Loudoun County, my home and not native land, is the most important county in the nation. We’ve tipped gubernatorial elections, presidential elections, nearly handed Hillary Clinton the last one (thank God for the rest of the country), and last night made Ralph Northam the new governor of Virginia.
Finding blue cities in red states is nothing new. As a matter of fact, that’s pretty much the norm. Every city is blue and every state is red, except the states whose cities are big enough to blot out the rest of the state. (That’s four years of poly sci classes boiled down to one sentence right there. You’re welcome.) The interesting thing about Loudoun County (and several other counties around here in both Virginia and Maryland), is that it’s not a big city, it’s the Long Island-y “exurbs” of Washington, D.C., embarrassingly rich and embarrassingly blue. The folks at CNN always seem surprised to note Democratic successes in these parts. They’re rich! They must be Republicans!
#smh
Virginia is a red state with a blue splotch in its northern counties. This is where new residents have moved in over the past 10-15 years and have tipped the commonwealth from red to blue. As a scientist I would call this an infestation of locusts. As a partisan I just call it embarrassing.
D.C. types who live in the “exurbs” have tipped Virginia the way they tipped Maryland a generation ago. It was just easier and took less time with Maryland because they had fewer people in the real part of the state to counteract the assault. D.C. itself has actually never voted for a Republican president. That’s fourteen elections in a row. Think about that one for a minute.
Still the folks at CNN and elsewhere express shock and awe at Democratic success in Old Dominion. The state that last night also elected the nation’s first transgender legislator. Yeah, that’s Northern Virginia, real bedrock of conservatism.
Not really caring who wins and loses elections anymore I’m just looking to see…
is it funnier to laugh at the voters? Or laugh at the “experts”?