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2020 United States presidential election in Virginia

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Turnout	75.07% (5.8 pp)
Nominee Joe Biden Donald Trump Party Democratic Republican Home state Delaware Florida Running mate Kamala Harris Mike Pence Electoral vote 13 0 Popular vote 2,413,568 1,962,430 Percentage 54.11% 44.00%
County and Independent City Results Congressional District Results Precinct Results Biden   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%   80–90%   90–100% Trump   40–50%   50–60%   60–70%   70–80%   80–90%   90–100% Tie/No data
President before election Donald Trump Republican Elected President Joe Biden Democratic

Elections in Virginia
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State government Governor 1776 1851 1855 1859 1863 C U 1869 1873 1877 1881 1885 1889 1893 1897 1901 1905 1909 1913 1917 1921 1925 1929 1933 1937 1941 1945 1949 1953 1957 1961 1965 1969 1973 1977 1981 1985 1989 1993 1997 2001 2005 2009 2013 2017 2021 2025 Lieutenant Governor 1973 1977 1981 1985 1989 1993 1997 2001 2005 2009 2013 2017 2021 2025 Attorney General 1993 1997 2001 2005 2009 2013 2017 2021 2025 Senate 1967 1971 1975 1979 1983 1987 1991 1995 1999 2003 2007 2011 2015 2019 2023 2027 House of Delegates 1975 1977 1979 1981 1982 1983 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 2017 2019 2021 2023 2025 State elections 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2023 2025
Ballot measures Statewide 1970 1972 1974 1976 1977 1978 1980 1982 1984 1986 1987 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 Fairfax County 2016
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v t e

The 2020 United States presidential election in Virginia was held on Tuesday, November 3, 2020, as part of the 2020 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Virginia voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote, pitting the Republican Party's nominee, incumbent President Donald Trump, and running mate Vice President Mike Pence against Democratic Party nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, and his running mate California Senator Kamala Harris. Virginia has 13 electoral votes in the Electoral College.

Prior to the election, most news organizations considered this a state Biden would win, or a likely blue state. On the day of the election, Biden won Virginia with 54.11% of the vote, and by a margin of 10.1%, the best performance for a Democratic presidential candidate since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944. Trump became the first Republican incumbent to consecutively lose Virginia since William Howard Taft and Biden became the first Democratic nominee to win Chesterfield County and Lynchburg City since 1948, Virginia Beach City since 1964, James City County since 1968, and Stafford County since 1976. He also flipped Chesapeake City back to the Democratic Party. Trump flipped no counties or independent cities in the state. Nevertheless, Biden became the first Democrat since 1960 to win without Westmoreland County, a notable bellwether. He was the first Democrat to ever win without Caroline County, Nelson County, or Covington.

The rapid growth of Northern Virginia as well as sliding suburban support for Republicans allowed Biden to win the once-key battleground state without actively campaigning in it. Biden won Henrico County, Loudoun County, Prince William County, and Fairfax County with 63.7%, 61.5%, 63.6%, and 69.9%, respectively; all four were former suburban bastions of the Republican Party in Virginia, the first outside Richmond and the others in Northern Virginia. All four had voted Republican in every election from 1968 through 2000. In Arlington County, a closer DC-area suburban county that had turned Democratic several decades earlier, Biden won with 80.6% of the vote, becoming the first nominee of either party in more than a century to do so. Biden's combined margin in Fairfax, Prince William, Loudoun, and Arlington Counties was greater than his statewide margin of victory. Crucially for his performance in Northern Virginia, Biden carried government workers by 18%.

Primary elections

Canceled Republican primary

The Virginia Republican Party is one of several state GOP parties that have officially canceled their respective primaries and caucuses. Donald Trump's re-election campaign and GOP officials have cited the fact that Republicans canceled several state primaries when George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush sought a second term in 1992 and 2004, respectively; and Democrats scrapped some of their primaries when Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were seeking reelection in 1996 and 2012, respectively. At the Virginia State Republican Convention, originally scheduled for May 2020 but postponed to August 15, 2020, the state party will formally bind all 48 of its national pledged delegates to Trump.

Democratic primary

The Virginia Democratic primary took place on March 3, 2020, as part of the "Super Tuesday" suite of elections.

Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders were among the major declared candidates.

Green primary

The Green Party of Virginia conducted an online ranked choice primary from April 20 to April 26, 2020.

General election

Predictions

Polling

Graphical summary

Graphs are unavailable due to technical issues. Updates on reimplementing the Graph extension, which will be known as the Chart extension, can be found on Phabricator and on MediaWiki.org.

Aggregate polls

Polls

Results

By city and county

•   Democratic — +10-12.5%
•   Democratic — +7.5-10%
•   Democratic — +5-7.5%
•   Democratic — +2.5-5%
•   Democratic — +0-2.5%
•   Republican — +0-2.5%
•   Republican — +2.5-5%
•   Republican — +5-7.5%
•   Republican — +7.5-10%
•   Republican — +10-12.5%

•   Democratic — +10-12.5%
•   Democratic — +7.5-10%
•   Democratic — +5-7.5%
•   Democratic — +2.5-5%
•   Democratic — +0-2.5%
•   Republican — +0-2.5%
•   Republican — +2.5-5%
•   Republican — +5-7.5%
•   Republican — +7.5-10%
•   Republican — +10-12.5%

• Democratic   Hold   Gain from Republican

  Republican   Hold

Counties and independent cities that flipped from Republican to Democratic

• Chesapeake (independent city)
• Chesterfield (no municipalities)
• Lynchburg (independent city)
• James City (no municipalities)
• Stafford (no municipalities)
• Virginia Beach (independent city)

By congressional district

Biden won 7 out of Virginia's 11 congressional districts.

Analysis

In this election, Virginia voted 5.6% more Democratic than the nation as a whole. Although Virginia was considered a reliably Republican state at the presidential level from 1952 to 2004 (having only gone to the Democrats once during that period, in Lyndon B. Johnson's 1964 landslide), it has not voted Republican in a presidential election since 2004. In recent years, densely populated counties in Northern Virginia close to Washington, D.C., have tilted towards the Democrats. This was the first election since 1988 that a presidential candidate won Virginia by double digits (George H. W. Bush having carried the state by 20.5% in his first run), and the first election in which any presidential candidate received over 2 million votes in Virginia.

As fellow Southern state Georgia tilted towards Biden, he became the first Democrat since Harry Truman in 1948 to carry both states. This was also the first election in which a former Confederate state backed a Democratic candidate by a margin of victory greater than 10% since 1996, when Arkansas and Louisiana did so for Bill Clinton.

Following the election, news and political analysts considered the presidential results in Virginia, along with Democrats holding the senate seat held by Mark Warner, their house congressional majority, plus the previous year's elections in which Democrats flipped the state General Assembly, to be indicative that it was no longer a swing state, but a blue state. Democrats did win the state again in 2024, albeit by a smaller margin of about 6%.

Their domination of state and local offices would be short-lived, however, as in 2021 the Republicans flipped the Democratic-held offices of governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general, as well as winning control of the Virginia House of Delegates. In 2023, Democrats recaptured the House of Delegates, winning full control of the General Assembly once again, albeit by narrower margins than what they acquired in 2019.

Voter demographics

See also

• United States presidential elections in Virginia
• 2020 United States presidential election
• 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries
• 2020 Republican Party presidential primaries
• 2020 United States elections

Notes

1. The "2020 March Democratic Presidential Primary" website published by the Virginia Department of Elections does not include the write-in votes. This article includes them.
2. ^ Candidate withdrew during absentee voting, shortly before the primary.
3. ^ Candidate withdrew following the New Hampshire primary, when absentee voting had already begun.
4. Calculated by taking the difference of 100% and all other candidates combined.
5. ^ Key:
   A – all adults
   RV – registered voters
   LV – likely voters
   V – unclear
6. Overlapping sample with the previous SurveyMonkey/Axios poll, but more information available regarding sample size
7. "Other candidate or write-in" with 1%
8. "Someone else" with 2%
9. "Third party candidate" with 2%
10. ^ Includes "refused"
11. "Other", "None of these" and would not vote with 0%
12. "Someone else" with 3%
13. With voters who lean towards a given candidate
14. "Another candidate" with 2%
15. "Third party candidate" with 1%
16. "Some other candidate" with 3%
17. Additional data sourced from FiveThirtyEight
18. "Would vote for a third party candidate" with 6%
19. "It is time to have someone else in office" as opposed to "Trump should be re-elected" with 59%
20. "Refused" with 0%

Partisan clients

1. ^ Poll conducted by Daniel Gade's campaign

References

1. Kelly, Ben (August 13, 2018). "US elections key dates: When are the 2018 midterms and the 2020 presidential campaign?". The Independent. Archived from the original on August 2, 2018. Retrieved January 3, 2019.
2. "Distribution of Electoral Votes". National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved January 3, 2019.
3. "Without Northern Virginia, Trump would have won the state". Inside Nova. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
4. "Chesterfield and Lynchburg hadn't backed a Democrat for president since 1948. Biden changed that". Virginia Mercury. November 5, 2020. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
5. "Virginia Voter Surveys: How Different Groups Voted". The New York Times. November 3, 2020. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 13, 2020.
6. ^ "Virginia Republicans Will Hold 2020 Presidential Preference Vote at State Convention". Frontloading. September 18, 2019. Retrieved September 19, 2019.
7. Karni, Annie (September 6, 2019). "GOP plans to drop presidential primaries in 4 states to impede Trump challengers". The Boston Globe. MSN. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
8. Steakin, Will; Karson, Kendall (September 6, 2019). "GOP considers canceling at least 3 GOP primaries and caucuses, Trump challengers outraged". ABC News. Retrieved September 7, 2019.
9. "Virginia Republican Delegation 2020". The Green Papers. Retrieved February 20, 2020.
10. Mattingly, Justin (June 30, 2020). "Republican Party of Virginia reschedules 'unassembled' convention for August". Richmond Times-Dispatch. Retrieved July 10, 2020.
11. Taylor, Kate (February 9, 2019). "Elizabeth Warren Formally Announces 2020 Presidential Bid in Lawrence, Mass". The New York Times. Retrieved February 10, 2019.
12. "2020 March Democratic Presidential Primary". Virginia.gov. Virginia Department of Elections. Archived from the original on March 27, 2020. Retrieved March 25, 2020.
13. "2020 March Democratic Presidential Primary". Virginia Department of Elections. Archived from the original on March 17, 2020. Retrieved March 11, 2020.
14. "2020 Presidential Primaries, Caucuses, and Conventions: Virginia Democrat". The Green Papers. Retrieved July 4, 2020.
15. ^ Jonah Thomas (May 12, 2020). "2020 GPVA Presidential Primary Results".
16. "2020 POTUS Race ratings" (PDF). The Cook Political Report. Retrieved May 21, 2019.
17. "POTUS Ratings | Inside Elections". insideelections.com. Retrieved May 21, 2019.
18. "Larry J. Sabato's Crystal Ball » 2020 President". crystalball.centerforpolitics.org. Retrieved May 21, 2019.
19. "2020 Election Forecast". Politico. November 19, 2019.
20. "Battle for White House". RCP. April 19, 2019.
21. 2020 Bitecofer Model Electoral College Predictions Archived April 23, 2020, at the Wayback Machine, Niskanen Center, March 24, 2020, retrieved: April 19, 2020
22. David Chalian; Terence Burlij (June 11, 2020). "Road to 270: CNN's debut Electoral College map for 2020". CNN. Retrieved June 16, 2020.
23. "Forecasting the US elections". The Economist. Retrieved July 7, 2020.
24. "2020 Election Battleground Tracker". CBS News. July 12, 2020. Retrieved July 13, 2020.
25. "2020 Presidential Election Interactive Map". 270 to Win.
26. "ABC News Race Ratings". ABC News. July 24, 2020. Retrieved July 24, 2020.
27. Montanaro, Domenico (September 16, 2020). "2020 Electoral Map Ratings: Landscape tightens some, but Biden is still ahead". NPR. Retrieved January 15, 2021.
28. "Biden continues to lead in our latest battleground map". NBC News. October 27, 2020. Retrieved January 15, 2021.
29. "Biden is very likely to win Virginia". FiveThirtyEight. August 12, 2020. Retrieved January 15, 2021.
30. 270 to Win
31. FiveThirtyEight
32. ^ SurveyMonkey/Axios
33. Swayable Archived November 13, 2020, at the Wayback Machine
34. Data for Progress
35. Roanoke College
36. Christopher Newport University
37. Swayable
38. Virginia Commonwealth University
39. Schar School/Washington Post
40. Civiqs/Daily Kos
41. Reconnect Research/Roanoke College
42. Survey Monkey/Tableau
43. Cygnal/Gade for Virginia
44. Cygnal/Gade for Virginia
45. Christopher Newport University
46. Virginia Commonwealth University Archived September 15, 2020, at the Wayback Machine
47. Roanoke College
48. ^ Morning Consult
49. Virginia Commonwealth University
50. Roanoke College
51. Virginia Commonwealth University
52. ^ Hampton University
53. ^ Roanoke College
54. ^ Mason-Dixon
55. ^ Virginia Commonwealth University
56. ^ Virginia Commonwealth University
57. ^ University of Mary Washington/Research America
58. ^ University of Mary Washington
59. "2019 Virginia Legislative Election Survey - Judy Ford Wason Center for Public Policy - Christopher Newport University". cnu.edu. Retrieved August 16, 2024.
60. "2020 Virginia Presidential Primary Poll - Judy Ford Wason Center for Public Policy - Christopher Newport University". cnu.edu. Retrieved August 16, 2024.
61. Ipsos/University of Virginia
62. "2020 November General". results.elections.virginia.gov. Archived from the original on January 2, 2021. Retrieved November 20, 2020.
63. "Virginia Department of Elections - Registration/Turnout Reports".
64. "Virginia went from purple to blue. Here's what lies ahead for Virginia Republicans". 13newsnow.com. November 5, 2020. Retrieved June 9, 2023.
65. "EDITORIAL: 'NoVA creep" turns former red state blue". Fredericksburg.com. November 18, 2020. Retrieved June 9, 2023.
66. "So, what color is Virginia now?". Roll Call. November 16, 2021. Retrieved June 9, 2023.
67. "Republicans Bucked Virginia's Blue State Trend. Here Are A Few Reasons Why". WAMU. Retrieved June 9, 2023.
68. "Virginia 2020 President Exit Polls". www.cnn.com. Retrieved December 14, 2020.

External links

• Government Documents Round Table of the American Library Association, "Virginia", Voting & Elections Toolkits
• "Virginia: Election Tools, Deadlines, Dates, Rules, and Links", Vote.org, Oakland, CA
• "League of Women Voters of Virginia". (State affiliate of the U.S. League of Women Voters)
• Virginia at Ballotpedia

v t e State and district results of the 2020 United States presidential election
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• 2020 United States presidential election by state
• United States presidential elections in Virginia
• 2020 Virginia elections