This is the nation’s marquee race of 2017: a presidential swing-state match-up revolving around President Donald Trump. Democratic Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam cast himself as a break from Trump, while Republican Ed Gillespie, a former RNC chairman and White House aide for President George W. Bush, mimicked the President’s culture warrior stances on sanctuary cities and Confederate monuments. The backdrop is a Virginia economy where unemployment is lower than the national average and where voters say the state, under outgoing Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, is on the right track, even as they also say the nation is on the wrong track. The heavily populated northern Virginia suburbs around Washington are key to deciding the race’s outcome.