Video: With Hours to Go Until VA Polls Open, DLCC Says “these races are on a razor’s edge and…some races may not even be called until about a week after the election”

See below for video and highlights of DLCC interim president Heather Williams – along with DLCC Communications Director Abhi Rahman – discussing, a bit earlier today, the DLCC’s expectations for the Virginia General Assembly elections tomorrow.

• “We believe that this year’s elections [in Virginia and in other states] are critical for the direction of this country…the stakes are incredibly high.”
• “Democrats have had a fantastic year so far. We’ve not only won dozens of special elections, but we’ve consistently  overperformed in races across the country by an average of seven points, and we’ve sucessfully flip seats in battleground states.”
• “However, we know Republicans are looking for a win. They’ve funneled millions of dollars into these elections, and if they win they’ll use their gains to restrict freedoms and take rights away. Fortunately we’ve been hard at work to make sure that doesn’t happen…”
• In Virginia, “we now have weeks of early voting data in hand that shows promising signs for Democrats. But the data also confirms what we’ve known all year — both chambers in Virginia will be close. There are still tossup districts all across the state, and here’s the bottom line: we need everybody to get out and vote tomorrow and turn in their mail-in ballots. Just like in 2019 and 2021, many  of these races could come down to just a handful of votes, and any one of those seats could make the difference…”
• “…everything is on the line…Virginia is the last state in the South that has not passed an abortion ban. And if Republicans get a trifecta, they will use their  unchecked power to set Virginia back decades. Governor Youngkin and his slate of Republican candidates have shown they’re…ready and willing to undermine voting rights, will do nothing to address gun violence and are ready to launch new attacks on the LGBTQ community and the environment.”
• “It’s far too early for either side to declare victory and we expect this year’s election to be close in both chambers, likely coming down to just a few seats. Thinking about all that is at stake, we just need to win one chamber to stop the Republican trifecta. And if we’re able to do that tomorrow night, that in itself will be a huge win. Governor Youngkin has promised a total Republican takeover and put all his money and capital on the line, so stopping him by any margin will be a success…but nothing is guaranteed…we’re encouraging all of our Democratic voters to continue to vote…and make sure they’re getting their friends and family to vote as well.”
• “We also want to share that there’s a strong likelihood that we won’t know everything on election night. A few important notes on the timeline: we expect this week, first of all the final mail and ballot receipt deadline is not until Monday, November 13th at noon, which is a full week from today. In recent  elections in several of the larger localities, we saw nearly 10% of the vote by mail come in after election day, and in one locality we saw as much as 30% come in after election day. We are expecting similar numbers this year, and this could delay final results in some of our tightest races. It is important to note that we expect these final batches of mail and ballots to lean heavily Democratic, even in GOP territory, so these votes should be helpful for our candidates in close races as they are counted. We also expect the number of provisional ballots to go up this year as all voters who take advantage of same-day registration will be casting provisional ballots…we expect there will be a wait to obtain final results from these ballots, especially in larger localities. Same-day registration voters tend to skew younger, and so we expect these ballots to favor Democrats as well – for example, in 2022, roughly 67% of all provisional ballots were Democratic votes, and roughly 96% of same-day registration ballots were ultimately counted. With all of that being said, the point is we may not know final results in Virginia tomorrow night. These races are on a razor’s edge and…some races may not even be called until about a week after the election.”
• “We’ve got multiple paths to victory in the House in Virginia.”
• On abortion: “Republicans do not care what the will of the voters are on this, where the American people are on this issue. What they care about…[is] trying to inflict their views and their values…on voters and…it’s not going to change, they are not learning lessons.”