Virginia Is Light Blue—That Alone Didn’t Guarantee a Northam Win. ... Gillespie tried to use the freedom afforded by a gubernatorial election to draw a new map and unite the GOP.

Below is the traditional color-coded map of the Virginia gubernatorial results. It shows many Republican counties marked in red and a smaller number of Democratic counties or cities in blue.

The population of Northern Virginia continued to grow and turn deeper blue, producing huge margins for Democrats such as Obama and Gov. Tim Kaine, now a senator.

Trump lost Virginia in the previous two elections, with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton winning with a plurality of 49.73% in 2016 and President Joe Biden taking 54.11% of the vote in 2020.