How Fairfax County just voted
Harris won Northern Virginia and the commonwealth. But it was no 2020.
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Former president Donald Trump won a return to the White House, the AP projected Wednesday morning, after a dark campaign, a felony conviction, a near-assassination, and an election in which he piled up small gains in blue-leaning areas around the country.
Fairfax County, while it powered Vice President Kamala Harris to a win in Virginia, was one of them.
The county’s results remain unofficial until the State Board of Elections certifies them early next month. But here’s what we know about Fairfax’s votes in the presidential race, local elections, referendums and its races for Congress — which Democrats swept, as the fight for the House remains tight.
Fairfax turnout dips
With just provisional and post-election ballots left to count, Fairfax’s results show that some 561,000 voters cast ballots this election. That would represent 68.4% turnout — a marked decline from 2020’s highs, when county turnout hit 79.4%.
One data point that stands out within that: About 60,000 more voters were registered in Fairfax for this presidential election, but 40,000 fewer people appear to have voted.
Backing Harris, but not quite like Biden
Fairfax and the rest of NoVa have fueled Democrats to presidential wins in the commonwealth since 2008. This result was no different, though the underlying numbers notably were.
Compared to last time, Trump’s support in Fairfax County rose a little, while Democrats’ dropped a lot:
2024
Harris/Walz: 365,654 votes (65.5%)
Trump/Vance: 173,320 (31%)
2020
Biden/Harris: 419,943 votes (70.4%)
Trump/Pence: 168,401 (28.2%)
Loudoun, meanwhile, moved nine points toward Trump, giving Harris just a 16-point edge; Arlington moved right by five. The slimmer margins in NoVa contributed to a tighter Virginia: With nearly all votes counted, Harris led statewide by about five percentage points.
All told, the numbers in the commonwealth look closer to those of 2016, when former secretary of state Hillary Clinton led the Democratic ticket with Sen. Tim Kaine (who we’ll get to in a minute).
Democrats hold House seats
8th district: Rep. Don Beyer (D) defeated Jerry Torres (R), a Special Forces veteran, with about 72% of the vote in this congressional district that includes McLean and Annandale.
Beyer, who won a sixth term, had called The Machine from the DNC in August and criticized Project 2025’s proposals to replace federal employees with Trump loyalists. “You know where they live? Northern Virginia,” Beyer said. His constituents now will confront that possibility.
10th district: State Sen. Suhas Subramanyam (D) held off Mike Clancy (R), a lawyer and tech company executive, to win the county’s most competitive seat, which opened after the retirement of three-term Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D).
Virginia’s results late Wednesday morning showed Subramanyam at 51.9% to Clancy’s 47.7% in the sprawling district, which folds in southwestern Fairfax with Loudoun, Fauquier and other counties.
11th district: In this solid-blue district in the heart of Fairfax County, longtime Rep. Gerry Connolly (D) dispatched Mike Van Meter (R), a retired FBI officer and Navy veteran, with 66.8% of the vote.
But even that was five points closer than Connolly’s race in 2020.
A smooth Senate reelection for Kaine
Kaine, the incumbent and former Virginia governor, won a third Senate term Tuesday, defeating retired Navy captain Hung Cao (R). State results showed Kaine up 54% to 45.8% with almost all votes in.
Analysts had rated the seat as safe for Kaine, though it still wasn’t the cakewalk he had in 2018’s midterms, when he rolled Republican Corey Stewart by 16 points.
Kaine ran slightly ahead of Harris in Fairfax, winning 67.5% of the vote here, while Cao — who campaigned with Trump at Eden Center in August — took 32.2% of the county’s vote. The Senate race’s lack of third-party candidates consolidated support.
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A mayoral first in Herndon
Town Councilmember Keven LeBlanc Jr. beat colleague Pradip Dhakal in the race to become Herndon’s next mayor. That result will make LeBlanc the town’s first open (and married) LGBTQ mayor, he wrote in a text message.
Two incumbents and four newcomers were headed for seats on Herndon’s next council. If those results hold, incumbent Naila Alam will lose reelection by 10 votes, after Connolly criticized her attendance record last month.
In Fairfax City, its first female mayor, Catherine Read (D), won a second term.
Three ballot questions pass
Fairfax County voters approved a pair of bond referendums Tuesday, which certainly aren’t what you’re thinking about today but will have an impact locally.
One will issue bonds to pay the county’s share for WMATA upgrades and maintenance projects, such as station improvements, new rail cars and buses. A second will issue bonds to finance a Tysons fire station, a modernized Police Training Center, and renovations or replacement of additional facilities like the Fox Mill and Oakton fire stations.
A proposed Virginia constitutional amendment, meanwhile, passed overwhelmingly. It will expand a tax exemption to cover surviving spouses of soldiers who died in the line of duty, not just those of soldiers who were killed in action.