By Dave Ress
Fifteen localities that had backed Republican Glenn Youngkin in 2021 – a mix of big suburbs, a college town, rural counties with large Black populations and small industrial cities – flipped in the 2025 election.
The largest localities that flipped to Democrat Abigail Spanberger on Tuesday were the cities of Virginia Beach and Chesapeake; and Chesterfield, Spotsylvania and Stafford counties.
Their shift, along with a surge of Democratic votes in Democratic strongholds – an increase of more than 163,000 in all 34 of these communities from the 2021 election – also helped power Spanberger‘s margin, a Richmond Times-Dispatch analysis found.
Overall, Spanberger topped Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, the Republican nominee, by roughly 490,000 votes, a margin of 15 percentage points.
The Democratic strongholds include the Northern Virginia suburbs, such cities as Richmond, Petersburg, Newport News and Norfolk, and college towns, including Charlottesville and Williamsburg,
At the same time, in the Republicans’ rural strongholds, GOP votes fell by as much as 18.5%, as in Bristol. These communities, mostly in Southwest, Southside and Piedmont Virginia, were key to Youngkin’s 2021 victory. They were a focus of his get-out-the-vote push with his often-repeated line that supporters should bring 10 friends to the polls.
“The fact that Spanberger saw Democratic increases in nearly every locality is the story, and each locality will reflect the unique composition of its population,” said John McGlennon, a political scientist at the College of William & Mary.
But some clear statewide patterns emerged, he said.
“The Democrats skewed young, so college towns and urban/suburban areas moved to the party,” he said.
In addition, the state’s growing non-white population moved solidly to the Democrats, including two-thirds of Latino voters and 80% of Asian Americans, McGlennon said, citing exit polls.
Mark J. Rozell, dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, said: “Swing voters sent a strong message that the Republicans were not listening to public concerns about the economy, jobs and affordability.”
He added: “Spanberger focused on those issues, whereas the GOP campaign didn’t have a good message and its ticket was never really united.”
In the 15 cities and counties that flipped, Democratic votes soared from 2021 levels – in 10 localities by 20% or more – while Republican ballots fell sharply, with 11 of the 15 reporting drops of 10% or more.
Spotsylvania, Stafford
Spotsylvania and Stafford counties, home to thousands of federal and government contractor employees, saw Democratic votes jump by 41% and 35%, respectively, while GOP votes fell by 11% and 14%.
“A lot of people here have lost their jobs, or are worried they’re going to lose their jobs or can’t find a job because of (President Donald) Trump’s policies,” said Steve Farnsworth, a political scientist at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg.
Their concerns are particularly sharp in Stafford and Spotsylvania because many of the people who moved there in recent years came in search of more affordable homes than they could find closer to Washington – but even so, many stretched hard to buy a place and have heavy debt loads, he said.
“I think it’s the same story in a lot of outer ring suburbs,” Farnsworth said. “The first wave of suburbanization may have been ideological, people wanting to get away from blue cities, to have a nice yard, but for the past 20 years, the second wave is people who just want a more affordable place to live.”
Chesterfield
In 2021, Youngkin carried Chesterfield by more than 6,000 votes, with 51.8% of the county’s tally. This year, it voted 58.5% for Spanberger, who amassed a margin of roughly 29,000 votes over Earle-Sears. In Chesterfield, Democratic votes increased by more than 24,000, or 32.8%. Republican votes dropped by more than 11,000, or 14.1%.
The Hampton Roads suburbs of Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and James City County, home to thousands of Defense Department civilian employees and contractors, saw similar percentage shifts, as they turned blue this year. The longtime GOP bastion of York County nearly flipped, as it saw 1,924 fewer Republican votes than in 2021, and a 3,300-vote increase in the Democratic tally.
Localities that remained loyal to the GOP saw similar drops – 37 reported drops of 10% or more in Republican votes. Only two of some 84 Republican strongholds, Goochland and New Kent counties, reported small increases.
The small industrial cities of Hopewell and Waynesboro and not-so-small Lynchburg swung to Democrats as well.
Hopewell saw a 29.8% increase in Democratic votes in tandem with a 16% drop on Republican ballots. Waynesboro reported a 34.5% increase in Democratic votes and a 10.5% decline in Republican ones. Lynchburg reported somewhat smaller shifts.
Rural Surry County, where nearly half the residents are Black, had been trending narrowly Republican in recent years but flipped with modest increases in Democratic votes and small declines in Republican ones. The same pattern occurred in the Eastern Shore’s Northampton County.
“The real headline from election night was the dramatic flip” of some Virginia localities that had voted more conservatively, said Olusoji Akomolafe, a political scientist at Norfolk State University.
“Waynesboro, Nelson, Surry, Stafford, Spotsylvania, James City, and Lynchburg, all of which Trump won handily in 2024, save for James City, turned blue for Abigail Spanberger,” he said.
“This wasn’t just a shift; it was a political earthquake.”
Three localities with large college student populations also flipped: Montgomery County, where Virginia Tech is; Radford, home to Radford University; and Prince Edward County, where Longwood University is.
“Low turnout in off-year elections is chalked up to voter fatigue, especially in Virginia, where state elections follow closely on the heels of presidential contests. But this year defied that pattern,” Akomolafe said.
“The question is: why did turnout surge when it was expected to slump?,” he added. “The answer, in two words, is Trump fatigue.”