Virginia's electoral votes in U.S. presidential elections 1789-2020

The state of Virginia has taken part in all U.S. elections since 1789, except for the 1864 and 1868 elections due to its status during and after the American Civil War; of the 57 elections in which it participated, Virginians sided with the nationwide winner 38 times, giving a success rate of 67 percent. In its early years, Virginia sided with the Democratic-Republican nominee, before voting for the Democratic nominee in most elections between 1828 and 1948. The only time where Virginia voted for a third party candidate was in 1860, where it backed the Constitutional Union's John Bell in the lead up to the Civil War. Like most southern states, Virginia was a reliably Republican state from the 1950s onwards, and the only time where a Democrat won the Old Dominion between 1952 and 2004 was in Lyndon B. Johnson's landslide victory in 1964. Unlike most southern states, however, Virginia has transitioned into a blue state in recent years, with Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote with a 5.4 percent margin in 2016; this transition has been attributed to a growing Hispanic population and the extension of the Washington D.C. metropolitan area in the north of the state, making it one of the most ethnically diverse regions of the country. In the 2020 election, Democratic nominee Joe Biden won Virginia by a comfortable, ten percent margin.

"Mother of Presidents"

Virginia has the unofficial nickname of "Mother of Presidents", as eight of the 45 men who have served as president were born here (officially 46 (incl. Biden) as Grover Cleveland is counted twice). Four of the U.S.' first five presidents were born in Virginia; these were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe. The most recent Virginian to ascend to the presidency was Woodrow Wilson, who was born in 1856 and served between 1913 and 1921 (although Wilson is more commonly associated with New Jersey). Since Wilson, no major party candidate has ever been born in or resided in Virginia when seeking office, although Virginian Senator Harry F. Byrd received 15 electoral votes in the 1960 election, as a protest against John F. Kennedy's liberal attitudes towards civil rights.

Electoral votes

In the first six U.S. presidential elections, Virginia was allocated the highest number of electoral votes of any state, and this number peaked at 25 electoral votes between the 1812 and 1820 elections. From this point until the civil war, the number of votes gradually decreased to 15, as population growth in other states was much faster than that of Virginia. During the civil war, the region of West Virginia became a separate state, and since the 1872 election, Virginia's allocation of electoral votes has remained constant, fluctuating between 11 and 13 votes.