Former President Donald Trump and Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin at a June 28, 2024, rally in Chesapeake. (Charlotte Rene Woods/Virginia Mercury)
Virginia’s elected officials are reacting with mixed responses to Donald Trump’s win in the 2024 presidential election, even as Vice President Kamala Harris managed to keep Virginia in the Democratic column, albeit by a narrower margin than President Joe Biden achieved in 2020.
Republican officials in Virginia celebrated the former president’s national victory, hailing it as a mandate for their party’s agenda.
“The American people have spoken overwhelmingly to return common sense, strength, and leadership back to the White House. Through the Trump presidency, we will pave the way for an economic revival, a secure border, and a stronger America on the world stage,” Gov. Glenn Youngkin said in a statement.
Youngkin did not comment on Harris’s victory in Virginia. The Democrat defeated Trump by a 5-point margin, winning 51.8% to Trump’s 46.5%, a spread of nearly 225,000 votes from a total of about 4.3 million cast, according to unofficial data from the Virginia Department of Elections.
Trump claimed victory nationwide by securing 292 electoral votes to Harris’s 224, also winning the popular vote by a 4.8 million margin — the first Republican nominee to do so since President George W. Bush won reelection in 2004.
Virginia Democrats, on the other hand, remained largely silent in the immediate aftermath of Tuesday’s election.
One of the few party leaders to address Virginians directly within hours after the Associated Press called the race for Trump was Virginia House Speaker Don Scott, D-Portsmouth, who despite the Democrats’ defeat in the race for the White House and the U.S. Senate expressed optimism about his state and how Democrats and Republicans can work together at the state level.
“All politics are local, and I think we’ve begun to see that here in Virginia,” Scott told reporters outside the state capital in Richmond on Wednesday afternoon. “I think Virginians expect us to do everything that we can to protect their freedoms, and then to work where we can, with the governor and and and with the federal government.”
But in reference to some voter demographics and polarizing factors about Trump as a candidate, he said “I think we learned some lessons about what’s acceptable and unacceptable for white American people.”
Democrats and activists have continually stressed concern over Trump’s rhetoric that often disparages people of color, immigrants and women.
“I think the country made a bet on Donald Trump that some of the things that he has said he didn’t mean, and they’re going to trust him,” Scott said. “I hope they’re right, because we want him to be successful, because it’s good for the entire country.”
The economy was “a huge issue” during the 2024 election cycle, Scott added as a reason some Virginia voters turned to Trump.
“I think inflation is real. There are people who still feel some pain around inflation. Even though inflation is down, prices are down, we’re back moving in the right direction… I think that that message didn’t resonate with voters, and I think that ended up hurting us at some point,” he said.
And Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., whose seat was not up for reelection this year, said that he was committed to “working with President-elect Trump to get things done for Virginians, just as I did during his first term.”
“Americans made their choice on Tuesday, and while it wasn’t my favored candidate, I respect the democratic process and the outcome of this election,” Warner said.
Many Democratic leaders had anticipated a strong showing for Harris in the state, but her smaller-than-expected margin of victory reflects a shift in Virginia’s political landscape, particularly in rural areas that saw increased GOP turnout, political analysts say.
“In Virginia and nationally, red areas became more red and blue areas became less blue nearly everywhere,” said Stephen Farnsworth, a political scientist at the University of Mary Washington.
Trump’s obvious liabilities — his felony convictions, his chaotic administration and rhetoric driven by his white-hot anger — didn’t seem to matter to voters who were in a mood to reject the status quo, Farnsworth said.
“In the commonwealth, where abortion was protected by existing state law, the abortion issue was less relevant. In a number of states where abortion was on the ballot, abortion measures were far more popular than the Democratic candidates who supported them.”
And voters were clearly unhappy with the Biden administration’s record, particularly as it related to economic anxiety, the border and racial and cultural politics, Farnsworth added.
“The national dimensions of this frustration were seen in all areas — nearly everywhere we saw that Harris won by less or lost by more than Biden did four years ago.”
Virginia Republicans hailed Trump’s victory as a win for the commonwealth while remaining silent on the former president’s defeat in the state.
House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, said in a statement that Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, will return to Washington with “a clear mandate” from the American people.
“Across Virginia, and indeed the entire nation, voters shifted to the right in record numbers. Working class Americans stood up and said they’re tired of being told the economy is fine, and that they should just buy off brand peanut butter to deal with inflation,” Gilbert said.
Groups long “taken for granted by the left” rejected claims that their schools are fine and their children are safe in their communities, he added.
“Tens of millions of Americans decided they’d had enough of being called Nazis for simply having a different political opinion. Americans will no longer ignore what they can see right in front of them, no matter how much Democrats insist that reality is wrong.”
Rich Anderson, the chairman of the Republican Party, said that he was pleased with the results both nationally and in Virginia.
“We’re obviously pleased with the national race, the American people have spoken and President Trump has been reelected to a second term,” Anderson said in a phone interview Wednesday. “Here in Virginia, he did not carry it, but we worked very hard and took the 10.1% lead that Biden had in 2020 and shaved it down to just under 6% this year. I feel very good about that.”
None of the “swings of the party pendulums” happen in a revolutionary way, Anderson added.
“It’s usually evolutionary, and we’re now in the process of trying to take that pendulum and swing it as far and as fast as possible back toward the right.”
Most Republicans, however, limited their post-election commentary to social media, offering a mix of reflection and Monday-morning quarterbacking with a hint of ridicule.
“It looks like over 300 electoral votes, the popular vote, taking the Senate and keeping the House, and gosh, who could have predicted that calling over half of the country a bunch of bigoted misogynists if they didn’t vote for your candidate wasn’t a good campaign strategy? Who could have predicted that?” Del. Nick Freitas, R-Culpeper, a social media influencer, told his 1.3 million Instagram followers in a video he posted Wednesday.
On X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, state Sen. Glen Sturtevant, R-Chesterfield, asked for suggestions for “some of the action items for Virginia as we move forward” from the 2024 election.
“Identify the 200k Virginia Biden voters who didn’t show up for Harris. Figure out what’s going on with some of the pollsters that appear to have been completely divorced from reality,” Sturtevant listed among his own action items.
Susan Swecker, the chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Virginia, declined to comment Wednesday, stating that she was waiting for Harris to address the American people later on Wednesday.
But DPVA spokeswoman Kelsey Carolan said that Virginia Democrats fared well in the presidential election compared to other eastern states — despite Republican gains across the board.
Carolan cited election data from Connecticut, where Trump gained 8.9% of voters compared to 2020, New York (10.6%), New Jersey (10.9%) and Maryland (10.3%).
“In Virginia, Trump currently has a gain of 4.8%” Carolan said. “That is the most apples-to-apples analysis, because all of these states are states where neither campaign spent money on TV ads. This was a wave election and we’ve held our own.”
A few Democratic lawmakers took their post-election sorrows to social media.
In a lengthy thread on X, Del. Jackie Glass, D-Norfolk, said that Tuesday evening reminded her of the night when Trump was first elected eight years ago. She recalled how her then 10-year-old son asked her if his Latino and Hispanic classmates in school might be “taken away.” She added that she had once again woken up with a “familiar sense of dread.”
But Glass still left her fellow Democrats with a message of hope and optimism.
“Grab your pen, your pocketbook, your protest sign, your petition, and above all, your purpose. Remember, we are Lovers — no matter who we love, where we’ve been, or how we’ve lived. And if there’s one thing I know as a woman and a mother, it’s this: Lovers make the best fighters. Let’s fight for Virginia. Let’s go.”
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.