Large margins in Virginia’s northern suburbs prompted the narrow vote to redraw the state’s congressional maps, even with the strongest turnout in Republican-leaning areas.
Compared to other recent elections in Virginia — former Vice President Kamala Harris carried the state in 2024 by about six percentage points, and Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic nominee for governor in 2025, won it by 15 — the statewide margin of about three points in favor of the ballot measure was a weak showing for Democrats.
But beneath the surface, the results show contradictory patterns that help explain how the referendum still came forward.
Voting continued despite declines in Northern Virginia and other Democratic strongholds.
Northern Virginia, which includes affluent suburbs of Washington, DC and a large number of federal employees, voted overwhelmingly in support of the measure. “Yes” did much better there than Ms. Harris in 2024, including in its majority non-white precincts, even though those precincts had lower turnout than the rest of the state. However, that measure doesn’t match the margins Ms. Spanberger saw in those areas in November.
Across Virginia, majority black, Hispanic, youth and urban areas experienced the largest shift toward the “yes” campaign relative to Ms. Harris’s margins in 2024, when those groups showed signs of abandoning the Democratic Party. The referendum result, combined with other recent polls, could ease fears among Democrats about whether the party has permanently lost its coalition of non-white and young voters.
However, turnout among those groups declined the most compared to 2025, raising the possibility that this change could be explained by changes in the composition of the electorate. For example, areas with more non-white or young voters had the lowest rates of turnout.
In Manassas Park, which has the highest share of Hispanic voters of any independent city or county in the state, the 12-point swing from 2024 was the largest leftward shift among all Virginia localities. But turnout in the city declined between 2024 and 2025, the largest decline in the state.
Rural and white voters led the ‘No’ campaign.
Republicans fell short of victory, but the relatively small margin demonstrated an active base on the right. The areas where “No” performed best compared to President Trump in 2024 also had the highest turnout.
In Rockingham County, a conservative stronghold, “No” outperformed Mr. Trump by 14 points, representing the largest shift locally toward “No” in the state. Rockingham’s margin for “no” nearly matches that of Republican Glenn Youngkin, who carried the county by 51 points in his successful race for governor in 2021.
The referendum outperformed Mr. Youngkin’s margin in 50 of Virginia’s 133 precincts, mostly white and rural areas.
Opposition to the measure was particularly strong in parts of the state where redistricting would have a disproportionate impact on the local population. The Shenandoah Valley and many of its neighboring areas to the south saw some of the largest shifts toward “No”, made more impressive by the region’s relatively high turnout.
The result was a bright spot for Republicans. But every special one is special.
The “No” campaign did not receive enough votes to win, but many Republicans were encouraged by the closeness of the race.
The new map aims to eliminate all but one of the state’s safe Republican districts. But calculations of trends in a district are generally based on past voting patterns. Analyzing the referendum results along the new district lines adds nuance to understanding how competitive these districts may be.
The “No” led in the redrawn 9th District, which is expected to be the state’s only safe Republican seat. But it also led in the redrawn 6th District, which had leaned Democratic in 2024. And in the redrawn 7th District, nicknamed the “Lobster District” because of its unusual shape, “Yes” had only a small advantage.
Some areas where Ms Spanberger remained marginalized in 2025 also saw particularly significant rightward shifts. For example, “No” won by 10 points in Spotsylvania, a county that turned blue in 2025 for the first time in at least a decade.
In Virginia Beach, “No” got just over 50 percent of the vote after Ms. Harris won the city by three points in 2024, and Ms. Spanberger won it by 11 points in 2025.
These rightward swings energized Republicans after Democrats made large gains across the board in special elections held since the beginning of 2025. But in any particular election, the idiosyncrasies of voters and individual races create risks for future elections. And the peculiarities of this race, with its complex terminology and unclear ideological divisions, may make it even less comparable to other elections.
Alex Lemonides, Jeff Adelson And ilana marcus has contributed.
