I invite you today to come with me on a journey of exploration. You need no safari kit, no hiking boots, just a curiosity about Virginia politics.
Every election gives us a new understanding of what Virginians are thinking. With that in mind, I’ve been exploring the recent special election results from different directions. I’ve looked at how important Northern Virginia is to Democrats by showing how increased pro-Republican margins on the “no” side in rural Virginia still couldn’t make up for the margins the “yes” side got out of Northern Virginia, particularly Fairfax County. I’ve looked at overall turnout across the state, which made the case that the “no” side missed an opportunity to win because of low turnout in Southwest and Southside Virginia.
Before I pose the question I’ll explore today, let’s set the stage. The “no” vote in the special election (essentially the Republican side, augmented by some Democratic dissidents and independents) exceeded the Republican vote for governor in last fall’s election by 3.4%, while the “yes” vote (most definitely the Democratic side) ran below November’s tally by 18.8%.
The reason why the vote was so close was, mathematically, because many Democratic supporters last year simply didn’t vote. The “no” vote was consistently above last year’s tally across the state in almost every locality (Lynchburg was a notable exception), while the “yes” vote ran below the 2025 Democratic vote everywhere. That made me wonder several things. Since the dominant theme here was the Democratic vote being down, was it down consistently or inconsistently across the state? (Spoiler alert: It was down inconsistently.)
That prompted four other questions: Where were Democrats most enthusiastic about the amendment? Where were they the least enthusiastic? Did Democrats in parts of the state now represented by Republican U.S. House members, but who would be moved into a district designed to go Democratic, show any special enthusiasm for the redistricting amendment? Did Roanoke Valley Democrats show any reluctance in supporting the amendment, given that redistricting would put their hometown congressional candidate, author Beth Macy, into a district where she’d be the underdog against former U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello?
The answers to these questions can be found in math — and mapping. This map shows how much the Democratic vote in each locality declined in raw numbers from November 2025. I’ve keyed the map to a midpoint of 81.1% since that’s the statewide average — the “yes” vote came in at 81.1% of last year’s Democratic vote. If you’re a stickler for math, you’ll notice 0.1% disappeared into the ether of rounding and the hazards of using just one decimal place.
That means any locality in green was above the state average (although still below last year’s numbers), while any in whatever shade of red that is came in below the state average.
As you can see, there are some clear geographical trends. Here’s what they are and what they mean.
Black voters appear to have been the most enthusiastic about the amendment
I base that on the fact that the localities (with a few exceptions we’ll get to) with the highest retention rate from last November are the ones where Black voters have the highest share of the population. Of Virginia’s 133 localities, eight have a Black majority population. All eight finished in the top 15 for retention rates, while all but two of the other seven localities on that list were neighboring localities in eastern Southside with large Black populations. It’s notable that most of those Black-majority localities had nothing to gain from the amendment in the sense that they’re in a congressional district represented by a Black Democrat now, and would still be under redistricting.
We also see these same trends when we look at the precinct level. In Roanoke, the retention rate in the Eureka Park precinct, in a Black neighborhood, was 88.2%. In South Roanoke, a predominantly white (and affluent) precinct, the retention rate was 79.7%. In East Gate, a predominantly white, blue-collar precinct, the retention rate was 77.3%.
Once again, Democrats are indebted to their Black supporters for showing up when many of the party’s white supporters did not.
The Democrats least enthusiastic about the amendment were in Southwest Virginia
The locality with the lowest Democratic retention rate was Buena Vista, where the “yes” vote was just 64% of the vote for Abigail Spanberger last fall. Buena Vista’s not in Southwest Virginia, so we’ll come back to BV, as the locals call it. With that exception, of the 11 localities with the lowest retention rates, 10 are in Southwest Virginia.
Buena Vista 64%
Buchanan County 64.8%
Wise County 64.4%
Norton 65.3%
Smyth County 67.8%
Lee County 68.3%
Dickenson County 69.4%
Scott County and Tazewell County 70.4%
Bland County and Russell County 70.5%
There seem to be two easy explanations for this, in whichever order you want to put them. Democrats in these localities had nothing to gain. They were in a Republican-dominated district to begin with; redistricting would still leave them that way. Also, the “yes” campaign devoted no visible effort to Southwest Virginia — or anywhere else west of the Blue Ridge, for that matter. All the big events were in the urban crescent. That’s understandable — that’s where the Democratic base is. This, though, is the consequence of Democrats ignoring the western part of the state. Many of their voters simply stayed home. It seems hard to believe that Democratic voters in Southwest found the map more objectionable than Democrats elsewhere; they likely just saw they had nothing to gain either way. That brings us to this observation.
Democrats in the future 9th District also didn’t have much enthusiasm
This lack of enthusiasm among western Democrats extended beyond Southwest Virginia — and into almost all of the localities not in the current 9th District that would be under the new map, most noticeably Buena Vista. In the new configuration of the 9th District, only two localities had retention rates above the state average: Floyd County, which at 81.2% was just 0.1 percentage point above water, and Martinsville, a rare Democratic stronghold in that district, at 82%. These “new” localities for the 9th are currently in the Republican 6th District, so Democratic voters there would see a change in district, but not really a change in representation. Maybe there are other explanations for this western drop-off, but this seems the most likely one. On the other hand …
The prospect of moving into a Democratic district was not a motivator for some Democrats
Under the new map (which still awaits the Virginia Supreme Court’s word that the election was lawfully placed on the ballot), Augusta County will be moved from a Republican district and split into three pieces, two of them placed in Democratic districts. Rockingham County will also be split into three pieces, all in Democratic districts. That did not seem to inspire Democratic voters there — both Augusta and Rockingham had below-average retention rates.
Democrats in the Republican-voting Piedmont counties that will get moved into the so-called “Lobster District” — formally, the 7th — also had below-average rates. This feeling was not universal, though. Counties in the northern Shenandoah Valley had slightly above-average retention rates, which suggests that maybe other factors were at play. Still, the fact remains: Democrats in Augusta and Rockingham, even when faced with the prospect of having Democratic representation, were still less enthusiastic about voting than Democrats in Grayson County, which had no prospect for Democratic representation.
On the other hand, Democratic voters across Southside saw some of the highest retention rates in the state — many of those are currently in the Republican-dominated 5th District but would be in Democratic districts with redistricting.
Without more data, it’s hard to explain why Shenandoah Valley and Piedmont Democrats weren’t excited while Southside Democrats were — other than race. There are simply a lot more Black voters in Southside and, as we saw, they were enthusiastic supporters for the “yes” side.
College towns saw lackluster turnout
Democrats cranked out large turnouts from college campuses (and college towns in general) last fall. They did not this time around. All the easily identifiable “college towns” came in below average: Charlottesville, Harrisonburg, Radford and Williamsburg. Montgomery County was below average, with Blacksburg contributing to that. In Lynchburg, the college town skews conservative thanks to Liberty University, but both Democratic and Republican votes were down there — that’s why Lynchburg was one of the few places that produced fewer “no” votes this year than Republican votes last fall.
Roanoke Democrats did not seem to mind putting Macy into a primary with Perriello
One of the ironies of redistricting is that Democrats have something they rarely have — two well-funded candidates in mostly rural districts — but redistricting meant that one of them would have to go. I refer, of course, to former Rep. Tom Perriello of Albemarle County (in the current 5th District) and Roanoke author Beth Macy (in the current 6th District). The new map puts them in the same district, which will squeeze out one of them in a primary. Effectively, a “yes” vote by Roanoke Democrats was a vote to consign their hometown candidate to a likely early exit (the only public poll on the new district showed Perriello with a wide lead). Did that prompt any Roanoke Democrats to have second thoughts about the amendment? If so, they don’t show up in the returns. Roanoke had a slightly above-average retention rate. Either those “yes” voters were unaware of the implications or thought about them and ranked creating a new map as a higher priority than giving Macy an easy shot at the party’s nomination.
Westmoreland County is the real outlier
Scroll back up to take a look at the map. That bright green county on the Northern Neck is Westmoreland County. It had the second-highest retention rate in the state: 88.6%, just below Surry County at 88.7%.
Surry fits in geographically with those other counties in eastern Southside that have a large Black population. Westmoreland County doesn’t fit that profile. It has the lowest Black population of any county on the Northern Neck, with the exception of King George County. So racial demographics aren’t what has driven Westmoreland’s high retention rate. What could it be? Unless we go interview all 3,310 “yes” voters in the county, we won’t know with absolute certainty. However, Westmoreland Democrats mounted an unusually aggressive “yes” campaign for a rural area.
“We specifically targeted strong Democrats and went to Black churches to refute the misinformation being lobbed at them by Republican operatives,” Westmoreland Democratic chair Victoria Luna told me by email. “Also, we held a Town Hall Meeting with over 60 participants and sent out 1,500 post cards with our contact information so voters could see what side we are on. For the first time we targeted strong Democrats who own property along key highways, and then we launched a barn sign campaign. We installed 15 barn signs throughout Westmoreland County at the best possible locations. We target[ed] strong Democrats and canvassed door to door with a focus on early voting. And lastly, we had almost 30 volunteers at the polls on election day, whereas Republicans had very few.”
If more Democrats had been like the Westmoreland variety, the special election would not have been as close as it was. If Republicans had higher turnout from their voters, especially in Southwest and Southside, they might have won.
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