Rob Wittman Won 14 Localities. Two Suburbs Still Took His Seat.

Rob Wittman won most of Virginia’s 1st District on a map. He still lost the seat.

In the Virginia Department of Elections’ unofficial count, Democrat Shannon Taylor, Henrico County’s commonwealth’s attorney, leads 207,877 to 198,417 — 51.04% to 48.72%, a 9,460-vote gap. The Associated Press called the race for Taylor around noon Thursday. Decision Desk HQ had projected it late Tuesday night.

Wittman has held the district since a 2007 special election. He won nine reelections after that, all by double digits, including a nearly 13-point win in 2024. Republicans have held the seat since 1977. The margin now is well outside Virginia’s 1% recount threshold.

The map that didn’t save him

The Center Square’s locality breakdown shows why the rural counties weren’t enough. Wittman led in 14 of the district’s localities, including Hanover by 9,424 votes and Gloucester by 5,836. York was a wash, Wittman up 88.

Taylor’s dump came from the Richmond suburbs inside the district. She led Henrico’s portion by 22,506 votes and Chesterfield’s by 11,053. That’s 33,559 votes in two localities — more than three times the size of her districtwide lead. She also took James City County by 4,669 and Williamsburg by 3,378.

Two years ago this seat wasn’t close. Wittman beat Leslie Mehta 56.3% to 43.5%. The same suburbs that once kept the district red just erased a 13-point cushion.

Money and the call

Wittman raised more than Taylor on the campaign side, about $5.4 million to $4.6 million, per VPM’s reporting of Virginia Public Access Project figures. Outside groups spent about $16 million on the race, and about $11 million of that went into ads against Wittman. Taylor’s closing message was stock-trading bans and “corruption” in Congress.

On election night Wittman told reporters he didn’t see anything that would make him question the count, but he also didn’t concede, saying votes were still out in counties that had been “overwhelmingly in our column.” Those counties came in. The suburbs had already decided it.

Virginia Democrats also flipped the neighboring 2nd District, where former Rep. Elaine Luria beat Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans, per the AP. That takes Democrats from six of Virginia’s 11 House seats to eight.

Provisional and mailed absentee ballots received after Election Day are still being processed. The state’s deadline for those is Friday at noon. They are not expected to move a 9,460-vote gap inside the recount line.

What to watch: Friday’s late-ballot deadline, county canvass, and whether Wittman concedes once the remaining ballots are in.