New Map Details GOP gains in Fairfax County

In deep blue Fairfax County, Glenn Youngkin's goal was to cut his losses compared to GOP gubernatorial performance in 2017. Enhanced election result data released by Fairfax County this week shows Youngkin met his goal in eight out of 10 precincts.

Source: Fairfax County Office of Elections and Virginia Department of Elections

Note: Precinct boundaries shown are from 2017. Fairfax County had four precincts split in 2021, so VPAP combined the votes in those split precincts in order to compare them accurately to 2017 results.

Methodology: Fairfax County reapportioned all absentee ballots back to their home precinct, making it possible to determine the full results per precinct for all November 2021 races. VPAP used this data to then compare the change in partisan spread from the 2017 Governor's race. 2017 results are for in-person voting on election day only. VPAP decided this was still a valid comparison since just less than 12% of votes cast in Fairfax County in 2017 were absentee, compared to almost 40% in 2021. The exact formula used to determine the shift is (2021 Youngkin % minus 2021 McAuliffe %) minus (2017 Gillespie % minus 2017 Northam %).