If you only know one statistic about the 2024 election in Virginia (other than who won), here it is:
Voter turnout was down, but it was down more in Democratic localities than in Republican ones.
That single fact explains why the presidential race in Virginia was far closer than Democrats (or pollsters) expected — and, if replicated nationally, why Kamala Harris lost to Donald Trump.
Of course, that begs the question as to why Democratic turnout was down. For Virginia Democrats, this is a more pressing question than their counterparts in other states: We have a governor’s race coming up next year, and this now marks two statewide elections in a row in which Democratic turnout was soft. It was also down in the 2021 governor’s race, which is why Glenn Youngkin now sits in the governor’s office and not Terry McAuliffe.
Let’s look at what we know.
1. Republican localities generally had higher turnout rates than Democratic ones
We’re still awaiting final numbers, as registrars deal with provisional ballots and late-arriving mail ballots, but the Virginia Public Access Project has helpfully compiled preliminary turnout figures for each locality in the state. Some localities always have higher turnout rates than others. Generally, this correlates with income and geography. Affluent suburban and exurban localities have higher turnout than rural localities, which tend to be less well-off.
In 2020, the highest turnout rates in the state were a tie between two Republican-voting counties — Goochland and Powhatan — at 85%, with Republican-voting Hanover County close behind at 84%. The lowest were Democratic-voting Emporia at 61% and Petersburg at 62%. However, a lot of the Democratic-voting Northern Virginia suburbs also ranked high four years ago: Loudoun County had an 80% turnout, while a lot of Republican-voting Southwest Virginia counties also saw low turnout. Lee County was 64%, Buchanan County and Galax came in at 65%. The overall result was an electorate that tilted Democratic.
This year, top-ranked Goochland saw turnout dip from 85% to 82%, Powhatan 85% to 81%, Hanover from 84% to 80%. Generally, Republican localities saw turnout drop by 2 to 5 percentage points. However, Democratic localities saw much bigger drops, with some of the biggest and most reliable Democratic cities falling by 10 percentage points or more.
Portsmouth’s turnout fell from 67% to 57%. Norfolk’s fell from 66% to 56%. Petersburg fell from 62% to 51%, the lowest in the state. (Roanoke’s decline was more modest, by comparison, from 67% to 61%; Lynchburg’s from 65% to 58%.) That’s a lot of votes in Democratic localities that simply weren’t cast.
Here’s another way to look at those Democratic turnout declines. Richmond fell from 69% to 61%. Four years ago, 61% was the lowest turnout in the state. This year there were 16 localities at or below that — all Democratic ones. The Richmonder, a new nonprofit news site in Richmond, called the city’s turnout “stunningly low,” which implies that the low turnout in other localities was even more stunning. It was.
2. Republicans nearly match 2020 turnout in some rural localities
One of the most remarkable political phenomena of the Trump years has been his ability to squeeze more votes out of places with declining populations. While turnout dipped statewide, the turnout rate in many rural counties stayed almost the same. In Bland County, turnout went down by just 1 percentage point. In Botetourt County, Lee County, Page County and Tazewell County, turnout went down by just 2 percentage points. Since turnout every year starts at zero, it might be more accurate to say turnout in those counties almost hit the record levels of 2020 while other places didn’t rise as much. Either way you frame it, in all of these rural counties, Trump increased his share of the vote, but that increased share wouldn’t have meant much if turnout had been much lower. Since the turnout held almost steady, that increased vote share translated into more votes. Only two localities in the state were able to keep their turnout close to four years ago — both are small cities with colleges that may have upped their figures. Radford saw turnout fall by just 2 percentage points; Lexington was the only place in the state that saw turnout increase, by 2 percentage points. Everywhere else, Democratic or Republican, saw bigger vote drops, although the drops were generally less in Republican-voting rural areas.
We don’t know how Republicans were able to keep turnout so level in rural areas, but I have a theory: This year, Republicans pushed early voting hard. I’ve written before that Republicans can use early voting to increase turnout in low-voting rural areas. They didn’t increase it this year, but they may have done the next best thing.
“In the 9th Congressional District, we worked hard to get folks to vote early and pushed for more participation generally,” said Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem. “I think our efforts helped.”
These two turnout trends — a sharp drop in Democratic-voting urban areas, Republican-voting rural areas holding almost steady — helped create an electorate that was more inclined to vote Republican than in previous presidential years. It obviously wasn’t Republican enough for Trump to carry the state, but it certainly made things a lot closer.
3. These turnout trends were close to the ones we saw in the 2021 governor’s race.
That year we saw turnout in Republican areas rise more sharply than in Democratic areas — and in some Democratic localities turnout stagnated, and even fell slightly in Charlottesville and Portsmouth. That’s part of how Youngkin was able to win: Turnout created a voter pool more favorable to Republicans, and then, within that voter pool, Youngkin cut down previous Democratic margins in Northern Virginia and increased previous Republican margins in rural Virginia.
This year we saw turnout fall but, as noted, it fell a lot more in Democratic areas.
For Democrats, this poses some questions as they head into the 2025 governor’s race. This is two big elections now where a Democratic nominee has failed to excite Democratic voters. Petersburg saw its gubernatorial turnout flatline in 2021 and fall 9 percentage points in 2025. Alexandria saw its turnout bump up just 1 percentage point in 2021 over the previous gubernatorial election, while it fell 9 percentage points this year. Hampton went up just 1 percentage point in 2021 but fell 8 percentage points this time.
For Democrats, the pressing question is what they can do to increase turnout in their core precincts next year. Will the second Trump administration be enough to excite their base? The prospect of a second Trump administration clearly did not. Will the reality? First, though, Democrats must figure out why they didn’t turn out more of their voters this year. Who were these missing voters and what might have persuaded them to come out?
4. The ‘missing’ Democratic voters were almost entirely in metro areas.
This still doesn’t tell us who those voters are, but it does, at least, tell us where they are. Of course, we knew this already from the turnout figures above, but let’s look at how those translated into actual votes — or the lack thereof.
While I write a lot about rural voters — a natural given Cardinal’s core coverage area — the number of “missing” Democratic voters there is insignificant compared to what we see in the suburbs and central cities.
In Franklin County, Harris ran just 151 votes behind what Biden polled four years ago. This is a county that once went Democratic but now votes Republican by landslide margins; Trump won 71.90% here, Harris just 26.88%. That realignment, though, is in the past. Trump produced more votes here — 1,119 more than four years ago — but the Democratic vote here stayed pretty consistent.
In Washington County, Harris actually received more votes than Biden did — 22 more, to be sure, but still more. Of course, her percentage went down some in Washington County because Trump produced 332 more votes there than before.
The Democratic Party may not have bottomed out in rural Virginia, but its vote totals there are now so small that any declines seem incremental in nature. The missing Democratic votes are overwhelmingly in the urban crescent. In Fairfax County, Harris polled 54,289 fewer votes than Biden. Some of those may have gone to Trump but not many. Trump saw his vote totals in Fairfax County increase — but by 4,919 votes. Even if all those were previous Biden voters, that still leaves 49,370 voters unaccounted for. That’s more voters than were in all of Portsmouth last time. If Portsmouth disappeared, Democrats would certainly wonder why, so they will now probably be trying to figure out why these Fairfax Democratic voters didn’t bother to show. (Some Portsmouth voters didn’t show, either. Harris ran 3,467 votes below Biden there.)
What this means for the future: Democrats have even less reason to focus on rural Virginia; they need to reclaim those missing voters in the urban crescent.
5. These trends mirror national ones
Nationally, Trump ran only slightly ahead of his 2020 results: He won 74,224,319 votes in 2020; so far this year, as of Sunday night, he’s at 74,783,561 votes with some votes, mostly out West, still being counted. Harris, though, ran well below Biden’s 2020 numbers. Biden won 81,284,666 votes; right now, she’s at 71,187,165. votes. That’s 10 million Democratic voters who stayed home.
Here’s another way to look at things: Harris improved on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 totals by more than 8.3 million votes, but Trump in 2024 exceeded his 2016 numbers by more than 11.7 million votes. Democrats may want to wonder why, since 2016, Trump gained more supporters than they have. (Republicans chortling about their victory may want to reflect on how it was achieved not by creating a lot more supporters but mostly through Democrats staying home; Democrats may may return in force in a future election, but that’s another column).
6. Democrats always had some unease that dampened their enthusiasm
Initially, that appeared to be concerns about the octogenarian Joe Biden as their nominee. When his disastrous debate performance in June led to him exiting the race, there was a burst of enthusiasm around Harris as the replacement nominee. However, not even a new nominee was enough to mask certain Democratic concerns.
Some laughed at the time when the University of Mary Washington poll in September that showed the presidential race in Virginia essentially tied. In hindsight, that came closer than others to nailing the final tally in the state. When we drill into the cross-tabs of that poll, we find this figure: 19% of Democrats felt the country was on the wrong track, and only 28% felt it was on the right track. For the party of the incumbent president, that’s a pretty underwhelming result. Some Democratic voters obviously didn’t have their heart in the outcome and weren’t so scared of Trump that they went to vote against him even if they couldn’t enthusiastically vote for Harris.
It’s possible that, by replacing Biden with Harris, Democrats staved off an even bigger defeat that was looming out there, but even that clearly wasn’t enough nationally, and was barely enough in Virginia. For Democrats, who want back into the governor’s office in Richmond next year and the White House four years from now, the question becomes: What will be enough?
Did a teenage girl from Hopewell save Lafayette from being captured by the British?
This year 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. To prepare for that, Cardinal is telling some of the little-known stories about Virginia’s role in independence. In this month’s edition of Cardinal 250, we look at Susanna Bolling, a 16-year-old girl from what is now Hopewell, who is credited with riding through the night to alert the Marquis de Lafayette of a British plot to capture him. The big question: Did this really happen? We have a story on the legend and a podcast with the author of a book about Bolling.
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