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Take yourself back to election night in 2024. One of the earliest signs that Donald Trump was on track for a good night came not from a major swing state, but from the well-heeled and highly educated suburbs of Northern Virginia, where Kamala Harris was winning — but not by enough.
It’s been about a year since that night, and in that time, President Trump has stormed back to Washington and upended the federal government, just as he promised. He has cut hundreds of thousands of workers from the federal payroll, pushed the limits of executive power and, even though his party controls Congress, presided over what will, on Tuesday night, become the longest government shutdown in history.
Tomorrow’s off-year elections will give voters their first chance to weigh in on all that upheaval. I’ve got a guide to the big races in places like New York, New Jersey and California here — and The Morning’s Sam Sifton has a fresh primer, too — but tonight, I want to explain why Virginia is again worth keeping an eye on.
A state in Trump’s backyard
Northern Virginia is home to scores of federal employees, contractors and others who work with the federal government — the kind of people who are directly affected by Trump administration’s push to downsize the federal government. There, more than anywhere else, we’ll get an early sense of whether the cuts resonate at the ballot box.
“Watch the turnout in Northern Virginia,” Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster who is based in Alexandria, told me. “If it is relatively low compared to past elections, you can conclude that the actions of the administration aren’t having much of an impact. If it’s higher than past elections, you can conclude it’s a reaction against many of the actions of the administration.”
Democrats have struggled to coalesce around a message since their 2024 losses, and many have tried to stay laser-focused on the economic issues they believe lifted Trump to victory last year. In New Jersey, Representative Mikie Sherrill has zeroed in on energy costs as she runs for governor; in Virginia, former Representative Abigail Spanberger, the Democratic candidate for governor, has blamed Trump for the steep cost of living.
