Virginia Voter Trends and 2021 Final Results From Steve Kornacki

Steve Kornacki, NBC’s numbers cruncher, tweeted information about Virginia election background numbers and trends that is worth taking a second look at on this morning after the election that had everyone on the edge of their seats last night.

First are last night’s results followed by the background voting trends for Virginia.

RESULTS FOR 2021

Virginia by region….

-NoVa: McAuliffe+26 (Biden+38)

Richmond Area: McAuliffe+3 (Biden+16)

Hampton Roads: McAuliffe+3 (Biden+16)

Southside: Youngkin+36 (Trump+22)

SWVA: Youngkin+53 (Trump+45)

Shenandoah Valley: Youngkin+33 (Trump+22)

Piedmont: Youngkin+11 (Biden+2)

Tidewater: Youngkin+28 (Trump+16)

BACKGROUND

Here are Kornacki’s baseline facts and trends for the Commonwealth

with his comments….

VA trends/numbers here, starting with the history that Dems are up against: The party that has the White House has lost all but one VA gov race in the last 40+ years and has lost every time it has also had control of Congress (5 for 5 coming into today).

Geographically, Dem strength is heaviest in Northern VA and also strong in the Richmond area Hampton Roads cities. Republicans are strongest in rural/small city SWVA, Southside VA and the Shenandoah Valley. The ’20 Trump/Biden result by region:

 

VA’s shift from red to light blue to Biden +10 has been powered by high population NoVA, which had already been moving away from the GOP pre-Trump but only accelerated in its leftward drift when he emerged:

Northern Virginia has a large concentration of voters with high educational attainment and has seen significant recent growth in its Latino and Asian-American populations — a recipe for the massive Dem margins we’ve seen recently:

Even though the state as a whole has moved decisively toward the Dems, rural SWVA is a region that has done the opposite — where a long-term trend away from the Dem Party accelerated with Trump’s rise:

SWVA has the highest concentration of white voters without four-year degrees in the state — what has become a very Trump/GOP-friendly demographic. Trump carried (lopsidedly) just about every county/city in VA where at least half the adult population is non-college white:

 

Overall, this tradeoff – suburbs get bluer, rural VA gets redder — has strongly favored Dems, since their strength is where the population is. One way of looking at it: Trump won Regions 4, 5 & 6 by a combined 302,748 votes. Biden won just Fairfax/Arlington/Alexandria by 391,431

 

Election 2021 is in the record books.