Former President Donald Trump won about 63% of the vote in the Republican primary in Virginia on Super Tuesday.
President Joe Biden collected about 89% of the Democratic vote, without any meaningful competition, setting the stage for the long-awaited fall matchup between the president and former president.
“What we expected to happen, happened — Biden and Trump both did very well,” said Caitlin Jewitt, associate professor of political science at Virginia Tech. “They earned a significant number of delegates. We saw Nikki Haley exit the race this morning. Basically, this put us on an even faster track to the general election matchup that we knew was coming of President Biden and former President Trump.”
The Super Tuesday results drove Republican candidate Nikki Haley from the race.
“I think this also was not unexpected. … Many people thought that she would drop out weeks ago, given that she had no viable path to the nomination in terms of securing enough delegates,” said Jewitt, who added that it will take about two more weeks of primary elections before Trump captures a majority of delegates needed for the nomination.
Little can be discerned from the small voter turnout in yesterday’s Virginia presidential primary. Just 6% of eligible Democrats and 11% of eligible Republicans cast ballots, according to the Virginia Public Access Project.
“It was pretty low … the Democratic side was, of course, not competitive and the Republican side was barely competitive,” said Jewitt.
Some pundits describe Virginia as a purple state — a swing state where either the Republican or Democratic candidate can prevail.
“We do have this reputation as a purple state. But if you look at the general election results over the past few years, Virginia hasn’t voted for a Republican presidential candidate since 2004 and Biden won the state by 10 points in 2020. So I think Virginia is definitely leaning more blue than it has been. And that looks like it will continue in 2024,” said Jewitt.
It’s possible Virginia won’t play a major role in the fall election.
“I think it’ll be interesting to see how much, if any, money the candidates are spending in Virginia, how much advertising goes into Virginia — if any visits are made here,” she said.
It’s possible both campaigns could essentially skip investing heavily in the state.
“That might be a relief for some people who are sick of the commercials. But it certainly has an impact on the meaningfulness of our votes,” said Jewitt.
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