According to Abbreviationfinder, Virginia is one of the 50 states of the United States. Officially, it is called the Commonwealth of Virginia, in English.

Politics

Over the past century, Virginia has shifted from a fundamentally rural, politically southern, conservative state to a more urbanized and politically pluralistic environment. Rural areas in the southern and eastern parts of the state are GOP-like, while urban centers and outskirts of Washington, such as Fairfax and Arlington counties, are mostly Democratic-like. African Americans were effectively disenfranchised until after the passage of civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s, which was one of the catalysts for the “Great Migration” of the early 20th century to the cities of the United States. North. The granting of the right to vote and the immigration of other groups, especially Hispanics, have demonstrated the growing importance of minority voting.

Regional differences play a big role in Virginia politics. Urban areas and increasingly politically moderate suburban areas, including Northern Virginia, are the base of the Democratic party. Rural Virginia moved its support for the Republican Party in response to its “Southern strategy” (in American politics, it refers to a Republican method of bringing racism among white voters to the Southern states). Parts of Southwest Virginia under the influence of unionized coal mines, college towns such as Charlottesville and Blacksburg, and southeastern counties in the “Black Belt” region have remained more favorable to the Democratic vote.

The strength of Virginia’s political parties has changed in recent years. In the 2004 US presidential election, Fairfax County in Northern Virginia voted for the Democrats for the first time in the past 40 years, joining the Democratic strongholds of Alexandria and Arlington. In 2006, Democrat Tim Kaine was elected Governor. and in the 2007 state elections, Democrats regained control of the state Senate and reduced the Republican majority in the House of Representatives to eight seats. But in the 2009 election, Republican Robert McDonnell was elected governor by a 17-point margin, and the Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General were also Republicans, regaining six seats in the House of Delegates.

In federal elections since 2006, Democrats have been more successful. In the 2006 Senate elections, Democrat Jim Webb won the Republican incumbent in a close election. The party won both US Senate seats after 2008, when former Governor Mark Warner replaced Republican John Warner. Of the state’s 11 seats in the US House of Representatives, Democrats won six and Republicans five. In Virginia, which has 13 electoral votes, Democrat Barack Obama won in the 2008 presidential election, when Republican candidates had won in the previous ten presidential elections. Virginia is considered a “swing state” in presidential elections.

Economy

Virginia’s economy is well-balanced and has varied sources of income, providing employment for 4.1 million civilian workers. In 2006, Forbes magazine named it the best state in the nation for business. Virginia’s Gross Domestic Product it was $ 382.964 billion in 2007. According to CountryAAH.com, it had the largest number of independent counties and cities, fifteen, ranked among the 100 richest counties in the United States by median household income. In addition, along with Colorado, it also has more counties, ten, among the hundred with the highest per capita income. As of 2007, seven Fortune 500 companies are headquartered in the greater Richmond area.

Virginia has seventeen companies in the Fortune 500, 10th nationally. Additionally, ten Fortune 1000 companies are in Northern Virginia, with a total of twenty-nine in the state. With only 1% Hispanic population, the state has 3.6% of the companies in the Hispanic 500. The Pentagon, the headquarters of the United States Department of Defense in Arlington County, is the largest office building of the world.

Virginia has the highest concentration of tech workers of any US state. One third of the state’s jobs are in the service sector. Chips became the state’s largest gross export in 2006, surpassing the top traditional coal and tobacco exports combined. Northern Virginia, once considered the state’s dairy capital, now produces software, communications technology, and consulting companies. The Dulles Tech Corridor, near the Washington-Dulles International Airport, has a large concentration of Internet companies, communications and software engineering. In 2006, Fairfax and Loudoun counties in Northern Virginia had the first and second highest median household incomes, respectively, of all counties in the United States.

Many of Northern Virginia’s highly educated people work directly for federal agencies. Many others work for government contractors, including security and defense. Famous government agencies established in Northern Virginia include the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the United States Department of Defense, as well as the National Science Foundation (NSF), the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the United States Patent and Trademark Office. The Hampton Roads area contains the largest concentration of military bases and ancillary facilities of any metropolitan area in the world. The largest of these is Norfolk Naval Base, the second state after Alaska, in defense spending per capita.

In southern Virginia, from Hampton Roads to Richmond to Lee County, the economy is based on military installations, such as beef cattle, tobacco and peanut farming. Approximately twenty percent of Virginian jobs are in the agricultural sector, with 47,000 farms, with an average area of ​​732 m². Tomato cultivation surpassed soybean cultivation as the most productive crop in 2006, with peanuts and hay being produced as other agricultural products. the oysters They are an important part of the Chesapeake Bay’s economy, but their populations and catches have declined, due to disease, pollution and overfishing. Northern Neck wineries and vineyards along the Blue Range have also begun to generate income and attract tourists.