Virginia special elections are early test of Democratic enthusiasm after Trump victory
CNN
Two months after Democrats were locked out of power at the federal level, a pair of special elections in a part of northern Virginia where Donald Trump dramatically improved his performance in November will offer the first signs of how voters view the political landscape as the president-elect prepares to return to office.
Two months after Democrats were locked out of power at the federal level, a pair of special elections in a part of northern Virginia where Donald Trump dramatically improved his performance in November will offer the first signs of how voters view the political landscape as the president-elect prepares to return to office. Virginia Democrats are poised to hold on to a state House and Senate seat in Loudoun County, a Washington, DC, exurb, as well as their razor-thin majorities in both chambers. Republicans are also favored to hold a Senate seat west of Richmond. The question will be whether either party overperforms, providing an early test of enthusiasm for each ahead of this year’s Virginia gubernatorial race and next year’s midterm elections. The results could either suggest that voters are pushing back on Trump’s victory, as Virginia Democrats did in 2017 when they made large statewide gains, or that the wide-ranging coalition the incoming president built is as strong as it was in November. “Margins, of course, will matter a great deal,” said Mark Rozell, dean of the George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government. The special legislative elections come after Trump made gains with virtually every part of the Democratic coalition. In Loudoun County, the president-elect won 10,000 more votes in 2024 than he did four years earlier, while Harris received 9,092 fewer votes than President Joe Biden did in 2020.
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