When looking at population estimates in Virginia that came out of the Weldon Cooper Center, the results may have a 2023 country song lambasted by music critics for its overtures against welfare recipients being considered redundant. Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond” was a political shot at Washington, D.C. that has aged poorly overtime after I initially defended it from Anthony Fantano from The Needle Drop, largely because Fantano immediately tried to link it to the Confederacy when maybe there could be some redeeming quality to the song. The purpose for that context may seem redundant to population shifts, but the reason I mention is that the bulk of the counties that are growing in Virginia are around Richmond not north of the capital city. This has significant ramifications for the state’s congressional map if this is the political future of Virginia heading into the 2030 census.
The main loser demographically are Trump Republicans who perform poorly in the suburbs and wealthy regions of the state, while the areas that are losing population are the ones that are the most heavily Republican. In fact, what has kept population loss in the GOP areas from being so severe has been migration from the wealthy suburban areas into the Republican areas creating a sense of political dysphoria within both the growing and declining areas. From a congressional seat perspective, Abigail Spanberger, who is leaving Congress, has the most people entering her district because of the abundance of people from Northern Virginia commuting between D.C. and Richmond for cheaper costs of living. This can be seen by the most losses in people in residences being from Fairfax County with the county of over a million people being vastly expensive and difficult to afford for even the wealthiest middle-class families. This means that if she was running for re-election, she would theoretically have to appeal to fewer people than she does currently, something that is a moot point with her leaving Congress but something that helps her in her future bid for the governorship with more power being displaced into the hands of Richmond where the decisive margins for Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) were made.
Congressionally, the members that will have to take more people over time if this trend continues are Jen Kiggans (R-VA) in the Virginia Beach area which is losing people overall, Bob Good (R-VA) whose Central Virginia area is losing population except for incredibly hostile Charlottesville, and the NOVA members of Congress like Gerry Connolly (D-VA) and the eventual winner of the VA-10 congressional seat because of how many people Fairfax County has lost over the past few years. The main winners in the equation are figures like Rob Wittman (R-VA) whose district doesn’t incorporate that many new people while Jennifer McClellan (D-VA) has her new district taking in relatively few new people being in the heart of Richmond and surrounding Henrico County. The members of Congress in the mountainous areas, Ben Cline (R-VA) and Morgan Griffith (R-VA), will have to take on more people, but have the benefit of large amounts of Republican voters in Appalachia to draw from. The question remains if the 2029 gubernatorial election will be met with Republicans being able to win the governorship or keep one of the chambers of the state legislature to force a friendly map instead of having a Democratic gerrymander foisted upon them by the state legislature which has seemed hostile in their short-term having control of the state house and state senate. At the moment, conservatives control the state supreme court which could strike down an indecisive independent commission or Democratic gerrymander.
Overall, the current trajectory of the state’s population shifts are that the rural areas around Richmond are going to become more of a suburban sprawl which has been an Achilles heel to every Republican except Glenn Youngkin voters. Virginia Beach is part of the larger Hampton Roads area which is declining in population slowly while the rural areas in central Virginia are struggling while the urban sprawl of Fairfax County has finally met the limits of affordability. While the state party in recent years has recovered from being a national joke like it was when Amanda Chase was entertained as a serious political candidate (I remember those days!), the continued reliance on rural voters in Appalachia along with middling suburban returns can’t be relied upon if Virginia Beach is depleted of more people and more of the state becomes suburban. In short, these are the demographic trends from 2023. We’ll see how the GOP adapts to the changes happening in the Old Dominion moving forward.
The Oliver Anthony Song (youtube.com)
2021 Virginia gubernatorial election – Wikipedia
https://cinycmaps.com/index.php/20-census/22-county-pop-change
The Conservatarian Millennial 