I live in NoVA, I was a democrat until 2017, I know 5 other people in Nova, 3 of them liberal women, who voted for Trump in 2020. There is no doubt in my mind that Virginia is more red than it is being portrayed, particularly in 2020. The evidence that I personally have found so far is that Republicans (and only republicans) miraculously split their tickets wayyyy more than democrats. So if you compare Potus to House votes or senate to house votes or even governor to virginia house votes, republicans always underperform their own house candidates, and democrats always over perform, sometimes to a crzy degree. Want Proof?
2013 was literally the worst year for democrats in virginia house in the history of the democrat party, they only got 32/100 seats
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_House_of_Delegates
Yet who won the governorship? Terry McCaullife, he got 26% more votes than his own house candidates, and Ken Cucinelli got 7% less votes than the republican house of delegates candidates. Thats a lot of ticket splitting.
I did the math on it, 5,000-10,000 people had to have voted dem governor and republican house, and another 10,000-15,000 had to have filled out a ballot for dem governor only so McAuliffe could win in a squeaker.
Now why the GOP wasn't setting their hair on fire in 2013, I don't know, that's when we had a chance to do something about it. now we are in deep shit without a lot of avenues to get things righted.
I live in NoVA, I was a democrat until 2017, I know 5 other people in Nova, 3 of them liberal women, who voted for Trump in 2020. There is no doubt in my mind that Virginia is more red than it is being portrayed, particularly in 2020. The evidence that I personally have found so far is that Republicans (and only republicans) miraculously split their tickets wayyyy more than democrats. So if you compare Potus to House votes or senate to house votes or even governor to virginia house votes, republicans always underperform their own house candidates, and democrats always over perform, sometimes to a crzy degree. Want Proof? 2013 was literally the worst year for democrats in virginia house in the history of the democrat party, they only got 32/100 seats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_House_of_Delegates
Yet who won the governorship? Terry McCaullife, he got 26% more votes than his own house candidates, and Ken Cucinelli got 7% less votes than the republican house of delegates candidates. Thats a lot of ticket splitting. I did the math on it, 5,000-10,000 people had to have voted dem governor and republican house, and another 10,000-15,000 had to have filled out a ballot for dem governor only so McAuliffe could win in a squeaker.
Now why the GOP wasn't setting their hair on fire in 2013, I don't know, that's when we had a chance to do something about it. now we are in deep shit without a lot of avenues to get things righted.