Virginia Is Likely to Raise Taxes If Democrats Win Tuesday’s Election

Taxes are likely to rise in Virginia, if the Democrats win the election being held this Tuesday.

Last May, Virginia’s Republican Governor, Glenn Youngkin, vetoed a bill to allow all counties to raise the sales tax by 1%. Virginia’s Democratic legislature tried to override his veto, but fell short of the two-thirds vote needed to do so, in a 25-to-15 vote in the state senate. Analysts said most local governments would have raised their sales tax had the bill become law. That’s because local sales taxes are paid partly by non-residents, giving municipalities an incentive to tax each other’s citizens by raising the sales tax. If a municipality raises its local sales tax, it keeps all of the revenue, but its residents don’t pay all of the cost — people from outside the municipality who can’t vote against the tax do.

If it had become law, taxes would have risen further in Virginia, a state that already had higher-than-average tax rates, according to the Tax Foundation.

Now, Democrats are favored to win the governor’s race in Virginia, although there is a very close race for state attorney general, and several state legislative races will be very close. The Real Clear Politics polling average shows the Democratic candidate for governor leading by a comfortable 9%, while Republican attorney general Jason Miyares is barely ahead of his Democratic challenger, leading Democrat Jay Jones by a razor-thin 1.6% margin. The Democrats’ lead in the governor’s race is fueled by the deep unpopularity in Virginia of Donald Trump.