Virginia has become the electoral unicorn for Republicans. It hasn’t gone red since George W. Bush’s successful 2004 re-election campaign. The Obama era and the hyper-liberalization of the northern part of the state. Yet, something was up last night. For a brief moment, a legitimate ‘what if’ scenario occurred since the state was 35 percent in, but Trump was approaching one million votes. The president got a little over 1.7 million in 2016, losing the state to Hillary Clinton by five points.
Yet, the excitement died when it was reported that a huge amount of early ballots, around 900,000, had yet to be counted. And being NoVa, you could guess how they broke. That’s why AP felt comfortable calling it for Biden (via AP):
VIrginia elections officials had said they will have a huge drop of early votes for Northern VA (of which there were 900,000+) at once before 11pm. Hasn’t happened yet
— Steve Chenevey FOX5 (@stevechenevey) November 4, 2020
The AP declared Democratic nominee Joe Biden the winner of Virginia at 7:31 p.m. EST, after results from early returns and an AP survey of the electorate showed the former vice president had beaten President Donald Trump in the state.
With about 53% of the vote counted statewide at 11:00 p.m., completed counts in a representative selection of precincts in communities across Virginia showed Biden comfortably ahead of Trump.
Something is happening in Virginia...
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) November 4, 2020
Trump lost Loudon County in northern Virginia by 17 points, or just over 30,000 votes.
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) November 4, 2020
With 98 of 99 precincts reporting results, Trump is beating Biden by 13 points, or 9,000 votes. Clinton won Virginia by just 5 points in 2016. https://t.co/1zPCSTQohG pic.twitter.com/itGUnEMlk2
Trump winning Loudon County VA by 55% with 95% counted. He lost it in 2016, getting only 39%. Early sign that Trump doing in better in suburbs and exurbs, not worse as lying media has suggested.
— Christian Whiton (@ChristianWhiton) November 4, 2020
Virginia has about half of its precincts reporting and Trump is up 12 points. I get the North goes heavily D, but that’s quite a margin.
— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) November 4, 2020
Maybe that call for Joe Biden in Virginia really was too early, or are absentee ballots the issue? https://t.co/XtvpACcfPe
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) November 4, 2020
But for a time, Trump was outperforming his numbers in the state. In the end, he did, garnering 200,000 more votes, but it still wasn’t enough. Right now, all focus is on Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.
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