Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, a newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.
In today’s edition, Steve Kornacki breaks down the areas in Virginia that will be key for Republicans in next month’s gubernatorial election. Plus, Bridget Bowman speaks with Maine Gov. Janet Mills about her decision to jump into a major 2026 Senate race.
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— Adam Wollner
The Virginia counties where Republicans will need to regain ground in the governor’s race
Analysis by Steve Kornacki
When Republican Glenn Youngkin ran for governor of Virginia in 2021, Donald Trump was a former president who was keeping a relatively low profile. With minimal public attachment to Trump, Youngkin was able to turn back the clock in the state’s blue-trending suburban areas, reasserting much of the GOP’s pre-Trump strength and winning the election by 2 percentage points.
Four years later, Republicans are confronting a very different set of political conditions.
Trump, of course, is back in office, and like during his first term, he’s not that popular in Virginia. While he did make some notable gains just outside of Washington, D.C., he lost the state to Kamala Harris by 6 points last year and his approval rating sits at 41% in a recent statewide poll. And regardless of who the president is, Virginia has a history of siding against the White House party in its gubernatorial contests.
This helps explain why Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears has lagged behind Democrat Abigail Spanberger in the race to succeed Youngkin. The hope for Republicans now is that the fallout from the violent text messages from the Democratic nominee for attorney general, Jay Jones, reshapes the race in their favor.
Specifically, Earle-Sears will need traction with those anti-Trump voters who were willing to back Youngkin in 2021. This group of counties represents where Youngkin’s 2021 performance outpaced Trump’s 2024 performance by the widest margin.
Most of these counties sit on or near the I-95 corridor. Stafford, King George and Spotsylvania counties include the far reaches of the D.C. suburbs, where growth and new development mix with open space and rural communities. Chesterfield is a massive, suburban Richmond, and nearby Hanover and Goochland counties are experiencing significant new growth, too — as are York and James City counties in the eastern Tidewater area. Rockingham County in the Shenandoah Valley retains a strong rural and small-town character, but has seen growth spurred by transplants from northern Virginia.
These counties share a common link: They have high or growing concentrations of economically upscale white voters with college degrees, a demographic group that swung hard against Trump when he emerged in 2016. But before that, these voters had been far more amenable to Republican candidates. And in 2021, with an unpopular Democrat in President Joe Biden in the White House, many of them deemed Youngkin an acceptable option.
As you can see, Youngkin swept all nine counties, but Trump fared at least 11 net points worse in all of them, and lost three of them outright (Chesterfield, James City and Stafford). Even in a Republican bastion like Rockingham, Trump last year fell markedly short of Youngkin’s 2021 level.
For Republicans, Youngkin’s performance in 2021 represents a target that they’ll need to come awfully close to if Winsome-Sears is to have a chance.
More on this fall's elections:
- New Jersey: The Garden State governor’s race will test whether Republicans can mobilize Trump’s base when he isn’t on the ballot, Bridget Bowman writes.
- New York City: New York Attorney General Letitia James delivered an impassioned speech last night in support of Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani in her first public appearance since her federal indictment, Zoë Richards reports. Mamdani also appeared publicly today with Gov. Kathy Hochul for the first time since she endorsed his candidacy last month, per Katherine Koretski and Maya Rosenberg.
- California: Former President Barack Obama appeared in an ad to urge California voters to back a November ballot initiative to redraw the state’s congressional district lines, Rebecca Shabad notes.
Maine Gov. Janet Mills jumps into the race against GOP Sen. Susan Collins
By Bridget Bowman
Maine Gov. Janet Mills announced today that she is running for the Senate, pitching herself as the Democratic Party’s best chance to beat Republican Sen. Susan Collins next fall — and saying she does not plan to serve more than one term if elected.
“I’ve won two statewide offices, and unlike other people in the primary right now, I’ve actually won public office, won elections,” Mills said in an interview with NBC News ahead of her launch.
“And I’ve stood up to Donald Trump, and I have delivered progress for Maine people when it comes to health care, clean energy, public health, education. And I’m willing to fight for that in the U.S. Senate,” she said.
