About Virginia

Virginia is a state of profound contradictions held in tense coexistence. It is simultaneously the birthplace of American democracy and the place where race-based chattel slavery was first codified in English law. It produced Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, the architects of a republic, and also the generals and politicians of the Confederacy, who nearly destroyed it. It built the Pentagon and fills it with the most powerful military machine in human history, while also hosting Monticello, where a man who wrote that all men are created equal kept 600 of them in bondage.

Geographically, Virginia is split between worlds. Northern Virginia is an extension of metropolitan Washington, dense, wealthy, diverse, and dominated by the federal government and the technology industry. Richmond is a city actively reckoning with its Confederate past while gentrifying at speed. Hampton Roads is a military fortress and the cradle of English American history in the same stretch of coastline. The Shenandoah Valley and Appalachian southwest are rural, agricultural, and increasingly left behind by an economy centered elsewhere.

Politically, Virginia was reliably Republican for most of the twentieth century. In 2008, Barack Obama carried it for the first time since Lyndon Johnson. By the 2010s it had two Democratic senators. By 2019 Democrats held the state legislature. The transformation, driven primarily by the growth of Northern Virginia and a diversifying electorate, is one of the most dramatic political shifts any state has undergone in a generation.