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Possible Republican Renaissance?

By Stephen J. Farnsworth and Stephen Hanna

Within Democrat Hillary Clinton’s victory in swing-state Virginia last month lies the opportunity for a possible Republican renaissance in statewide elections next November. Turning first to the bad news for Virginia Republicans, the party’s deepest troubles lie in the state’s two biggest electoral jurisdictions, which are getting more Democratic every election cycle. More than 550,000 votes were cast in November in Fairfax County, the state’s most populous jurisdiction, and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump only received 29 percent of them. Four years earlier, Mitt Romney received 39.5 percent of the vote in Fairfax. Clinton also won Loudoun County by a larger margin than Barack Obama did four years ago. Loudoun, which ranked second among Virginia jurisdictions this year with more than 182,000 votes cast, went for Clinton by a 55 percent to 38 percent margin. Four years ago, Democrats won the county by a 52-47 margin.

Virginia Beach, which ranked fourth in number of votes cast, offered a bit better news for the GOP. Trump secured a four point advantage in the city, a notably stronger performance than that of his Republican predecessor, who ran two points behind Obama in Virginia Beach in 2012. The greatest declines for the Democrats, though, were found in Southside and Southwest Virginia. The attached cartogram, which adjusts the sizes of Virginia counties and cities to match the number of votes cast, marks the greatest declines in Democratic vote share with deep red, and the greatest increases in the percentage support for Clinton with dark blue. Most of the counties along Interstate 81 and along the North Carolina border are marked dark red, signifying the greatest declines for Clinton when compared to the percentage Obama received four years ago. These rural counties do not have a lot of voters, so appear much smaller on this map when their size is adjusted to account for the number of votes cast. (People vote, acres don’t.) Given their small electorates, there is limited upside opportunity for the GOP in these areas. Further, these dark red counties already offer strong support for the party, even for Trump, who paid little attention to the socially conservative Republicanism that dominates these counties. If Trump’s twice-divorced, bawdy, glitzy billionaire Fifth Avenue Manhattan lifestyle didn’t drive away Christian conservatives, then nothing will. Looking ahead, the Republican Party would likely maximize its chances of success by nominating a less divisive candidate than Trump who nevertheless follows his lead in one crucial area: de-emphasizing a conservative social policy agenda. That way,

Farnsworth

hanna

The relatively bad news continued for Republicans in Chesterfield, long the state’s largest reliably Republican county. Trump won Chesterfield, which ranked third in the total number of votes casts, but only by two percentage points, compared to an eight percentage point margin for Romney four years ago.

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Change in Support for Democratic Presidential Candidates, 2012-2016

5 or less 6 to 10 10 or more 5 or less 6 to 10 Percent Decrease Percent Increase Counties and independent cities are scaled by the number of votes cast. For example, Fairfax County (550,000 votes) is three times the size of Loudoun County(182,000 votes).

Source: Electoral data are from the Virginia State Board of Elections website (www.sbe.virginia.gov/cms/Election_Information/Election_Results/Index.html). Map by Stephen P. Hanna, UMW Geography Department.

V irginia C apitol C onnections , W inter 2017

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