When Jay Jones, the Democratic candidate for attorney general, took the stage at Buena Vista’s Labor Day event, he said that Virginians were feeling “less secure” but promised that “we’ll usher in a brighter day that we have not seen for the last three and a half years.”
That’s a line that might well work with many audiences across Virginia — we’ll find out in November how many — but I have to wonder how well it worked in Buena Vista. Employment in Buena Vista was higher under Donald Trump’s first term than it ever was under Joe Biden. The most recent statistics show the jobless rate in Buena Vista is exactly the same as it was a year ago. Economically speaking, things in Buena Vista may not feel “less secure” at all.
We now turn to that noted political analyst Charles Dickens, who once observed: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …” Boz — as Dickens was called by his friends — might have been given to a little more hyperbole than we need here, but his book title “A Tale of Two Cities” is certainly applicable to our present situation.
The jobs report that the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released last week was not the news that Republicans wanted to hear. Those figures showed sluggish job growth nationally, with the relatively few jobs added to the economy running behind what’s necessary to keep up with population growth (which, itself, is relatively slow, but that’s a different story). The Washington Post framed the disappointing jobs report as “the economy’s engine sputters under the weight of President Donald Trump’s economic policies.” Trump, in turn, blamed the Federal Reserve for not lowering interest rates.
This column isn’t about those economics, though. It’s about the politics of those economics, which are landing as Virginia prepares to elect a new governor and House of Delegates. What will be the impact? Let’s state the obvious: This is not helpful to Republicans. How unhelpful is it, though?
I will venture this analysis: For statistics nerds like myself, these numbers are a big deal. Most people aren’t statheads, though. They’re out living their lives, and while there are some numbers they pay attention to — the price of gas, the price of milk and eggs, the spread for the Virginia Tech football game — they are not spending their time obsessing about reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The headlines from the jobs report will poison the political atmosphere for a while for Republicans, but headlines pass quickly in an era of declining attention spans.
I’d suggest that what happens to someone in their daily lives matters more, and the key thing here is that while job growth is slowing, it’s still continuing. We might be headed for an era of slow growth (that’s what an economic forecast from the University of Virginia has warned), or we might be headed for an actual recession. The recent Roanoke College consumer sentiment poll (separate from its political poll) found Virginians in a very pessimistic mood about the economy, and this report won’t change that at all. Still, it’s often hard to get people’s attention about some future problem that may be coming but hasn’t happened yet — look at how hard it is for deficit hawks to get people worked up over the national debt or for environmentalists to persuade skeptics that a warming climate is a threat. Until we see the Chinese navy sailing up to the Potomac to collect on debt, or see melting ice caps turn Richmond into beachfront property, those might remain abstract concepts.
On the other hand, what does tend to get people’s attention is when unemployment goes up — there’s a demonstrable impact that stings even if it’s someone else who’s losing their job. There but for the grace of God goes me … We do see unemployment edging up, although the overall rates remain low (an easy thing for someone who isn’t unemployed to say!). However, when we look more closely, we see an important geographic divide in Virginia that could have real political consequences. Let’s look at two maps.
Here’s the unemployment rate by county and city for July, the most recent month for which such localized figures are available. What you see is that unemployment tends to be highest across Southwest and Southside and lowest in Northern Virginia (with the absolute lowest unemployment rate coming in the distinctly non-Northern Virginia localities of Bath and Highland counties). The highest rates are in Emporia (8.1%) and surrounding Greensville County (7.1%), a region hit by several plant closings that are unrelated to anything the Trump administration has done.
This is a very familiar-looking map of Virginia. Southwest and Southside always have elevated unemployment rates, which is why whenever someone from another part of the state asks me what the big issues are here, I always say “jobs.” However, there’s another way to look at these figures that may tell us a different story.
I computed the rate of change in the unemployment rate for every city and county in Virginia to get a sense of where unemployment is rising the fastest. For that, I used a baseline of July 2024 to compare to July 2025. When we look at the jobless rate that way, here’s what we see:
In much of rural Virginia, the unemployment rate has barely changed over the past year. In Buena Vista, as noted above, it’s not changed at all. Ditto Appomattox County, Bland County and Charles City County. In Highland County and Norton, the unemployment rate has dropped. In other places, the rate has gone up, but at such a small rate that the change may not register with the general public there.
However, the rate has gone up fastest in Northern Virginia. That’s perfectly explainable — that’s a consequence of Trump’s downsizing of the federal government. Even with those cuts, the unemployment rates in Northern Virginia remain some of the lowest in the state. The highest rate is in Falls Church (4.4%), but that’s still lower than in many rural communities, where there are few job options to begin with. You’re not likely to find much sympathy for Falls Church in, say, Dickenson County (5.1%), Henry County (5.3%), Tazewell County (5.9%), Prince Edward County (6.2%), Buchanan County (6.3%), Danville (6.9%) — or Greensville County and Emporia.
That’s not the comparison that matters, though. The better comparison is how each county or city has changed over the past year. The changes in many rural areas are negligible, but the changes in Northern Virginia are huge — unemployment up 37% in Alexandria, 40% in Arlington County, 44.6% in Loudoun County, 62.9% in Falls Church.
These are not communities accustomed to a lot of unemployment, and while their jobless rates remain low, they are significantly higher than they once were — all because the region’s main employer has been downsizing. Let’s reframe this in political terms: Virginia’s unemployment rate is rising fastest in its most populous region — and its most Democratic one. The risk for Republicans is that these rising unemployment rates spook Northern Virginia into a larger-than-usual turnout on behalf of the Democratic ticket. (On the map, you’ll also see some rural counties in eastern Southside with high rates of change; these are also counties that tend to vote Democratic.) In more colorful terms, Trump has thrown a rock through a hornet’s nest — just as the Virginia Republican ticket is walking by. If those hornets sting anyone, it will be whoever is closest.
I’ve pointed out before that Earle-Sears’ lack of empathy for laid-off federal workers is a problem for her — she’s said losing a job isn’t a “huge, huge thing.” The Spanberger campaign has leaned into that, using Earle-Sears’ own words against her in a series of ads. Even Jones, in his bid for attorney general, has talked up economic issues rather than legal ones.
Earle-Sears has essentially tried to change the subject by going culture warrior on transgender issues, which Trump found was a good way to rally voters last year. The challenge for Republicans is that this is an off-year election, and in most gubernatorial years, fewer than half of Virginia’s voters cast ballots. The off-year cycle can also be a challenge for Democrats, but evidence (such as the recent Roanoke College poll) suggests that Democrats are more energized this year than Republicans. Anger and fear tend to be good motivators. Four years ago, that enthusiasm helped Republicans, who saw big increases in turnout in rural areas. What is going to get those voters’ attention this year? That’s a question I’ve been asking for much of the year.
Maybe Earle-Sears’ emphasis on cultural issues — or at least one cultural issue — will get those rural voters excited. It seems clear, though, that economic issues may not. The economy hasn’t changed that much in many rural areas. That won’t give Democrats an opening, but it also may not give Republicans much to work with. Jones may have the right line, but it likely works better in Ballston than Buena Vista. I’m still waiting to hear what the best Republican line is. Earle-Sears does a decent job of warning about what would happen under Democratic governance, but it’s unclear whether Virginia voters are sufficiently afraid to buy it.
Where Earle-Sears and Spanberger stand
You can see where the candidates for governor (and other offices) stand on our Voter Guide. Want to know who’s on your ballot? We have individual pages for all 133 counties and cities in Virginia. Early voting begins Sept. 19.
For more political news and insights, sign up for West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter:
