Trump ran better than ever in Northern Virginia and also increased his margins in rural Virginia.
Take a good look at the picture above.
That’s what I saw at the Fincastle precinct in Botetourt County on Tuesday. There were similar signs at other precincts, but this configuration caught my eye.
If anything explains Tuesday’s results, this photo does it. The national results may still be officially in doubt but the direction looks pretty clear to me: Donald Trump will return to the presidency.
There may be many reasons why this has happened, but some loom larger than others. Polls consistently showed the thing voters were most concerned about was the economy. This is never a good sign for the party in power. Those polls showed voters don’t much care for Trump as a person, which is another reason why these signs seem so powerful to me. Each of these signs gives voters a reason to vote for someone they might otherwise find distasteful. The Kamala Harris signs — few in number anyway in a red county — just had her name. Obviously that wasn’t enough. Neither was her emphasis on protecting democracy — an abstract concept that was up against a very real one, inflation.
No voter could possibly be ignorant of all Trump’s faults, but they voted for him anyway. Democrats will be left wondering why, but it seems pretty simple to me: They weren’t happy with the way things are going. History suggests they won’t be happy with where Trump takes the country either but elections are binary choices, and voters clearly did not trust Harris to make the changes they felt were necessary. Democrats are probably in for a very uncomfortable period of self-reflection.
Harris won Virginia, but not nearly by as much as Democrats thought she would. Across Virginia, she underperformed. So did some other Democrats. We’ll have a lot more to dig into in the days ahead, but for now let’s hit these highlights.
Trump has always been weak in the suburbs, particularly the ones in Northern Virginia. On the flip side, Democrats have always been able to write off big losing margins in rural Virginia by being able to run up the score in the most populous part of the state.
That didn’t happen this time.
Arlington County: Four years ago, Biden scored 80.6% of the vote to 17.1% for Trump. This time, Harris took 72.22% to Trump’s 20.71%.
Fairfax County: Four years ago, Biden won 69.9% to 28.0%. This time, Harris won 65.8% to 31.5%. Once again, Trump’s best showing there ever.
Loudoun County: Four years ago, Biden carried with with 61.5% of the vote to 40% for Trump. This year it was Harris 56.25%, Trump 40.17%. That’s his best showing ever in Loudoun.
Prince William County: Four years ago, Biden took 62.6% of the vote to 35.6% for Trump. This time, Harris took 57.29% to Trump’s 39.56%.
In communities that size, even a small percentage change translates into a lot of votes. Here’s another way to think about it. Four years ago, Biden took an 83,026-vote margin out of Arlington. Harris this year has a 58,158-vote margin in Arlington, with 16,754 votes yet to be counted. Even if they all went her way, and they won’t, her margin this time would still be about 9,000 votes below Biden’s. In Prince William, Biden’s 61,641-vote margin turned into a 38,514-vote margin this year. These things add up and with numbers of that size, they add up quickly.
This is why JD Vance was in Radford in August and Trump himself was in Salem on the Saturday before the election. Both were trying to rachet up the vote in rural Virginia, and they did.
Over the years, we have watched the Republican vote share in once Democratic parts of the state grow higher and higher, raising the question of how high they could go. We still don’t know because Trump managed to raise those percentages even higher. The percentage increases often weren’t much, and the vote totals small, but they do add up and, in a close race, every vote matters.
Trump’s high point four years ago was Lee County, where he took 84.1% of the vote. This year he upped that to 85.7%. His overall margin grew from 6,876 votes to 7,114 votes but here might be the more remarkable statistic: He increased his vote total in Lee County by 119 votes, even though Lee County has lost population over the past four years.
Again, the numbers may seem small in comparison to the ones in Northern Virginia, but once again Republicans have gone into a shrinking part of the state and produced more votes.
The three-way Roanoke mayoral race ended Tuesday with Republican David Bowers holding a 19-vote lead over Democrat Joe Cobb, with independent Stephanie Moon a respectable third.
However, the counting’s not over yet. Roanoke still has an unknown number of provisional ballots to “cure” and count; Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, said the number could be as high as 1,000. “Each precinct had dozens,” he said. Plus, Virginia now counts any properly postmarked mail ballot that arrives before noon on Friday.
You can bet on three things here: First, both the Bowers and Cobb campaigns will be working to make sure that any of its supporters who cast provisional ballots follow up to get their votes verified. Second, both will be anxiously watching the mail. Third, there will almost certainly be a recount.
This would have happened anyway, because there weren’t any incumbents running for the three seats aailable. The big change will be that Roanoke appears to have elected a Republican (Nick Hagen) to council for the first time since 2000. If Bowers pulls out the mayor’s race, that will make two Republicans — a repeat of that 2000 election which saw a Republican mayor (Ralph Smith) and council member (Bill Carder) elected.
Hagen can rightly maintain that he was elected to challenge the status quo, which should make for some interesting times ahead. For the past quarter-century, Roanoke voters have generally backed incumbents or newcomers who resembled the incumbents. Not this time.
Lynchburg City Council has been riven by infighting between two rival Republican factions. Tuesday’s election doesn’t change that. In fact, it could heighten those tensions. The key race was the open seat for Ward I, previously held by MaryJane Dolan, an independent who was aligned with Democrats. Republican Jacqueline Timmer appears to have won that seat. She has a 533-vote lead; it will be difficult for provisionals and late-arriving mail ballots to over come that.
If her apparent victory holds, that will increase the Republican majority on council from 5-2 to 6-1 but, more importantly, it sets up the potential that Lynchburg council might oust Mayor Stephanie Reed and choose another mayor. Timmer consistently declined to say who she would vote for as mayor. Of the four votes that installed Reed two years ago, only three remain — Reed, Republican Chris Faraldi and Democrat Sterling Wilder. That raises the question of who the other Republicans — incumbents Marty Misjuns and Larry Taylor and the newly elected Curt Diemer and Jacqueline Timmer will support. Reed’s best hope would seem to be in persuading Taylor to support her.
Regardless of who is mayor, the new council will still include both the twice-censured Misjuns and Faraldi, who Misjuns tried hard this year to get defeated. Also, the Lynchburg City Republican Committee is still set to vote on a motion to eject Reed and Faraldi as members. This election did nothing to resolve any of that.
A write-in campaign by Peter Alexander, who pretty plainly hoped to peel off enough Republican votes from Faraldi to elect Democrat April Watson, came up short.
Meanwhile, even though Timmer appears to have Ward I, she didn’t win a majority — she came in at 44% — so we can’t say clearly how Ward I voters really feel about the situation on Lynchburg City Council. It’s possible a majority opposes both Republican factions but our “first past the post” elections system doesn’t recognize that. This outcome will become a good talking point for those pushing ranked-choice voting.
We don’t know how many disgruntled Republicans wrote in Good’s name in the 5th Congressional District race but it hardly seems to matter. John McGuire, who defeated Good in a bitter primary, took 57.56% of vote. That’s almost exactly the same percentage that Good received two years ago in the midterms; Good took 57.6% of the vote then. Furthermore, McGuire polled more votes than Good ever did. McGuire’s totals stand at 230,971 votes before provisionals and late-arriving mail ballots are counted. When Good ran four years ago at the same time as the presidential race, he took 210,988 votes.
There will be a lot more to say about this year’s election results in the days ahead, but these may be the five most important ones for now.