The 2024 United States presidential election in Virginia took place on Tuesday, November 5, 2024, as part of the 2024 United States presidential election in which all 50 states plus the District of Columbia participated. Virginia voters chose electors to represent them in the Electoral College via a popular vote. The state of Virginia has 13 electoral votes in the Electoral College, following reapportionment due to the 2020 United States census in which the state neither gained nor lost a seat.
Before the election, most news organizations considered Virginia a likely win for Harris. This was the first presidential election in which both major party candidates received more than 2 million votes in Virginia. On election day, Harris won Virginia with 51.83% of the vote, carrying the state by a margin of 5.78%, similar to the 2016 results, albeit slightly wider. In 2016, Virginia U.S. Senator Tim Kaine was the Democratic vice presidential nominee. Kaine also won by a slightly larger 9 percentage point margin in the concurrent U.S. Senate election in Virginia.
Harris became the first Democratic nominee to win Virginia while losing the nationwide popular vote since 1924, a century earlier. Meanwhile, neighboring West Virginia gave Trump 70% of the vote, with the two states differing by 48 percentage points in margin. Trump became the first president to win two terms without ever carrying Virginia since Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, and the first Republican to do so since William McKinley in 1896 and 1900.
Although Virginia swung rightward in 2024, it trended leftward and voted over 7 percentage points to the left of the nation, compared to 5 percentage points in 2020, and 3 percentage points in 2016. This was also the first time a Democratic nominee who lost the popular vote won an absolute majority of the vote in Virginia since 1924.
This election confirmed Virginia's status as a blue state. Virginia voted for the loser of the popular vote for the first time since 2000, and the loser of both the electoral vote and popular vote since 1996. This was similar to how Florida in 2024 voted for Trump by over 13%, after Florida in 2020 backed Trump despite him losing both the electoral vote and popular vote.
Primary elections
Democratic primary
The Virginia Democratic primary was held on Super Tuesday, March 5, 2024. Incumbent president Joe Biden won the state and all 11 of its congressional districts, securing 99 pledged delegates. Activist Marianne Williamson garnered 8% of the vote total, which was her second-best performance on Super Tuesday after Oklahoma.
Republican primary
The Virginia Republican primary was held on Super Tuesday, March 5, 2024. Former president Donald Trump defeated former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, attaining 42 pledged delegates to the Republican National Convention in July. Trump performed best in southwest Virginia, while Haley's strength lay in Charlottesville, Albemarle County, the urban areas of Richmond and the suburbs surrounding Washington, D.C.
General election
Voting law changes
In August 2024, Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin signed an executive order removing 6,303 voters suspected of being non-citizens from Virginia's voter rolls. In October 2024, the Department of Justice sued the Virginia Board of Elections and Virginia commissioner of elections over the voter purge, accusing that it violated the National Voter Registration Act. The suit also found a number of alleged non-citizens purged were actually citizens. District judge Patricia Tolliver Giles ruled that the removal was illegal, ordering the state to stop purging voter rolls and to restore the voter registration of more than 1,600 voters who had been removed. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals then upheld the order. The administration filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, which sided with Virginia in a 6–3 decision, allowing the state to continue purging voter rolls.
Polling
Kamala Harris vs. Donald Trump
Aggregate polls
Kamala Harris vs. Donald Trump vs Cornel West vs. Jill Stein vs. Chase Oliver
Results
By county and independent city
- Lynchburg (independent city)
- Prince Edward (largest municipality: Farmville)
- Surry (largest municipality: Claremont)
By congressional district
Harris won six of 11 congressional districts.
Analysis
Despite losing the state, Trump made notable gains across much of the Commonwealth, particularly in the Northern and Southside regions of Virginia. In Northern Virginia, Trump made significant gains in Loudoun County, Virginia (21% Asian and 14% Hispanic), Fairfax County, Virginia (20% Asian and 17% Hispanic), and Prince William County, Virginia (10% Asian and 25% Hispanic), which have significant Asian and Hispanic populations. Northern Virginia as a whole swung 8% rightward. The state also swung rightward in the concurrent 2024 United States Senate election in Virginia, as Democrat Tim Kaine won by a 9% margin, down from his 16% margin in 2018.
Trump reclaimed Lynchburg City, flipped Prince Edward County, which had not voted Republican in a presidential election since 2000, and also flipped Surry County, which last supported a Republican presidential candidate in 1972. Harris, by contrast, did not flip any counties or independent cities in Virginia.
Harris did improve slightly in some Greater Richmond counties, including Chesterfield County. Virginia was one of the few states in the country to have many counties shift leftward. Despite losing York County (home to Yorktown, Virginia), Harris won 46% of the vote in the county, the highest percentage since 1964.
This was the first time since 2000 that Virginia voted for the popular vote loser, and the first time since 1996 that Virginia backed the loser of both the electoral vote and the overall popular vote. Virginia voted over 7 percentage points to the left of the nation (5.78%+1.48%=7.26%), voting for a Democratic nominee who lost the popular vote for the first time since 1924.
National trends
Harris won the state by 5.78%, worse than Biden's 10.11% margin but slightly improved from Hillary Clinton's 5.32% margin in 2016. Tim Kaine was the 2016 Democratic vice presidential nominee, likely providing a home state advantage to Clinton in 2016.
Nevertheless, Trump became the first ever Republican to win the White House without carrying the city of Virginia Beach since it became an independent city in 1952 as well as the first to do so without carrying Chesterfield or Stafford Counties since Calvin Coolidge in 1924, and the first to do so without carrying James City County or the city of Chesapeake since Richard Nixon in 1968. Trump became the first president to win two terms without ever carrying Virginia since Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996, and the first Republican to do so since William McKinley in 1896 and 1900.
This was also the third consecutive election in which Virginia voted Democratic while Florida voted Republican, which had previously not occurred since 1876. Trump won Florida in 2024 by over 13 percentage points, with Florida having backed Trump even when Trump lost both the electoral vote and popular vote in 2020. While Florida shifted dramatically rightward during the Trump era, Virginia shifted dramatically leftward.
Although Harris lost both swing states of North Carolina and Georgia, two other Southern states, both also trended leftward. Both swung by less than 3%, compared to the national swing of about 6%. Harris outperformed Clinton’s 2016 margins in both Southern swing states. Harris won in Virginia, as over 18% of adults in Virginia have graduate degrees, per List of U.S. states and territories by educational attainment. By comparison, just 13-14% of adults in North Carolina and Georgia have graduate degrees.