Good analysis, as always, by Sam Shirazi, who this morning takes a look at the redistricting referendum coming up on Tuesday. See below for a few highlights, as well as my comments (in green/bold/parentheses).
- “So on this Saturday, April 18th, this is the last day of early voting. Early voting will be going on across Virginia.” (If you haven’t voted YES yet, today’s a great opportunity to do so – beautiful weather, satellite voting centers open, etc. If not, then your last chance to vote will be on Tuesday at your regular polling location, regular hours of 6 am to 7 pm).
- “…we’re going to probably see the biggest day of early voting definitely so far. for this election and then possibly could be the biggest day of early voting for a Virginia state election in Virginia history” (It’s really amazing how much interest there is in this election, given that it’s kind of a random spring day, not a presidential or gubernatorial election, etc. Of course, there’s a lot of interest intrinsically in this whole issue, whether for or against, and there’s also been a TON of money spent – something like $64 million by “Virginians for Fair Elections, aka the YES campaign, and $20 million for “Virginians for Fair Maps, aka the NO campaign – and that’s definitely getting voters’ attention!)
- “…early voting is pretty much what we expect or what it typically is in these elections where on paper, the Democrats have an advantage, roughly 60-40 advantage. That’s traditionally what happens in Virginia.” (So the question is, can the NO campaign make up that early vote disadvantage on election day next Tuesday? It’s going to be tough for them, and let’s hope they don’t succeed, but it’s possible…so let’s take nothing for granted by any means!)
- “I think honestly, the Republicans are doing a better job than they did in 2025 in certain parts of Virginia. But that doesn’t mean they’re going win just off, you know, slightly better turnout because 2025 was a really bad year for them.” (Exactly right; in 2025 Democrats won in a landslide, 15 points in the case of Spanberger’s campaign, so even if Democrats do several points worse than that, it would still be a big win for YES on Tuesday. Of course, it’s a very different election than Spanberger vs. Earle-Sears, but still, it demonstrates the challenge for the NO side in this campaign.)
- ” I can’t imagine that they’re going to overcome 15-point deficit purely on turnout. There just aren’t enough Republicans in Virginia to do that. So I think while the turnout dynamic is important, it’s part of the equation for the Republicans, I just don’t think turnout is is necessarily going to win it for them” (Right, which is why the NO campaign is sending out all those dishonest, slimy mailers, texts, plus TV ads, because they know they need to not just boost Republican/MAGA turnout, but that they also need to FLIP a bunch of Spanberger voters to NO in this campaign. This also helps explain their relentless, vicious, dishonest attacks on Spanberger for the past few months, and really demonstrates why Democrats made a huge mistake in not responding to those attacks aggressively, from day #1, because the fact is, those attacks appear to have WORKED, driving down Spanberger’s approval ratings significantly. Not good.)
- “A shy voter means someone who doesn’t love their voting for something, doesn’t they don’t want to advertise it to the world, they don’t want to tell pollsters, but at the end of the day, when they get in the voting booth, they’re going to vote yes. And I think we talked about this last year with the shy Jay Jones voter.” (The thing is, the vast majority of Democrats dislike partisan gerrymandering, so they obviously don’t LOVE gerrymandering Virginia, but the vast majority, probably 90% or more based on the polling, also understand the urgent NEED to do this, TEMPORARILY, as a way of leveling the NATIONAL playing field against Trump’s efforts to rig the maps in his favor. So they’ll vote YES in this case, even if holding their noses while doing so – hence, their “shyness” about the whole thing. In the end, though, a vote’s a vote, whether cast enthusiastically/loudly or unenthusiastically/”shyly”…)
- “…if there’s a lot more ‘shy yes’ voters than we think, I mean, I think this could be…not that close at the end of the day and could be maybe a 55-45 result where you you even hit double digits.” (Yeah, that’s a possible outcome, although personally I’d guess the results will be more like a 5-point or 7-point win for YES, but we’ll see….who knows, really.)
- “I think if there are more us kind of skeptical no independents who turn up, this could be close. And I think in an ideal universe for the Republicans, I think there is a a way they they have a path to get to know. The path would be that Democratic turnout is down among low propensity voters, young voters. Republican turnout is high among the you know hard-core base, including their low-propensity like rural voters. And then they’re getting a lot of persuasion on the no independents.” (Right, that would be the path to victory for NO – a tough path, but not impossible.)
- “Basically, all the Democrats need to do to go right for them is they just need to get out their base. And that probably gets them to 50%…Republicans, they have that ceiling around 45%, 46% in Virginia” (So a much easier path to victory, albeit not a lock, for Democrats in blue-ish Virginia.)
- “I don’t know if the Republicans’ strategy of making this a referendum on Spanberger necessarily is going to work because I think while there are people who are kind of upset at Spanberger, if you look at approval ratings, there are more people upset at President Trump than Governor Spanberger. And so the question becomes, does this become a referendum on Trump? Does become a referendum? On Spanberger, you know, we’ll see. It could be a referendum on both. I think if it if it’s referendum on Trump, I think the Democrats clearly they’re going are going to win that.” (Of course, it SHOULD be a referendum on Trump, as that’s the entire point of this whole effort – Spanberger has basically nothing to do with it, even if the NO folks badly want to make it about her. Because the fact is, Spanberger just took office a few months ago, with no new laws even being enacted yet, so whatever the situation is in Virginia right now economically or in any other way really, it has essentially nothing to do with her administration, for good or bad; thus, the absurdity of this being a “referendum” on Spanberger’s performance.)
So what do you think’s going to happen on Tuesday night?
