| RICHMOND,VA— In case you missed it, WVTF is reporting what’s become clear across the Commonwealth: Virginia Democrats are turning out in record numbers for this year’s primary elections, with early vote totals already surpassing turnout from the past two off-year election cycles—a clear referendum on Donald Trump and the chaos in Washington that debunks the national narrative “that Democrats are dispirited.”
Thanks to early voting reforms passed by Virginia House Democrats in 2020—including no-excuse absentee voting and expanded early in-person options—Virginians are turning out in greater numbers, empowered to cast their ballots earlier and more easily than ever before.
Read the article highlights below:
WVTF: Virginia Democrats on track to smash primary early voting record
- Ever since Virginia expanded early voting in 2021, more people have been using absentee mail-in and early in-person voting options. But if current numbers hold, Virginia Democrats could blow previous primary early voting records out of the water.
- According to the Virginia Public Access Project, by the end of the June primary in 2021, with five gubernatorial candidates on the ballot, Virginia Democrats had cast about 125,000 primary votes. In June 2023, with all House of Delegates and state Senate seats on the line, it hit 129,000. But as of last week, according to the Virginia Board of Elections, that number is over 80,000 votes so far this year.
- “The Washington narrative that Democrats are dispirited and the activists are hopeless,” he said. “That’s just not supported by these early voting numbers in Virginia.” In fact, Farnsworth thinks its action coming out of Washington — via the Trump administration — that may be firing Virginia Democrats up.
- “In Virginia, where there’s a disproportionate, large number of people who are federal employees or federal contractors, the anxiety over the future, whether you’ve lost your job already or whether you’re worried you might, will discourage consumer spending. And all of those downward pressures on the Virginia economy will not help Republican candidates going forward.”
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