I was thinking about writing up my own analysis of last night’s special election results in HD98, but then I saw that Sam Shirazi put out a podcast on that topic this morning, and it’s (not surprisingly) excellent – so I’m mostly just going to highlight and summarize that, adding a few thoughts of my own. To see the results, by the way, check out the VA Department of Elections, which currently has the results as: Andrew Rice (R) 62.46%-Cheryl Smith (D) 37.50%. Also, check out VPAP’s HD98 district profile, which gives a flavor of this Virginia Beach district’s Republican lean (e.g., Trump won it by 14.4 points in 2024, Youngkin won it by 26.7 points in 2021); also, in 2025, incumbent Del. Barry Knight (R) defeated Democrat Cheryl Smith (the same candidate who lost last night by about 25 points) by a 13.4-point margin (56.6%-43.2%). And Chaz Nuttycombe’s State Navigate has HD98 as having gone for Winsome Earle-Sears 53.2%-46.7% and for Jason Miyares 58.4%-41.4% in November 2025. With that, here are some highlights from Sam Shirazi’s excellent podcast on this special election, with comments by me following the highlight in parentheses/bold/green.
- “I want to caveat that first by saying special elections are definitely special and you cannot read too much into them because they’re very unique circumstances, really depends on the district, depends on the night.” (Agreed, although Democrats have been “overperforming” across the country since Trump was elected, so it’s still striking to see this very rare UNDERperformance for Democrats…)
- “… people were looking at this seat, seeing what would happen. Would it be close? Would the Democrats be able to overperform again? And it looks like Democrats have not done that. They are not going to overperform. This will be a rare instance where the Republicans actually overperform.” (So yeah, that’s why it jumps out as an outlier, and why it’s worth looking at. Personally, I’d take it as motivation for Democrats to really crank it up for the 4/21 redistricting referendum, to not take it for granted, to have everyone – Gov. Spanberger, Democrats already running for US House seats that won’t exist if the amendment doesn’t pass, etc. – not to panic by any means, but to really focus over the next few weeks on getting the “YES” campaign over the finish line…)
- “So in the grand scheme of things, Republicans had a good night with the special election. They overperformed. And so the question becomes, what does all this mean? So I think a few things were at play here. One, obviously, when a delegate passes away, it’s it’s very unfortunate. And I think it was kind of a circumstance where it didn’t exactly lend itself to the Democrats having a big overperformance. It’s not like a situation where someone resigns in scandal. So I think the reason for the special election often is important. And then if you look look at this district, It’s in more of a kind of white working class part of Virginia Beach. So typically Democrats have a harder time overperforming in districts with white working class voters.” (All excellent points; this is why we pay Sam Shirazi the big bucks; just kidding…but yeah, spot-on analysis.)
- “I also think the elephant in the room is the redistricting referendum. And so I want to talk a little bit more about that, because I think one explanation of what happened is the Republicans are fired up and they’re upset about the redistricting referendum. Potentially, they could also be generally upset at what’s been going on in Richmond since the Democrats took over in January. So perhaps they’re upset with some of the bills that have been passed…so now you see the opposite reaction where Republicans are upset and perhaps they are starting to organize, whereas last year they were a little bit at asleep… perhaps in Virginia, Things are not as blue as they were in 2025, partly because the redistricting, partly because Democrats got a trifecta.” (Right, exactly; the salient question is whether Republicans have woken up a bit, and maybe Democrats have fallen asleep a bit, due to Democrats holding a “trifecta” in Richmond, starting to pass policies – including on issues, like guns, that tend to fire up Republicans – and also of course the redistricting amendment, which also may have energized Republicans somewhat? And remember, elections are determined by who shows up, relatively speaking, which correlates pretty strongly with who’s most fired up – whether Democrats being livid at Trump/DOGE/etc. in 2025 here in Virginia, or Republicans being angry at Obamacare in 2009, or at Biden for…whatever in 2021. So the question is, right now in Virginia, who’s more “fired up” – the “red team” or the “blue team”? It’s hard to say, other than polling, anecdotal information, and special election results, like the ones we got last night.)
- “I don’t want to overread what happened in the Virginia special election as meaning, you know, Democrats are definitely going to lose the redistricting referendum. That’s certainly not the case. I think it’s just an indication that maybe the Republicans have woken up a little bit since 2025.” (Exactly – one Republican overperformance in one special election, perhaps an idiosyncratic one in some ways, does NOT mean we’re “going to lose the redistricting referendum” by any means. I’d just suggest using it as motivation, and also a reminder for VA Democrats NOT to take anything for granted, to “run through the tape,” “leave it all the on the field,” etc.)
- “…just because the rejection referendum passed by a lot in California doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily going to be a slam dunk in Virginia. And so I do think it’s important for the Virginia Democrats not to take anything for granted.” (Yep, that’s exactly what I’m arguing – Sam Shirazi and I are 100% on the same page here.)
- “But the good news is they still have a lot of time over over a month left to get out those voters. And then also Democrats have a financial advantage. So I think that’s certainly going to help them…I think there are a lot of things going right for the Democrats. I’m not necessarily trying to. freak them out or say that the Republicans are going to win. I’m just trying to kind of lay it out as I see it, that things are not necessarily as much of a slam dunk as 2025. And, you know, anytime an election is going to be within single digits, which I think there’s a possibility this election is going to be single within single digits, it’s hard to confidently say, you know, one side or another is definitely going win.” (Bingo on all points.)
