Wittman and McGuire got almost the same vote last year, but Democrats are only targeting Wittman in 2026. Here’s why.

We’re in the midst of the 2025 state elections, but let’s look ahead to the 2026 midterms — by looking back to the 2024 presidential and congressional elections.

Last year in Virginia, we had two Republicans win their congressional districts with very similar votes.

In the 1st Congressional District (Richmond suburbs to the Chesapeake Bay), Rob Wittman won reelection with 56.31% of the vote.

In the 5th Congressional District (Charlottesville, Lynchburg, much of Southside), John McGuire won with 57.26% of the vote.

However, in looking ahead to the next round of elections, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has announced it’s targeting the 1st District, but not the 5th. 

Why? Is that 0.95% of the vote difference really so big? Is this the political equivalent of the cigarette ads in the ’60s that touted Chesterfield 101s as “a silly millimeter longer”?

Or, to look at these districts another way, why is it that a Republican who won with 56.31% of the vote is considered vulnerable at all?

The answers to both involve math — political math.

Democrats have actually targeted two districts in Virginia in next year’s elections. The other is the 2nd District in Hampton Roads held by Republican Jen Kiggans. 

That makes sense. The 2nd has long been a swing district, and while its current configuration makes it a little more Republican (that’s how Kiggans won in 2022), it’s hardly a safe seat for her — or anyone. Kiggans won reelection last year with just 50.74% of the vote to 46.90% for her Democratic opponent.

The closest congressional district in the state was the 7th, mostly along Interstate 95 between Richmond and Northern Virginia. Democrat Eugene Vindman won that with 51.18% to 48.54% for his Republican opponent.

Republicans will be targeting him as much as Democrats are targeting Kiggans.

Neither of those is surprising. Both are purple districts, if you want to go by political colors.

But what attracts Democrats to the 1st? And not the 5th?

The website The Downballot has done some math for us. Computing presidential votes by congressional districts is not always as easy as it seems because some localities are split between districts, although Virginia’s current redistricting thankfully minimizes that.

The Downballot says that Donald Trump won the 5th District with 55.6% of the vote to 43.4% for Kamala Harris. That’s pretty close to the 57.26% that McGuire won the district by.

However, in the 1st District, Trump carried the district with just 51.8% of the vote to 46.9% for Harris — a margin that should get both sides’ attention. Wittman won 56.31% of the vote, so, on a percentage basis, noticeably outperformed Trump.

Democrats are counting on several things: Midterms typically go against the party in power, so next year ought to be a good year for them, if tradition holds. Here’s a district Trump barely won, so — if the party can tie Wittman to Trump — maybe next year will go their way.

Republicans are counting on different dynamics, of course. There’ll be plenty of time to talk about what next year’s politics might look like, so let’s put all that back-and-forth off until then. 

In the meantime, let’s look at why and how the 1st and 5th are so different that Democrats see potential in the one and not the other.

Superficially, the districts seem similar. Both have a lot of Republican-voting rural areas that so far have outvoted Democratic metro areas.

In the 5th District, the Democratic vote is in Charlottesville, Albemarle County and Danville — everything else last year voted Republican.

In the 1st District, there were only two Democratic-voting localities last year: Henrico County and Williamsburg.

This is where the differences end — and the math begins.

Albemarle and Charlottesville together account for 20.36% of the registered voters in the 5th District. Add in Danville, and you’re up to 25.25% of the district. Obviously, not everyone in those localities votes Democratic, and not everyone in the rest of the district votes Republican, but that’s an easy way to see the problem Democratic candidates face in the 5th — only one-quarter of the voters are in Democratic-voting localities. For a Democrat to win, they have to run up a disproportionate score in those three localities — and then hope to convert voters in rural areas where they haven’t been competitive for a long, long, long time. I’m not sure Democrats even know how to talk to rural voters anymore, but that’s a subject for another day. Certainly, what they’ve been trying hasn’t been working.

Anyway, that’s the lay of the land in the 5th (I discussed the numbers in more detail in a previous column). Now let’s look at the 1st.

Henrico County — that lone Democratic county last year — accounts for 21.82% of the voters. Throw in Williamsburg, and you’re at 23.55% of the vote being in Democratic localities. That seems similar (and a little worse) than the 5th District. 

Now, for the big difference: It’s not clear in the 5th where Democrats go to get more votes. The second biggest locality is Lynchburg, an unusual city because it’s almost always a Republican-voting city. Prince Edward County can be a swing county, but it accounts for just 2.31% of the voters in the district. A Democrat in the 5th still has to figure out all those rural counties. If Democrats were designing their ideal candidate in the 5th, Frankenstein-like, it would probably need to be a distinctively rural Democrat who wouldn’t turn off the progressives around Charlottesville — but they don’t have such a creature.

In the 1st, though, it’s very clear where Democrats should go to get more votes: Chesterfield County. Chesterfield accounts for 21.68% of the vote in the 1st. Between Henrico and Chesterfield, that’s 43.5% of the district’s voters who are in the Richmond suburbs. The 1st is simply not as rural as the 5th, and that gives Democrats an opening. 

Now, for the downside for Democrats (and the upside for Republicans). Chesterfield County is split between the 1st District and the 4th District. Broadly speaking, the 1st got the Republican part, and the 4th got the Democratic part. The details are a little more complicated. 

Wittman won his part of Chesterfield, but not by much — he took 51.59% of the vote in Chesterfield.

Democrats have been making gains with suburban voters. We don’t know how persuadable these particular suburban voters will be, but Democrats may reason they have a shot there. There’s another suburban county in the district: James City County, just outside Williamsburg.  Williamsburg is a given for Democrats, but it’s just 1.73% of the district. However, James City County next door accounts for 10.67% of the district. Wittman won James City County — but barely, with 52.11% of the vote. More importantly, if you’re a political strategist, Harris carried James City County with 52.16% of the vote. In other words, this was a Harris/Wittman county. Democrats will try hard to flip that. Wittman has had enough crossover appeal to win some Democratic-voting areas; McGuire hasn’t needed to.

Add all that up, and what you get is the possibility of Democrats running a suburban campaign in the 1st — aimed at driving up their vote in Henrico and Williamsburg, and flipping Chesterfield and James City County. They don’t need to be particularly competitive in the rural counties to win — at least that’s probably their thinking.

Will this work? I have no idea — but it’s that suburban core in the 1st District that gives Democrats hope in a way that the more rural makeup of the 5th doesn’t.