Elections

Hillary Clinton Takes Virginia

Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

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Rachel Stoltzfoos Staff Reporter
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Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton defeated Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in Virginia Tuesday.

Clinton led Trump in the polls by a comfortable margin for much of the race, increasing her lead in the Real Clear Politics polling average by as much as 10 points in mid-October. The gap narrowed substantially, however, in the final weeks of the campaign, when Trump came within four or five points in a few polls.

Political statistician Nate Silver gave Clinton an 84 percent chance of winning the race, and the UVA Center for Politics agreed, designating the race as a “likely” Democratic victory in their final prediction Monday. While it’s considered a swing state, Virginia has voted Democrat in the past two elections.

Republicans in Washington had apparently given up hope on the state late in the campaign, and reportedly began reallocating resources elsewhere along with the Trump campaign in early to mid October. But Trump then ran a final push in the battleground state during the final stretch of the campaign, holding rallies in Virginia as part of a larger foray into Democrat territory.

His move prompted the Clinton campaign to insist they didn’t have to redouble their efforts in those states as a result of his push.

Trump performed well in the southern and southwestern parts of the state, where he had a 56 to 34 percent lead over Clinton going into the election, but she led handily among voters in the growing population of Northern Virginia and the city-centers of Richmond and Hampton Roads.

The wealthy, highly-educated voters in the suburbs of northern Virginia have turned out consistently for Democrats in recent elections. From 1992, when Virginia went red for President George H.W. Bush, to 2012 when President Barack Obama won the state by 21 points, the population of Northern Virginia nearly doubled from 1.5 to more than 2 million.

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