Prior to the election, most news organizations considered this a state Biden would win, or a likely blue state. On the day of the election, Biden won Virginia with 54.11% of the vote, and by a margin of 10.1%, the best performance for a Democratic presidential candidate since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944.[3] Trump became the first Republican incumbent to consecutively lose Virginia since William Howard Taft and Biden became the first Democratic nominee to win Chesterfield County and Lynchburg City since 1948, Virginia Beach City since 1964, James City County since 1968, and Stafford County since 1976.[4] He also flipped Chesapeake City back to the Democratic Party. Trump flipped no counties or independent cities in the state. Nevertheless, Biden became the first Democrat since 1960 to win without Westmoreland County, a notable bellwether. He was the first Democrat to ever win without Caroline County, Nelson County, or Covington.[citation needed]
The diversification of Northern Virginia as well as sliding suburban support for Republicans allowed Biden to win the once-key battleground state without actively campaigning in it. Biden won Henrico County, Loudoun County, Prince William County, and Fairfax County with 63.7%, 61.5%, 63.6%, and 69.9%, respectively; all four were former suburban bastions of the Republican Party in Virginia, the first outside Richmond and the others in Northern Virginia. All four had voted Republican in every election from 1968 through 2000. In Arlington County, a closer DC-area suburban county that had turned Democratic several decades earlier, Biden won with 80.6% of the vote, becoming the first nominee of either party in more than a century to do so. Biden's combined margin in Fairfax, Prince William, Loudoun, and Arlington Counties was greater than his statewide margin of victory. Crucially for his performance in Northern Virginia, Biden carried government workers by 18%.[5]
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