Are Democrats winning the enthusiasm race in the Virginia governor’s election?

The first thing to say is that many more Virginians chose to vote (the state doesn’t have party registration) in the Democratic primary (542,812) than the Republican primary (366,092). That suggests there’s more enthusiasm on the Democratic side, but it may also reflect the common perception that the Democratic nomination was seriously contested and the Republican nomination wasn’t.

In Virginia’s 2016 presidential primary, the perception that Hillary Clinton was way ahead may have contributed to the fact more voters chose Republican than Democratic ballots. That perception turned out to be right (Donald Trump beat Marco Rubio 35 to 32 percent, while Clinton beat Sen. Bernie Sanders 64 to 35 percent), but the common perception this year, like so many recently, turned out to be wrong.

Lieutenant Gov. Ralph Northam won the Democratic nomination by a comfortable by not overwhelming 56 to 44 percent margin over former congressman Tom Perriello, while former Republican National Chairman Ed Gillespie, who came within 1 percentage point of beating Democratic Sen. Mark Warner in 2014, beat one-time Trump Virginia campaign coordinator Corey Stewart by only 1 percent, 44 to 43 percent.

Here are the percentages of the vote for each candidate statewide and in each metropolitan region. Richmond and Tidewater cast 19 and 21 percent of the votes in each primary; 37 percent of Democratic votes and 29 percent of Republican votes were cast in Northern Virginia.

Perriello was endorsed by Sanders and hoped to inspire turnout from Sanders supporters; in fact he ran better than Sanders, who lost Virginia 64 to 35 percent to Clinton in the March 1, 2016 primary. But similarly to Sanders, his greatest strength was outside and almost entirely to the west of the three major metro areas — especially in the congressional district that he won in 2008 and, after proudly voting for Obamacare, lost in 2010. That probably reflects Northam’s strong support from incumbent Gov. Terry McAuliffe, widely known to be very close to the Clintons. Northam’s greatest strength, like Clinton’s, was among black voters; he won 70-plus percent in heavily black constituencies like Charles City County, Petersburg, Portsmouth and his home city of Norfolk.

Gillespie was expected to win handily, with strong support from the big metro areas; Stewart was arguably a fringe figure, fired as Trump state campaign chairman for being overly aggressive. But that’s not what happened.

Gillespie only narrowly won Northern Virginia, while Stewart came close there because he beat Gillespie 60 to 32 percent in Prince William County, where he served on the county board of supervisors. Gillespie got big margins in Alexandria, Arlington County and Fairfax Counties, where Republican voters tend to be upscale (high income/high education). He ran worse as one gets out into the less upscale exurbs, a pattern apparent in metro Richmond and Tidewater as well. He may have been saved by the home area support for the third candidate, Virginia Beach State Senator Frank Wagner; Gillespie’s margin over Stewart there (4,499) was higher than his statewide margin (4,333).

Virginia voted 50 to 44 percent for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump in 2016; it voted almost exactly in line with the national percentages in 2008 and 2012, but this time it was somewhat more Democratic. That fact, plus such polling as there is, suggest Northam is the favorite. But the record of polling in this race so far suggests caution in prediction.