The 1900s decade had seen Virginia, like all former Confederate States, almost completely disenfranchise its black and poor white populations through the use of a cumulative poll tax and literacy tests.

[2] Unlike the Deep South, historical fusion with the “Readjuster” Democrats,[3] defection of substantial proportions of the Northeast-aligned white electorate of the Shenandoah Valley and Southwest Virginia over free silver,[4] and an early move towards a “lily white” Jim Crow party[3] meant that in general elections the Republicans retained around one-third of the small statewide electorate,[5] with the majority of GOP support located in the western part of the state.

[2] Unlike North Carolina, Tennessee or Oklahoma — the other Southern states with the rudiments of a two-party system like typically contested statewide general elections — Virginia was influenced neither by Appalachian or Ozark isolationism[6] nor the Nineteenth Amendment.

Unlike Oklahoma, Tennessee and to a much lesser extent North Carolina,[10] there never was a thought that Virginia would be vulnerable to an expected and observed Republican landslide that saw Harding win the national election with 60.32 percent of the vote.

Cox would win Virginia by a margin of 23.47 percentage points — a decrease vis-à-vis Woodrow Wilson's results in the two previous elections, but much less than the Democratic Party experienced nationally.