Virginia’s presidential primary is Tuesday. Here’s what to look for.

And now it’s our turn. It just won’t last long.

On Tuesday, Virginia will share the spotlight with 14 Super Tuesday states, plus one territory, which will minimize the impact of whatever happens here.

For practical purposes, the only side that matters in Virginia is the Republican side. Virginia, unlike Michigan, doesn’t have an “uncommitted” line where Democrats can register their displeasure with President Joe Biden.

The outcome of the Republican isn’t really in doubt. Former President Donald Trump will win. The only question is by how much. Or, put another way, how many Virginia Republicans will register their support for Nikki Haley?

In some ways, this is a proxy vote for a different question: How many Virginia Republicans still believe in the old Republican Party of Ronald Reagan and how many are in tune with the new Republican Party of Trump?

Here’s an example of what I mean: Shortly after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, announced this week that he would leave that post after the election, the House Freedom Caucus posted this on Twitter/X — and its chairman, Rep. Bob Good, R-Campbell County, reposted it:

Our thoughts are with our Democrat colleagues in the Senate on the retirement of their Co-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (D-Ukraine). No need to wait till November… Senate Republicans should IMMEDIATELY elect a *Republican* Minority Leader.

One of the hazards of growing old is that I’m old enough to remember when Republicans under Reagan stood strong against Soviet imperialism. There seems no doubt what Reagan would have thought about Russia invading Ukraine — he’d have been as eager to ship weapons there as he was to the Contras in Nicaragua. I’m not sure what the Republican isolationists who question aid to Ukraine expect would happen if that country fell to a Russian assault. We need only study the 1930s to see the consequences of ignoring or appeasing aggressive dictators.

In any case, it seems clear that Trump will win Virginia on Tuesday and, ultimately, the Republican nomination.

Haley is hoping to make a better showing here than she has elsewhere because Virginia, along with some other Super Tuesday states, has an “open primary” meaning anyone can vote. (That’s because Virginia doesn’t register voters by party, something I discussed in my recent column about Lynchburg Republicans, who tried to avoid a primary as a means to pick city council candidates because they didn’t want to risk non-Republican voting. Sorry. The law doesn’t work that way.)

That’s a good theory but New Hampshire also had an open primary and she didn’t win there, either — although she did run well with independents. That could make her potentially a stronger general election candidate than Trump — my sense is she’d win easily over Biden. Republicans don’t seem in that kind of mood, though, leaving Haley to fight a rearguard action before Trump picks up enough delegates to clinch the nomination

I personally think Haley has made a mistake by hopscotching the country. If I were advising her campaign — which I’m assuredly not — I’d have advised her to pick a few states in which to make a stand. Virginia might have made an interesting choice; Trump has run weakest with college-educated voters and Virginia has a higher percentage of college-educated voters than all but two of the other Super Tuesday states — and those are Massachusetts and Vermont, probably not states that Republicans are likely to pay much attention to. Virginia, though, as a Southern state could make a bigger statement if Haley were able to pull off an upset here.

Haley is in much the same situation that Marco Rubio was in 2016: He tried to use Virginia as a speed bump for Trump in the 2016 Republican primary, making multiple appearances across the state, including one in Salem where he cheekily referred to Trump as having “small hands.” Rubio came close, but didn’t win, and was effectively eliminated from the race.

The only difference this time is that Trump then wasn’t facing 91 criminal charges. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision this week to hear arguments on whether Trump has immunity doesn’t surprise me — this is a weighty question that ought to be decided by the nation’s highest court — but has the effect of delaying any potential Trump trial over election interference until summer or even fall at best. (His state trial in New York on charges of falsifying business records is set to begin March 25.)  The notion that he will be forced out of the race before he’s nominated seems fanciful. We seem fated to a fall election between two unpopular candidates — or, if you prefer, an octogenarian and a candidate who, if elected, would become an octogenarian during his term. Here’s the only bright side I see: In 2028, we’ll have different candidates on each side, and, finally, an opportunity for a generational change.

Haley was in Virginia on Thursday for rallies in Richmond and Falls Church; Trump will be in Richmond on Saturday.

Here are some of the things I’ll be looking for in the days ahead:

Will Trump make an endorsement in the 5^th District Republican contest?

State Sen. John McGuire, R-Goochland County, has based his entire challenge to Good on the premise that he’s stronger for Trump than Good is — Good initially endorsed Ron DeSantis, but backed Trump after the Florida governor dropped out.

Trump has made no secret that he wants to remake the Republican Party in his image and punish anyone who strays from his party line, even someone as conservative as Good. Earlier this year, Trump’s co-campaign manager, Chris LaCivita, told Cardinal’s Markus Schmidt: “Bob Good won’t be electable when we get done with him.”

How exactly will that happen? If Trump wanted to, he could use Saturday’s appearance to endorse McGuire.

McGuire has rolled out some endorsements this week, the biggest being former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. This follows a previous endorsement by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, who has made no secret of her distaste for Good. It’s hard to tell, though, whether any of those Washington-based endorsements really matter on the ground in the 5^th District. Nobody in the district can doubt Good’s conservatism; he cannot be mistaken for some moderate. An actual Trump endorsement, though, might well have a seismic effect on that race. If, on the other hand, Trump doesn’t make an endorsement this weekend, what does that tell us?

How will Trump’s tallies on Tuesday compare to 2016?

That presidential election is so distant now it’s hard to make comparisons, but it’s the only comparison we have available.

• In 2016, Rubio carried just 22 localities in Virginia, mostly in the urban crescent, with some outliers such as Lynchburg, Radford and Staunton. How many of those will Haley be able to carry? Will her raw vote total be better or worse than Rubio’s? Just how big (or small) will the anti-Trump vote within the Republican primary be?
  
• What will the overall vote be? It’s hard to compare one primary year to another because the dynamics are different every time, but this much is clear: We saw a big jump of participation in 2016. Before that year, the turnout in Republican presidential primaries had ranged from 234,142 (1988) to 664,093 (2000). In 2016, turnout soared to 1,025,617. If turnout is slightly lower than this, that may not mean anything — this year’s contest isn’t really in question the way the one in 2016 was. However, if turnout is higher, that suggests a higher level of enthusiasm. We’ll just want to see how that enthusiasm breaks down between the candidates.

Virginia remains a hard state for Trump to carry in November. This is a state where he’s polled 44% two elections in a row, the lowest percentage for any Republican presidential candidate in the state since Tom Dewey took 41% in 1948. However, Trump’s strength — or weakness — with certain demographic groups in Virginia could foretell what might happen in November in other states where outcomes are less certain.

Virginia won’t get much air time Tuesday as the numbers come in, but perhaps it should: A recent study found that only three other states are more representative of the nation’s demographics than Virginia is — and they won’t be voting Tuesday.*

* Those three states are Illinois, Florida and Ohio