Why is Nova seen as a Romney-Clinton region?

[jamestroll]

When Obama won all the traditional Nova jurisdictions handily?

[brucejoel99]

Who says NoVA is seen as a Romney-Clinton region?

[Skill and Chance]

Well, it swung like another 10% left during 2016-17-18.  That it was already (narrowly) over the line in 2008/12 doesn't change that.  Gerry Connolly came within 2K votes of losing an outer Fairfax based CD in 2010.  Most of those areas are now 2:1 Dem.

[jamestroll]

Well, it swung like another 10% left during 2016-17-18.

True, I still stand by we can not expect everything will be 100% partisan correlated forever. Loudoun County GOP is still somewhat competitive down ballot and the GOP was able to retain to retain an incumbent sheriff in 2019. Trump is not the sole reason for polarization but is a large part of it and I still believe in 2018 we had a Democratic wave and an underlying pro-Trump wave

That it was already (narrowly) over the line in 2008/12 doesn't change that.

Barely? Loudoun County may have been barely over the line in 2008 and 2012 but Prince William and Fairfax were significantly more Democratic than the national median. I know that Obama would have lost Virginia in 2012 without Nova.

 

Gerry Connolly came within 2K votes of losing an outer Fairfax based CD in 2010.  Most of those areas are now 2:1 Dem.

That is correct but it still does not change the fact that Obama swept all of Nova by far above his national median in 2012 while roughly matching it in Loudoun.


My problem is that people believe that Romney swept Loudoun, Prince William and Fairfax Counties when it simply is not true! The are largely the same people who believe Mers and the Swine Flu came from China. No matter what facts you present them they are never convinced.


There are Romney-Clinton voters in NoVa but there are far more Obama-Clinton voters and many transplants to the area who voted Democrat.

[jamestroll]

Obama won Fairfax by 20 points while winning nationally by 3.

Obama won Prince William by 16 points while winning nationally by 3.

Obama won Loudoun by 4.5 points while winning nationally by 3.

Other than Loudoun... how on earth can this be considered a Romney-Clinton region???

And I still maintain that Sanders would have won all those jurisdictions over Trump but by Obama numbers not Clinton numbers.

The GOP has just simply lost their ability to compete locally that is all. It is not a Romney-Clinton region.

[Skill and Chance]

Well, it swung like another 10% left during 2016-17-18.

True, I still stand by we can not expect everything will be 100% partisan correlated forever. Loudoun County GOP is still somewhat competitive down ballot and the GOP was able to retain to retain an incumbent sheriff in 2019. Trump is not the sole reason for polarization but is a large part of it and I still believe in 2018 we had a Democratic wave and an underlying pro-Trump wave

That it was already (narrowly) over the line in 2008/12 doesn't change that.

Barely? Loudoun County may have been barely over the line in 2008 and 2012 but Prince William and Fairfax were significantly more Democratic than the national median. I know that Obama would have lost Virginia in 2012 without Nova.

 

Gerry Connolly came within 2K votes of losing an outer Fairfax based CD in 2010.  Most of those areas are now 2:1 Dem.

That is correct but it still does not change the fact that Obama swept all of Nova by far above his national median in 2012 while roughly matching it in Loudoun.


My problem is that people believe that Romney swept Loudoun, Prince William and Fairfax Counties when it simply is not true! The are largely the same people who believe Mers and the Swine Flu came from China. No matter what facts you present them they are never convinced.


There are Romney-Clinton voters in NoVa but there are far more Obama-Clinton voters and many transplants to the area who voted Democrat.

Warner lost Loudoun as late as 2014.  The 20% Dem margins there are a new phenomenon.

[jamestroll]

Well, it swung like another 10% left during 2016-17-18.

True, I still stand by we can not expect everything will be 100% partisan correlated forever. Loudoun County GOP is still somewhat competitive down ballot and the GOP was able to retain to retain an incumbent sheriff in 2019. Trump is not the sole reason for polarization but is a large part of it and I still believe in 2018 we had a Democratic wave and an underlying pro-Trump wave

That it was already (narrowly) over the line in 2008/12 doesn't change that.

Barely? Loudoun County may have been barely over the line in 2008 and 2012 but Prince William and Fairfax were significantly more Democratic than the national median. I know that Obama would have lost Virginia in 2012 without Nova.

 

Gerry Connolly came within 2K votes of losing an outer Fairfax based CD in 2010.  Most of those areas are now 2:1 Dem.

That is correct but it still does not change the fact that Obama swept all of Nova by far above his national median in 2012 while roughly matching it in Loudoun.


My problem is that people believe that Romney swept Loudoun, Prince William and Fairfax Counties when it simply is not true! The are largely the same people who believe Mers and the Swine Flu came from China. No matter what facts you present them they are never convinced.


There are Romney-Clinton voters in NoVa but there are far more Obama-Clinton voters and many transplants to the area who voted Democrat.

Warner lost Loudoun as late as 2014.  The 20% Dem margins there are a new phenomenon.

Yes I am well aware of that. It's really the only jurisdiction there that you can argue is Romney Clinton yet it's really not. It did vote for Obama.

What will convince people that Nova voted for Obama handily by greater than his national victory? Apparantly raw results do not!

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Its lazy analysis and poor journalism. There is a layer of support that Romney got and then a layer that Trump got, that layer of support difference is the Romney-Clinton voters.

[Non Swing Voter]

It's more than Romney Clinton.

NOVA has been trending Democrat for like 20 years.  I think it was the GWB election in 2000 that showed the first signs for me that it was trending that direction.  It's basically symbolic of the UMC that have been flipping to democrats for years, even though it was already voting democrat.  Though Comstock's district (where I live) did flip in 2018.  I believe the congressional district was fairly 50/50 in 2012 as well but swung to Clinton heavily.

But anyways, the region is the epitome of a Romney-Clinton region (even if it didn't technically vote for Romney).  It's HEAVILY minorities and college whites.  It used to be a lot whiter and more republican.  Barbara Comstock's district was made to be a Republican district.  It's where old school Republicans like Bill Barr live.  But the new white voters that have moved in from DC and the west coast are much more liberal.  Plus it's diversifying fast, especially Loudoun.  If you go into any random store in Sterling or Dulles, whites are a noticeable minority. 

[jamestroll]

https://twitter.com/JMilesColeman/status/1193599200073789440

Results like this also likely propel the myth that Nova was a Romney-Clinton region.

Note that the 2019 results were partially due to some uncontested races but that is still a massive shift.

Still does not change the fact that all of Nova voted for Obama and that Loudoun was simply the most modest margin for Obama.

It is not just voters in Loudoun County switching from Republican to Democratic either. There are 100,000 more people in Loudoun County today compared to 2010 census. Much of it is transplants.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Key distinction here is do you mean actual Romney-Clinton voters or the stereotypical Republican -until-2015/2016?

Democrats won these areas comfortably in 2008 and 2012 when Obama and state heavyweights like Kaine and Warner were there to drive turnout but if you look at other races (2009, 2013, 2014, and all the intervening state leg races) Democrats typically ran behind Obama's margins outside of Fairfax. If you look at Loudon and PWC these places were still represented by Republicans in the House/State House/State Senate in some cases up until 2017.

So outside of Fairfax County you weren't seeing Romney-Clinton voters per se but you were seeing voters who voted R downballot and in off-year races who were switching to Ds once Trump took over the party.

[Non Swing Voter]

https://twitter.com/JMilesColeman/status/1193599200073789440

Results like this also likely propel the myth that Nova was a Romney-Clinton region.

Note that the 2019 results were partially due to some uncontested races but that is still a massive shift.

Still does not change the fact that all of Nova voted for Obama and that Loudoun was simply the most modest margin for Obama.

It is not just voters in Loudoun County switching from Republican to Democratic either. There are 100,000 more people in Loudoun County today compared to 2010 census. Much of it is transplants.

Yes, interestingly the GOP got about the same number of votes while the Democrats increased massively.  Those dark blue areas are centered between Sterling and Leesburg.  Basically off a main road that people use to commute into DC or Reston (tech sector).  That is also where all the growth is in Loudoun.  Huge apartment complexes going up there.  Democrats are winning Loudoun now because it's literally all new voters and they are almost all democrats.  Fairfax is a more complicated shift as there hasn't been explosive growth like that area.

[jamestroll]

My whole point is that calling Nova a Romney-Clinton is over simplifying the region.

It was a Democratic region with a healthy GOP locally but that was destroyed under Trump. The big question is if the GOP can make in roads post Trump?

Prince William County and Manassas would be very difficult due to heavy minority populations.

Loudoun has too many people moving it to be able to clearly tell right now but 2019 did see Loudoun have a close County Attorney election and they re-elected a GOP Sheriff.

Now Fairfax is will probably be just under 50% non-Hispanic white in the 2020 census. But I am starting to see Non Swing Voter's point that Fairfax would have been the largest drop for Sanders in Nova even though it would still have handily vote for Sanders by a solid margin.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

https://twitter.com/JMilesColeman/status/1193599200073789440

Results like this also likely propel the myth that Nova was a Romney-Clinton region.

Note that the 2019 results were partially due to some uncontested races but that is still a massive shift.

Still does not change the fact that all of Nova voted for Obama and that Loudoun was simply the most modest margin for Obama.

It is not just voters in Loudoun County switching from Republican to Democratic either. There are 100,000 more people in Loudoun County today compared to 2010 census. Much of it is transplants.

Yes, interestingly the GOP got about the same number of votes while the Democrats increased massively.  Those dark blue areas are centered between Sterling and Leesburg.  Basically off a main road that people use to commute into DC or Reston (tech sector).  That is also where all the growth is in Loudoun.  Huge apartment complexes going up there.  Democrats are winning Loudoun now because it's literally all new voters and they are almost all democrats.  Fairfax is a more complicated shift as there hasn't been explosive growth like that area.

Is Fairfax, Alexandria and Arlington fully built out then?

[rhg2052]

https://twitter.com/JMilesColeman/status/1193599200073789440

Results like this also likely propel the myth that Nova was a Romney-Clinton region.

Note that the 2019 results were partially due to some uncontested races but that is still a massive shift.

Still does not change the fact that all of Nova voted for Obama and that Loudoun was simply the most modest margin for Obama.

It is not just voters in Loudoun County switching from Republican to Democratic either. There are 100,000 more people in Loudoun County today compared to 2010 census. Much of it is transplants.

Yes, interestingly the GOP got about the same number of votes while the Democrats increased massively.  Those dark blue areas are centered between Sterling and Leesburg.  Basically off a main road that people use to commute into DC or Reston (tech sector).  That is also where all the growth is in Loudoun.  Huge apartment complexes going up there.  Democrats are winning Loudoun now because it's literally all new voters and they are almost all democrats.  Fairfax is a more complicated shift as there hasn't been explosive growth like that area.

Is Fairfax, Alexandria and Arlington fully built out then?

I grew up in Fairfax - Yes, Arlington, Alexandria, and Fairfax are pretty much fully built out at varying levels of density, ranging from fully urban in the Rosslyn-Ballston corridor of Arlington and Old Town Alexandria to estates with large wooded lots in Great Falls, McLean, & Clifton. Fairfax in particular went through a huge phase of suburban development between the 1960s & 2000s, becoming mostly built out by the late 2000s. The development that has been happening since then has mostly consisted of suburban areas being redeveloped into new urban centers in places like Tysons & Reston. In Loudoun, this wave of suburban development started in the 1990s on the eastern edge of the county in Sterling, and continues to this day further west in Leesburg, Brambleton, and Aldie.

The continuing Democratic trend of Loudoun has been due to massive population growth in the new suburbs in the eastern half of the county, as well as the continuing Democratic trend of suburbs across the country. The county is split in half east-west (around where the Potomac River to the north bends) by a mountainous ridge that has prevented development in the western half of the county and kept it primarily rural and Republican.

[Agonized-Statism]

Probably because people conflate northern Virginia with white suburbanites, a demographic which turned noticeably hard against Trump. What they forget is that many of these suburbanites are federal workers, a group which has always been Democratic.

[Senator Incitatus]

Probably because people conflate northern Virginia with white suburbanites, a demographic which turned noticeably hard against Trump. What they forget is that many of these suburbanites are federal workers, a group which has always been Democratic.

With the notable exception of the defense sector during the Cold War, which was concentrated in NoVA (and SoCal).

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Probably because people conflate northern Virginia with white suburbanites, a demographic which turned noticeably hard against Trump. What they forget is that many of these suburbanites are federal workers, a group which has always been Democratic.

This also ignores the fact that a ton of the suburbanites there are non-white. East Asians (especially Koreans and Vietnamese), Middle Easterners (especially Afghans), and even a somewhat large subsaharan African population.

e: and also of course a pretty large middle class black population as well as both blue collar and middle class hispanics

[Non Swing Voter]

https://twitter.com/JMilesColeman/status/1193599200073789440

Results like this also likely propel the myth that Nova was a Romney-Clinton region.

Note that the 2019 results were partially due to some uncontested races but that is still a massive shift.

Still does not change the fact that all of Nova voted for Obama and that Loudoun was simply the most modest margin for Obama.

It is not just voters in Loudoun County switching from Republican to Democratic either. There are 100,000 more people in Loudoun County today compared to 2010 census. Much of it is transplants.

Yes, interestingly the GOP got about the same number of votes while the Democrats increased massively.  Those dark blue areas are centered between Sterling and Leesburg.  Basically off a main road that people use to commute into DC or Reston (tech sector).  That is also where all the growth is in Loudoun.  Huge apartment complexes going up there.  Democrats are winning Loudoun now because it's literally all new voters and they are almost all democrats.  Fairfax is a more complicated shift as there hasn't been explosive growth like that area.

Is Fairfax, Alexandria and Arlington fully built out then?

It's pretty dense but definitely not fully built out.  I see new skyscrapers going up in Tysons (near the mall) all the time.  And farms still getting converted to subdivisions (yes still some farms in Fairfax). 

[jamestroll]

Another narrative I see is that people believe that the majority of raw votes are from Northern Virginia.

That is mathetically not true. In the 2017 elections it was only around 30% of the the total vote.

Fun fact: Without NoVa, Northam would have lost 51 to 48. So it is indeed virtally important to Democrats but being competitive in Virginia Beach and Chesterfield County (to lesser extent) and doing well in the remainder of Richmond Metro and parts of the east shore is what will keep Virginia a Democratic state.  Along with the fact that the GOP has no room to grow in rural areas! That statement would be untrue in most states but not Virginia.

NOVA. Does. Not. Case. A. Majority. Of. The. States. Votes.

[Non Swing Voter]

Another narrative I see is that people believe that the majority of raw votes are from Northern Virginia.

That is mathetically not true. In the 2017 elections it was only around 30% of the the total vote.

Fun fact: Without NoVa, Northam would have lost 51 to 48. So it is indeed virtally important to Democrats but being competitive in Virginia Beach and Chesterfield County (to lesser extent) and doing well in the remainder of Richmond Metro and parts of the east shore is what will keep Virginia a Democratic state.  Along with the fact that the GOP has no room to grow in rural areas! That statement would be untrue in most states but not Virginia.

NOVA. Does. Not. Case. A. Majority. Of. The. States. Votes.

Yes, that's true, it's a little over 30%, depending upon how you define it.  A few notes though.

1) The main cities and counties: Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, Loudoun, Prince William and some of the independent cities within them are about 30-32% of the vote.  But housing costs are pushing some people out of Fairfax and the collar counties and into counties not traditionally considered part of NOVA (Fauquier, Stafford, etc.).  So it's influencing those areas too.  The real NOVA population is getting closer to 35% of the state probably and given the Amazon relocation and current growth patterns within the state it's going to get closer to 40% by 2030.

2) NOVA is just one half of the coalition in the state.  Democrats inherently hold their own downstate because there is a large African American voter base (and increasingly other minorities) + college towns and cities.  Even though Republicans don't need to win NOVA to win statewide they need to only lose it by small margins, which is becoming a near impossibility lately.  Northam proved that Democrats can nearly split the vote without NOVA.  Republicans can't even come close in NOVA anymore.  It is not just increased diversity too... A lot of wealthy, white, country club areas in Fairfax, Arlington, and Loudoun have had the fastest trends away from the GOP lately.

[jamestroll]

Loudoun County:

Obama: 82,479
Romney: 75,292

Clinton: 100,795
Trump: 69,949

Had highest population growth in the state. Most of the increased Democratic margin is from new residents. And not every single new resident of the county voted for Clinton.

Which means the layer of "Romney-Clinton" voters in Loudoun County is actually extremely small.