If you haven’t voted already, polls in Virginia are open from 6 am to 7 pm today, as usual, which gives you 13 hours to exercise one of your most precious rights (and duties, IMHO) as an American – voting. Please feel free to use this as an open thread to discuss what you’re seeing and hearing out there today. Thanks.
Note that, so far, around 2.3 million Virginians have voted early — in person and by mail. That represents over half of Virginia’s entire 2020 final vote count (which was 4,460,524). Of course, it’s very difficult to compare, on any sort of apples-to-apples basis, early voting in 2020 and early voting this year, given that 2020 had several unique circumstances – the raging COVID pandemic, Trump demonizing early voting and telling his supporters not to vote early, etc. So overall, early voting numbers look very strong this election, although lower in VA03 and VA04 (both with large African-American populations) than ideal. So we’ll see what turnout looks like today in the places where early voting was the heaviest (e.g., VA01, VA10, VA08, VA02). I’ll definitely be following turnout reports throughout the day, and would appreciate it if you could comment with whatever you’re seeing/hearing.
So which races are you most interested in? Personally, in addition to the presidential and U.S. Senate races – which I’m assuming will go handily for Kamala Harris and Tim Kaine here in Virginia – I’m focused on how wide a margin Sen. Kaine wins by; the VA07 race to succeed Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA07), between Democrat Eugene Vindman and Republican Derrick Anderson (Vindman is favored, although it’s probably going to be close); the VA02 race between Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-VA02) and Democrat Missy Cotter Smasal (Kiggans is favored, but Smasal definitely has a shot – and if Smasal wins, it’s a GREAT sign for Democrats taking back the US House and Hakeem Jeffries becoming the next Speaker!); the Richmond mayoral race (between Danny Avula, Harrison Roday, Michelle Mosby, Andreas Addison and Maurice Neblett). And, outside of Virginia, obviously I’m going to be keeping an eye on the key swing states – Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin (the three “Blue Wall” states – if they all go to Harris, she’ll be the next president), North Carolina, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, etc. How about you?
By the way, I have VERY little faith at this point in the poll aggregators – given the fact that they include so many ridiculous right-wing “polls,” as well as numerous low-quality polls, but for what it’s worth (probably not much), FiveThirtyEight gives Harris a 91% chance of winning Virginia; Kaine a 97% chance of winning; Vindman a 76% chance of winning; Smasal a 26% chance of winning; etc. Also check out 270towin.com (“A consensus outlook for the 2024 House Elections based on the current ratings of these forecasters”), which has VA07 as a “Toss-up,” VA02 as “Leans Rep” and all other Virginia U.S. House districts as not competitive. Any other predictions you’re looking at?
P.S. Check out IWillVote.com for any questions about voting in Virginia. And, of course, make sure you vote Democratic up and down the ballot, IN PERSON, if you haven’t voted already! Thanks.
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