“Chesterfield has changed a lot irrespective of the new lines,” said Stephen J. Farnsworth, a University of Mary Washington political scientist. “Generally speaking, the second wave of suburban residential settlement isn’t as conservative as the people who moved out of the city a generation or two ago. People are moving to Chesterfield to be closer to work. They’re moving into apartments in greater numbers rather than single-family homes. . . . So these are people who aren’t reflexively Republican.”
