Apr.21

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

Notes on the State of Virginia

Today, of course, we learn whether voters in Virginia want to change the state's maps to make them into an aggressive Democratic gerrymander. We had an item about it yesterday. We got several comments from dialed-in voters and thought that today, we'd pass them along:

• L.E. in Suffolk, VA: Some thoughts from a constituent of Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-VA).
  
  I think the Virginia Redistricting "Yes" will win. However, that alone is probably not enough to unseat Kiggans and/or Rep. Rob Wittman (R).
  
  I believe that Kiggans' VA-02 goes from a PVI of EVEN to D+1, so not much of a change. Her opponent will be Elaine Luria, who certainly has name recognition as the former representative from the district. I like both women and really wish Kiggans was a D. Her views are very moderate and she could easily fit as a D from our very military district. My impression is that Kiggans is a better campaigner than Luria, so I would still give her the edge. The real decider will be the size of the blue wave. I think that surge amplitude would have been the determining factor even without redistricting.
  
  Wittman's District would go from R+3 to D+5, but I still wouldn't count him out as he has consistently outperformed his PVI by a healthy amount. I think it might take a 10+ point Blue Wave to unseat him.
  
  
• V.S. in Charlottesville, VA: April 18th was the last day to vote early in-person for the election. Mail-in ballots can still be returned through 7:00 p.m. on the 21st. Ballots, as long as they are postmarked by the 21st, are accepted through Friday, April 24. In the 2025 general election, just under 50k ballots were returned during this time period.
  
  Some general observations. The early vote tracked closely with the 2025 general election early vote with a deficit of only 5.5%, or 80,000 votes to date. However, turnout in the traditional Republican areas was up between 3% and 9% depending on the region, for a total additional early vote in these areas of about 21,000 over the 2025 general election. It's not clear if these additional votes are cannibalizing same-day votes from 2025 or if these are new voters. Turnout in the Democratic areas was down between 2% to 11%, again depending on the region. That being said, just under 62% of the total early vote came from the Capitol region, Northern Virginia, and Hampton Roads, which all lean blue.
  
  Based on the early vote, I decided to calculate four different scenarios using the margins of victory in 2025, 2024, and 2021. The former two favored Democrats, and 2021 was the best Republicans have done statewide in some time:
  
  
  • 2025 margin: 13.4% win (438,000 votes), ballot measure passes
  • 2024 margin: 4.6% win (151,000 votes), ballot measure passes
  • 2021 margin: -3.3% loss (-109,000 votes), ballot measure fails
  • Hybrid margin: 4.6% win (150,000 votes), ballot measure passes
  
  For the hybrid margin, I assumed the 2024 margin of victory for the Democratic leaning regions, and the 2021 margin of victory for the Republican regions. Interestingly, this barely changed the results compared to just using the 2024 margin for all regions. This just indicates there are not enough votes in those regions to overcome the Democratic votes in the other regions. That is unless, overall, Democrats do not vote.
  
  We will find out how this all plays out on Tuesday evening. One issue is even if the measure passes, the Virginia courts still need to rule whether the proper procedure was followed in placing the measure in front of voters.
  
  
• D.B. in Farmville, VA: Thought I'd write in to fill you (and maybe the other readers) in on what's up in Virginia, the current battleground in the redistricting fight.
  
  First of all, though it's a referendum—not super common here—it's definitely a battle. I'm getting hit with more election messaging than even in most November elections. I've seen TV ads, I've gotten bulk mailers, and I've gotten phone-text-spam. But the messaging is really interesting.
  
  On the TVs (e.g., in a bar), the balance of which side you see shifts based on the station, but the "YES" messaging is all about "protect our rights" and often some version of the sentence "we didn't start this fight but now we have to finish it" (and a reminder that it's temporary); and the "NO" messaging is two-prong: (1) past clips of Barack Obama and Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) saying gerrymandering is bad, and (2) right-wing wedge-issue stuff. I've seen assertions that the Democrats would raise taxes, would grant benefits to "illegals," would let "boys play in girls' sports," and more of that ilk.
  
  On the text messaging and in the mailers, the YES side is much the same, but the NO side is completely different. Clearly targeting me as a left-of-center voter, the images are largely of serious-faced Black people and saying that "minority representation is under attack" and that the change "divides communities of color," and that... wait, I have to quote the whole thing:

  Virginia's minority communities deserve strong representation in Congress to improve our healthcare, lower housing costs, and protect our rights.

  That's from "Justice for Democracy PAC", which is definitely a front for people that absolutely do not believe that sentence. The phone spam too spreads fear that the initiative "divides Black and brown communities." Perhaps of note: In a regular election cycle, I get an annoyingly large amount of phone spam from the Ds (or, apparently from the Ds) but usually get zero from the Rs. But the lists are for sale to anyone, I guess.
  
  It's legitimately challenging to make the YES case without leaning on a lot of nuance, which this kind of ad is usually very bad at conveying. I'm conflicted myself: I truly want fair districting, and Virginia had a good model, but it's been shown that "fair districting" simply doesn't work at the state level for federal districts... a challenging message to package simply (although I'm quite taken with "we didn't start this fight but now we have to finish it"). On the other hand, a friend of mine remarked that this advertising was the first time in memory that ads convinced them how to vote—seeing the scaremongering NO ad convinced them to vote YES. We'll see tonight, I guess.

Thanks to all of you for writing in! (Z)