Will Virginia vote to the left of Oregon?

[Don't Tread on Me]

Will Virginia end up voting to the left of Oregon in the future?

[TDAS04]

Good chance, as the future is a long time.  I don't think it will happen next cycle, though.

[THG]

Not anytime soon. Colorado is more likely to do so.

[Non Swing Voter]

Yes, under current coalition where upscale moderate and liberal suburban voters vote Dem and GOP is the party of working class/evangelical whites.  Democratic coalition is increasingly becoming clustered around major metros.  DC is a bigger more democratic friendly metro than Portland.  Rural population is also shrinking in Virginia which is going to allow NOVA + downstate AA's to dominate elections more and more going forward.  I could definitely see it happening in about 10 years.

[DS0816]

Will Virginia end up voting to the left of Oregon in the future?

The Republicans should want this to happen. They will need to change themselves overall. It is not impossible. After all, the Democrats are doing that.

[TodayJunior]

Eventually. Heck, even Illinois and New Jersey are up for contention for this.

[Don't Tread on Me]

Eventually. Heck, even Illinois and New Jersey are up for contention for this.

Illinois I can see happening as the GOP still has a long way to max out in the rural areas, but there's a lot of educated whites as well as big business/banker types in New Jersey that will keep it in the Dem column, but I can see Virginia rivaling it.

[Non Swing Voter]

Virginia is becoming a lot more like New Jersey... they're both essentially mid-atlantic states now.  But I don't see Virginia voting to the left of New Jersey because it's essentially New Jersey + extreme Southerners in parts.  And that southwestern/downstate Virginia part will always drag Democrats down below their lead in New Jersey.

[CentristRepublican]

Yes, but it will take a while and will happen in the distant future.

OR voted 6 points to the left of VA. I'm not 6 points is at all impossible to overcome, given that VA is shifting and trending leftwards, but there's the fact that OR isn't like NV and is actually shifting leftwards itself, and VA's leftward shift compared to OR's is being overestimated.

The gap is narrowing overall, but it is narrowing slowly and inconsistently and I don't think it'll keep up the pace. Compare how many points OR and VA voted Democratic by, 2008-present.

From 2012 to 2020, the voting gap between OR and VA narrowed by a mere 2.2%, and from 2016 to 2020, it actually widened by 0.3%. Overall, from 2008 to present, it's narrowed just 4 points; a lot of this was temporary and Trump-driven, and there may be a larger backlash against Democrats in VA, of which 2020 (when OR trended farther leftward than VA) is a good indicator and foreshadower. VA still has another 6 points to go before it's as blue as OR, and again, OR's shifting leftward as well (northwest Oregon is growing enough to grant Oregon a sixth district in 2020). If you notice, VA narrowed the gap much more in 2016 than in 2020, when the gap widened, and now that Trump's gone, the gap between VA and OR won't narrow any faster; that is, the pace at which VA is catching up to OR will not be as 'fast' as it has been so far (note that is slowed by 2.8% from 2012-2016 to 2016-2020).

2020: 16.1% - 10.1% = 6.0% OR lead [0.3% gap widen]
2016: 11.0% - 5.3% = 5.7% OR lead [2.5% gap narrow]
2012: 12.1% - 3.9% = 8.2% OR lead [1.8% gap narrow]
2008: 16.3% - 6.3% = 10.0% OR lead


Basically, I think VA's shift was more Trump-driven, and therefore not completely long-lasting. I'm not saying that most of its shift wasn't due to demographic change, but I feel like the proportion of Romney/Biden voters who may be willing to support a future (non-Trump) Republican in the future is greater in VA. 2016 was a special circumstance as Trump was a uniquely poor fit for VA; this can be shown by the large narrowing of the gap, followed four years later by the gap widening slightly.

So yes, as is the answer to all questions about the future, sometime in the (distant) future, VA will overtake OR. But it will not happen in the 2020s for sure and most likely not in the 2030s.

[For Trump, everything. For immigrants, the law]

Probably not soon, and I think it's quite likely that Oregon trends further left, perhaps overtaking states like Illinois and Rhode Island.

[CentristRepublican]

Probably not soon, and I think it's quite likely that Oregon trends further left, perhaps overtaking states like Illinois and Rhode Island.

Yeah, maybe.

RI might take a few cycles since it's currently about 5 points to the left of OR, BUT it has been shifting rightward, whereas OR has been shifting leftward. IL might happen next cycle itself, given that it was just one point to the left of OR in 2020.

DE is also a possibility, perhaps, since it voted just 3 points to the left of OR in 2020 and that was with a Delawarean Democrat on the ballot.

[Gonewiththedemz]

Not in 2024, but maybe in the near future