginia.
