With less than 10% of the votes counted, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has been declared the winner of Virginia.
At the time of this writing, President Donald Trump was actually leading in the number of votes counted, but states are called based what is seen in specific counties, and even though all the votes haven’t been counted yet, it’s clear from turnout in specific areas that Biden was going to win the state.
Virginia wasn’t a battleground state this year, as the Old Dominion has been turning reliably Blue due to the number of federal government workers flocking to the northern part of the state. Hillary Clinton won Virginia in 2016 by 5 points. A Republican hasn’t won the state since President George W. Bush won in 2004.
A lot of the change in Virginia is due to the proximity to Washington, D.C. Since Virginia is typically cheaper (and safer) to live in than Democrat-controlled D.C. or typically Blue Maryland, many federal government workers choose to live in the Old Dominion and then vote Democrat.
Polls in Virginia have consistently shown Biden with a comfortable lead – double digits in the past two months. The most recent poll heading into election day, from Roanoke College, showed Biden with an 11-point lead.
Prior to the state being called for Biden, election officials declared incumbent Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) the winner of the U.S. Senate race, beating challenger Daniel Gade. The same poll that predicted Biden winning the state by 11 points showed Warner winning by 16 points.
As The Daily Wire’s John Bickley reported Tuesday morning, “the final polls show the race coming down to razor-thin margins in the key battleground states that will ultimately decide who is in control of the executive branch for the next four years.”
“Multiple latest national polls show President Trump within 5 points of Joe Biden, including one pollster who gives Biden only a 1-point edge and another who puts the gap at just 3. Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.1% only to go on to get trounced in the Electoral College. Meanwhile, the once formidable leads Biden held in potentially decisive battleground states have contracted dramatically in the final weeks of the election, giving Trump a precarious but nonetheless possible path to victory,” Bickley continued.