New Insights into Rural GOP Gains

Enhanced election returns from three Virginia counties provide granular details of how Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin widened his party's rural margin this year's gubernatorial election. Election officials in Amherst, Campbell and Floyd counties set up ballots so early votes could be reallocated to precincts where voters live.

Methodology: Election officials in Chesapeake City and the counties of Amherst, Campbell, Fairfax and Floyd set up ballots in November 2021 elections to make it possible to reallocate absentee ballots back to the precincts where voters lived. VPAP used this data to then compare the change in partisan spread from the 2017 Governor's race. (For Chesapeake, VPAP used the 2020 presidential race as the baseline because the city had full data available for both the 2021 and 2020 elections.) The 2017 v. 2021 is not a perfect comparison because the precinct-level results do not include absentee votes. For example, about 12% of votes cast in Fairfax County in 2017 were absentee, compared to almost 40% in 2021. The exact formula used to determine the partisan shift for the counties is (2021 Youngkin % minus 2021 McAuliffe %) minus (2017 Gillespie % minus 2017 Northam %). For Chesapeake, formula used to determine the partisan shift is (2021 Youngkin % minus 2021 McAuliffe %) minus (2020 Trump % minus 2020 Biden %).

Sources: Results provided by election officials in Chesapeake City and the counties of Amherst, Campbell, Fairfax and Floyd.