The Virginia governor touted the state as the place where officials working in President-elect Donald Trump‘s administration should live instead of Washington, D.C., or Maryland, in a video released Tuesday.
To all the new members of @realDonaldTrump’s administration relocating to the area to make America great again, I am personally inviting you to make Virginia your home. pic.twitter.com/pAkwkoWurR
— Glenn Youngkin (@GlennYoungkin) November 26, 2024
“To the new members of President Trump’s administration moving to the area, I want to personally invite you to make Virginia your home,” Youngkin said.
“Virginia is right across the Potomac; we offer a great quality of life, safe communities, award-winning schools where parents matter, and lower taxes than D.C. or Maryland. It’s why so many people choose Virginia as the best place to live, work, and raise a family,” Youngkin said.
The Old Dominion is a popular place to live for people working in Washington, D.C., both in the federal government and with private businesses. Arlington, Alexandria, and McLean, along with Fairfax and Loudoun counties, are popular places for workers who commute into the district to live.
The two key parts of Youngkin’s pitch, education and crime, have been in national headlines for the Washington-Maryland-Virginia area’s different jurisdictions.
Education was a key part of Youngkin’s successful gubernatorial bid in 2021 and has been one of the focuses of his administration. The advertisement touted CNBC’s July report calling the state’s public education system the “best in the country,” along with it being the best state for business.
Public safety has been a concern in Washington, D.C., with crime spiking in 2023, but still remains a concern even as local leadership touts lower crime figures.
Two lawmakers and one former Trump administration official were victims of violent crime in Washington over the past two years.
Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN) was physically assaulted inside an elevator as she was leaving her apartment building in February 2023, and Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) was carjacked at gunpoint in Washington, D.C., in October 2023. Mike Gill, who served as chief of staff for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission during the first Trump administration, was shot while being carjacked in downtown Washington and ultimately died of his injuries from the incident.
Virginia is the most populous of the jurisdictions in the region surrounding the U.S. capital city.
It is also the area where more people from Maryland and Washington are moving from, rather than Virginians moving to their DMV neighbors.
In 2023, 13,010 people moved from Washington, D.C., to Virginia, and 28,203 people moved from Maryland to Virginia, according to the Census Bureau. Only 7,085 people moved from Virginia to Washington, D.C., and only 12,647 moved from Virginia to Maryland during that time.
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The Old Dominion is also the most Republican of the three jurisdictions in the immediate Washington, D.C., area. All three areas voted for Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump in this month’s presidential election, but Trump lost Virginia by a relatively narrow 5.8%, compared to a 28.5% loss in Maryland and an 85.7% loss in Washington, D.C.
Virginia’s governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general are all Republicans, while Democrats hold narrow 21-19 and 51-49 majorities in both chambers of the state legislature.