Is anti-Trump suburban revolt escalating? Watch Virginia
RICHMOND, Va. — Republican state Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant wanted to avoid talking about President Donald Trump as she courted voters this week on Ridgefield Green Way just outside Virginia’s capital city. The middle-aged man at one door didn’t want to talk about anything else.
“I’ve only got one question. Do you support Trump?” he asked.
“Yes,” Dunnavant replied. “Then you’ve got my vote,” he said.
On the sidewalk a few minutes later, Dunnavant actively distanced herself from the Republican president, acknowledging he is deeply unpopular in her district — despite the doorway encounter. The 55-year-old OB-GYN said she’d prefer that Trump stay out of Virginia ahead of Tuesday’s high-stakes elections.
“I don’t want to have Washington, D.C., replicated in Virginia,” she told the Associated Press. “I’m running a campaign on state issues and getting state things done.”
Dunnavant’s dance speaks to the dire threat Trump has created for Republicans in Virginia and, more broadly, suburbs across America. This is where higher-educated and more affluent voters — particularly women — have revolted against Trump’s GOP. These areas leaned Republican in the past, but amid shifting demographics and Trump’s turbulent presidency, they have transformed into the nation’s premier political battleground.
Nearly three years into Trump’s administration, Virginia’s leftward shift appears to be rapidly accelerating. Since the beginning of 2017, Democrats have won every statewide contest, made historic gains in the House of Delegates and picked up three additional congressional seats. And Tuesday, Democrats are just a handful of new seats away from seizing control of both chambers of the Virginia legislature for the first time in more than two decades.
Voters across several other states also head to the polls Tuesday, including Mississippi and Kentucky, whose high-profile gubernatorial races have attracted Trump’s direct involvement.
But more than anywhere, Virginia’s lower-profile state legislative elections will test the magnitude of the GOP’s suburban slide. Democratic victories could reshape the national political landscape in 2020 — and, perhaps more broadly, politics across the South for decades.
Like Virginia, suburban North
Carolina, Georgia and Texas have seen explosive growth and demographic shifts in recent years that have given Democrats real momentum, even if they have yet to break through.
“We are a model for the South,” said former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who has served as a chief surrogate in the state’s legislative elections.
Vice President Mike Pence rallied voters in Virginia Beach on Saturday. But Trump, who is his party’s most powerful political weapon, has been noticeably absent. Instead, the president dedicated time over the weekend to campaign in deep-red Mississippi and Kentucky.