Isle of Wight County saw several hundred more voters turn out this year than in 2020, but that’s not the whole story.

According to complete but still unofficial results from the Virginia Department of Elections, there were 24,314 ballots cast across Isle of Wight, accounting for 74% of the county’s 32,695 registered voters.

It’s an increase of 857 ballots, or 3.6%, from the 23,456 who cast in-person or mail-in votes in 2020.

It’s also a 3 percentage point drop from four years ago, and a 1-point drop from 2016 if you measure the number of 2024 ballots cast versus total registered voters as of November this year.

The 2020 turnout equated to a 77.7% share of the then-30,178 registered voters on the county’s books as of November of that year, according to registration data from the Department of Elections.

In 2016, Isle of Wight’s 21,075 presidential ballots equated to a roughly 75.7% share of the then-27,851 registered county voters.

President-elect Donald Trump received 14,375 votes, or 59.6% of this year’s Isle of Wight ballots. It’s the former president and three-time candidate’s highest number and percentage of Isle of Wight votes since he first ran for the nation’s highest office in 2016.

Trump received a 13,707-vote, or 58.4%, share of Isle of Wight’s votes in 2020 when he ran as an incumbent against current President Joe Biden, and a 12,204-vote, or 57.9%, share in 2016 when he ran against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The data doesn’t necessarily reflect a shift further to the right for the already reliably Republican-leaning county of roughly 40,000 residents. This year, Trump, GOP Senate candidate Hung Cao and U.S. Rep. Jen Kiggans, R-Va., each received a nearly two-thirds majority in Isle of Wight, which is consistent with past performance by federal and state GOP candidates.

In fact, Vice President Kamala Harris’ 9,441-vote, or 39.1%, share of the county’s 2024 total equates to the highest number, but not the highest percentage, of Isle of Wight votes any of the three Democratic presidential candidates to run against Trump have received since 2016.

Only Biden’s 9,309 Isle of Wight votes equated to a higher percentage, at 39.7%, than Harris’, while Clinton’s 2016 run against Trump resulted in her receiving only 4,724 votes, or 22.4% of the total, according to Department of Elections data.

In 2024, votes for four third-party candidates that made the presidential election a six-way race accounted for 1.2% of the county’s total ballots, down from just under 1.5% in 2020 and the nearly 4.7% who voted third-party in 2016.

One factor that could be spurring the increase in both Republican and Democratic vote totals in Isle of Wight is the county’s population growth.

Population estimates the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center released in January for each of the state’s 133 cities and counties listed 40,873 people living in Isle of Wight as of mid-2023, a nearly 6% increase from the 38,606 counted during the 2020 Census. It makes Isle of Wight the sixth or seventh fastest-growing county in the state based on differing data used by Weldon Cooper and the Census Bureau.

Over the four years prior to 2020, Isle of Wight’s population grew 3.1% from the 37,424 Weldon Cooper had estimated in 2016. Some of the growth is tied to the approval and buildout of new housing developments over the past eight years.

Benn’s Grant, a 776-home subdivision that broke ground in 2015, is now fully built out. A 99-home phase of the Brewer’s Station development off Brewers Neck Boulevard in Carrollton broke ground in 2020 and the residential phase of The Crossings at Bartlett Station, which is approved for up to 240 condominium units and 52 single-family homes, broke ground in 2021.

 

What about Surry?

Surry County, which broke for Trump by a margin of 23 votes, saw 4,410 ballots cast this year out of 5,831 registered voters, making turnout roughly 76%.

That’s lower, both in the total number of ballots cast and as a percentage of registered voters, than the rural county of roughly 6,500 residents saw in 2020.

Four years ago, Surry voters cast 4,471 ballots in the 2020 presidential election, amounting to just under 79.7% turnout for its then-5,610 registered voters, according to Department of Elections data. Of those ballots, 2,397, or 53.6%, were Biden votes and another 2,025, or just under 45.3%, were for Trump.

Surry’s then-5,524 voters cast 4,228 ballots in the 2016 race, making turnout 76.5% that year. Of those, 2,272, or 53.7%, were for Clinton and 1,819, or 43%, were for Trump.

This year, Trump received 2,176, or just under 49.6%, of 4,388 presidential votes to Harris’ 2,153, or 49%, marking the first time since 1972 that a majority in Surry has backed a Republican presidential candidate.

Harris’ Surry vote total reflects a nearly 10.2% decrease from Biden’s and a 5.2% decrease from Clinton’s.

Trump’s 2024 margin of victory in Surry was less than the county’s 59 third-party and write-in votes. In 2020, Surry voters cast 49 third-party or write-in ballots, down from 137 in 2016.