Hi everyone, I’m Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the Virginia Elections. This episode we will go over the final days of the redistricting campaign and some of the dynamics we might see as the results start coming in on Tuesday.
00:12.44
Sam Shirazi
But before I get to that, I did want to talk about something a lot more tragic and that is the news that I’m sure many of you have heard about former Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax.
00:23.51
Sam Shirazi
and his wife. For those of you who are not aware, the former lieutenant governor shot and killed his wife, and then he took his own life. Obviously, a very tragic situation.
00:34.68
Sam Shirazi
My heart goes out to their children and the Extend family, and just a really, really awful news that came out this week. I did want to talk about it because, obviously, it’s an important event.
00:47.21
Sam Shirazi
I’m not going to give you my commentary. There’s really nothing more for me to say other than It’s just a huge tragedy and I’m sorry that it happened and I wish everyone involved who knew them the best as they continue to process this this horrible event.
01:02.68
Sam Shirazi
So anyways, I will turn over to the redistricting referendum because it is coming up. It is going to be on Tuesday. All eyes will be on Virginia as the results start coming in. So on this Saturday, April 18th, this is the last day of early voting. Early voting will be going on across Virginia.
01:19.54
Sam Shirazi
The satellite voting locations are open. So 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. We’ll just have to wait and see on the final numbers.
01:34.42
Sam Shirazi
I think, honestly, the 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.
01:46.84
Sam Shirazi
I think The caveat to that is the Democrats could be not doing as well as they did last year. And we’ll talk about some of those dynamics. But I think at the end of the day, I don’t think the early vote going to tell us a whole lot other than turnout probably going to be pretty high. I think we’re going to be approaching the turnout of 2025 and potentially we can get more turnout to hit 3.5 million voters, which is very high for a state election, also very high for an election that is not a general election. It’s a special election in the spring.
02:15.58
Sam Shirazi
So not going to turn talk about turn early vote so far until we get the final numbers. And then, you know, probably I’ll do one last podcast before the election and I’ll give you kind of my final hot take on Virginia early vote.
02:27.38
Sam Shirazi
This episode, I wanted to talk about a different dynamic, which is what I call the dynamic between the shy yes voters. versus the no skeptical independent voters. and what And I’ll unpack what all that means, but I think sometimes in elections, there’s just a complete focus on turnout.
02:45.66
Sam Shirazi
And you know from what I’m seeing, I think turnout is gonna be high on both sides. I think Democrats are getting out their voters, Republicans are getting out their voters. That’s why it’s gonna be a high turnout election.
02:55.88
Sam Shirazi
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.
03:08.36
Sam Shirazi
And while the turnout is up, unless something really, really crazy happens on a election day, it is not astronomical Republican turnout. And certainly compared to the Democrats, the Democrats are keeping up with the Republican turnout.
03:19.14
Sam Shirazi
So if we’re comparing this election to maybe the 2025 Virginia governor’s election, i Democrats won by 15 points. Perhaps Republicans will get some better turnout than they did last year. That’s really only going to give them a point or two. 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. And I think for Republicans, the turnout is sufficient, but not necessary. In other words, they need to get turnout, but just having good turnout not going to win it for them. And frankly, I think the Democrats have more upside in terms of turnout. Why? Because remember we talked about the satellite early voting locations.
04:04.58
Sam Shirazi
A lot of places like in Northern Virginia, Richmond area, Hampton Roads, there were reduced satellite early voting locations. And so I think in theory, there could be a lot more Democrats coming out on Election Day, just purely based on that dynamic where there was less early voting this time. And I also think some of the voters, the Democrats...
04:24.24
Sam Shirazi
potentially could get out or or some of the lowest propensity voters like young voters who typically don’t show up for an election like this. You know, it’s possible the Democrats get them out on Election Day. So I think in some ways, the Democrats have more of an upside in terms of the early vote, excuse me, in terms of getting out more turnout.
04:40.32
Sam Shirazi
However, the Republicans certainly could drive up their rural turnout. And, you know, the thing with rural voters, a lot of them The counties are big geographically. There’s only one early voting location.
04:50.49
Sam Shirazi
And for a lot of these people, it’s a lot easier to go five minutes down to your local polling place than it is to go all the way to the early voting location that could be 30 minutes away. So I think there’s a lot of unknown with election day turnout dynamics. I think the Republicans could have a surge. Democrats could have a surge. Both sides could be surging.
05:07.10
Sam Shirazi
But kind of bottom line with turnout, I just don’t think that the Republicans can win purely on turnout alone. They’re going to need persuasion. I think the good news for the Republicans is that they are getting persuasion more so than they got in 2025, which is again, not super surprising because 2025 was such a low bar.
05:23.96
Sam Shirazi
But what I mean by they’re getting persuasion is that the Republicans are winning more people over to the no side than I think perhaps people had predicted, at least according to some of these polls. We had Chaz Nadiqom on last time. He talked about how true independence, people who don’t lean one way or another, are breaking towards the no side. i think that’s good news for no.
05:46.54
Sam Shirazi
So I do think that no people are getting these persuasion dynamic on their side. And I think at the end of the day I talked about what I describe as kind of skeptical independents who are under leaning no. and And those are the true independents that Chaz Natikom talked about.
06:02.70
Sam Shirazi
And i think that’s good a good thing for the Republicans and the no campaign. However, you have to keep all of that in context, because if you think about the no campaign, they’re winning over some of the independents. But the people who are probably less least likely to come out,
06:18.70
Sam Shirazi
you know, in terms of Democrat, Republican, true independent, I think are the true independents, because this really just seems like more of a partisan fight. fight. And so a lot of independents may just think like, and i don’t have a dog in this fight. I don’t really care.
06:31.49
Sam Shirazi
I don’t like gerrymandering, but I’m not going to bother go vote because I don’t like Trump or I don’t like the Republicans, whatever reason. So I think that’s kind of the challenge the No Campaign faces is that they have this pool of voters who are true independents who probably don’t like this idea of gerrymandering. But unless they’re very high propensity voters to begin with, they may not really love the idea of coming out and voting for this.
06:54.95
Sam Shirazi
And I think the true independents fall into kind of two categories. One is the high propensity true independents, people like older people, wealthier people. I think those people are coming out and that’s helping the no campaign. i think the problem for the no campaign is that there are another group of people who are kind of low propensity, true independent voters. Those are typically more working class people, typically younger people. And those people, I just don’t think are going to show up for an election like this because they just don’t really care. They don’t care one way or another. This isn’t like the most important thing in their lives. And so I think that’s going to be the challenge the no campaign is going to have is they’re doing well on
07:30.07
Sam Shirazi
persuasion, but can they turn out those true independent voters who aren’t kind of hardcore Republicans? And I think that’s where kind of turnout and persuasion intersect, where you have this dynamic of people who are probably going vote no, but they just don’t have a reason to show up because it’s just not a top priority for them.
07:48.35
Sam Shirazi
And I think that’s going to be one of the dynamics to look for. And on the other side, in terms of the yes campaign, I think you may see a dynamic which I call in the shy yes voter. So what does a shy voter mean? 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.
08:12.93
Sam Shirazi
Someone who doesn’t want to admit they’re voting for Jay Jones for whatever reason, but they end up voting for him. And I do think there was some of that going on in the attorney general race. And that’s why Jay Jones got a bigger win than almost all the polls were showing was because people ended up going to vote and they voted for Jay Jones, even though they weren’t telling the pollsters or they may have been an undecided, but they got into the booth and they just voted straight ticket D and I think that some of that could be happening because I think there are a group of people who
08:42.39
Sam Shirazi
Again, they’re kind of high propensity voters. They’re going to vote no matter what. They don’t like Trump. They don’t like Republicans. And when they get in the booth, they’re just going to say, you know, I don’t love either option. I don’t like gerrymandering, but I really think it’s important to perhaps send a message or perhaps to even the playing field nationally. So I’m going to vote yes. They may not you know be putting a sign out on their lawn. They may not be screaming it from the top of their lungs. They may not be telling pollsters, but when they get into voting, both they’re going vote yes.
09:09.56
Sam Shirazi
But again, there’s that turnout dynamic. So you’re going to see those shy yes voters, the high propensity ones, older, wealthier, those people are going to show up. But then you may, and I think this is the problem the yes campaign may have is you have the The low propensity shy yes voters. So these are people like I would say probably young people, people in college don’t really care too much about this either way. They’re just kind of out of it and they’re not going to vote because this isn’t the top priority in their lives. And again, they’re not you know living and breathing politics. So I think on both sides, you have the persuasion and turnout dynamics intersecting.
09:43.55
Sam Shirazi
I think the question becomes, you know, who does a better job? Do the shy yes voters turn up? Do the skeptical, independent, no voters show up? Does all that happen all at once?
09:55.04
Sam Shirazi
And, you know, Chaz Natico mentioned this. I mean, I think there is a possibility where Democrats just kind of plow through, they get the turnout they need, and they get to like 51 or 52%.
10:06.33
Sam Shirazi
And it’s just, it’s not pretty, but at the end of the day, they get it to pass. I think that’s one dynamic. And most people seem to think that’s where things are leaning towards at this point. think the other dynamic is If things break one way or another, if there’s a lot more shy yes voters than we think, I mean, I think this could be close, not not that close at the end of the day and could be maybe a fifty five forty five result where you you even hit double digits.
10:29.95
Sam Shirazi
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.
10:47.83
Sam Shirazi
Republican turnout is high among the you know hardcore base, including their low propensity like rural voters. And then they’re getting a lot of persuasion on the no independence. And they’re also getting a lot of no independence to go vote because they you know, are able to to motivate those people to go vote because, you know, those people may not like gerrymandering. So I think a lot of things have to go right for the Republicans. 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%. I think a lot needs to go right for the Republicans to get to 50%. And I think there’s a common problem that we see in Virginia where
11:25.39
Sam Shirazi
the Virginia Republicans, like it’s pretty easy for them to get into the 40s. It’s pretty easy for them to get up to 45%. We saw that with Miárez, but they just can’t overcome that hump of 45% for whatever reason, probably because, you know, the combination of suburban votes and African American votes, it’s it’s easy for the Democrats to get 50%.
11:44.38
Sam Shirazi
Just the Republicans, they have that ceiling around 45, 46% in Virginia. And i think you know We’ll see if they’re able to cross it. The the one you know time they did cross it was in 2021 when Glenn Youngkin won, and he was able to get up to pretty much 51%. I don’t think that’s impossible here, but I also think it is a different environment than 2021. It’s a different environment than 2025. So 2021, we obviously had a Democratic president. It was right after the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
12:16.72
Sam Shirazi
President Biden’s approval rating was going down. So I think it was just a good national environment for the Republicans and Glenn Youngkin and the Republicans in 2021 kind of seized the opportunity and won. Same thing 2025, Democrats, good national environment for them. They had a strong Democratic candidate with now Governor Spanberger. You had a relatively less strong candidate with Lieutenant Governor Winston-Marcel Sears. So Democrats were able to seize the moment, get a big win, a landslide. I think I mentioned this before, politics is about being president and 2026 is different than 2025. It’s different than 2021.
12:52.55
Sam Shirazi
How are things even between 2025 and 2026 different? i mean I would say the natural environment is actually worse for the Republicans right now than 2025 because you know oil prices have gone up, gas prices are up. you know There may be some news in the next few days about potential deal with Iran. But, you know, regardless, the prices are elevated and people are not feeling that great about the economy. The cost of living crisis has continued. So I think the national environment is certainly not great for the Democrats. But you have to kind of look at some space state specific dynamics here in Virginia. Specifically, Democrats now have a trifecta. They are in complete control of Virginia state government. You know, we’ve talked about Spanberger’s approval. There’s a lot of, you know,
13:35.87
Sam Shirazi
talking points about Spanberger going left and the Democrats are you know passing all these taxes, which you know almost none of them actually passed, but that’s what’s getting into the media ecosystem. So I think At the end of the day, the democratic environment is not as great in Virginia compared to 2025, the state environment.
13:53.92
Sam Shirazi
And I also think we’ve talked about this. I mean, the idea of gerrymandering is not as popular as Spanberger. So like in 2025, the person who was on the ticket for the Democrats was Spanberger. In 2026, what is essentially a proxy for the Democrats is let’s gerrymander Virginia.
14:09.53
Sam Shirazi
Certainly some hardcore Democrats, they’re very happy with that and they want to gerrymander Virginia. A lot of other people, including a lot of the true independents we talked about, they don’t want to gerrymander Virginia. So I think 2026 is going to be its own thing. It’s not this kind of, you know, we do have 2025, have 2021.
14:27.20
Sam Shirazi
lot of people have mentioned that the closest election this is probably similar to is 2025 attorney general race. A lot of the same dynamics we talked about shy Jay Jones voters, skeptical independents.
14:51.22
Sam Shirazi
Yes campaign is able to do that this year, or if the no campaign is able to keep those skeptical independence as skeptical independence and they don’t go over into becoming shy yes voters. I think there’s a lot going on. This election, I think, is a lot harder to read than 2025. The vibes are different. There’s a lot fewer polls.
15:08.74
Sam Shirazi
so i could i could see like a huge range of possibilities everything from a close night where no just pulls it out to a 10 point yes win and that really depends on how the turnout is looking even more so than turnout dynamics i think it’s really going to depend on the final persuasion you know people getting to the booth sides are making a push i’ll say that the democrats are you know doing their best to convince people that this is really a way to send a message on President Trump. And they brought in former President Obama, who’s done videos, and he’s trying to kind of persuade Democrats. On the Republican side, you have people trying to make this all about, you know, the unfairness of the maps, and then also similarly kind of attacking Spanberger and kind of using this election as a way to attack Spanberger.
15:57.35
Sam Shirazi
And I think the one thing i’ll I’ll kind of end on is 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?
16:18.81
Sam Shirazi
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.
16:29.66
Sam Shirazi
I think it’s a referendum on Spanberger. It’s going to be close. And so I think if we we see a close result at the end of the day, I think that’s an indication this became a referendum on Spanberger. I think if we don’t see a close election and the Democrats and yes, win by a fair margin, I think we can say that this has become a referendum on Trump. And it’s really kind of a crazy experiment. We don’t know what’s going to happen. There haven’t been a lot of polls. you know Everyone’s gut is like, yes, has a single digit lead.
16:56.86
Sam Shirazi
But, you know, we don’t know until the votes start coming in. So I think it’s going to be really interesting. I will probably do one last podcast before the election once we get the final early voting numbers, once we get any final polls.
17:08.86
Sam Shirazi
But really, this is the dynamic that’s going on. And I think, you know, just keep an eye out on the fact that people are not as vocal, I’d say,
17:19.30
Sam Shirazi
about this when you’re in the middle or you’re kind of an undecided voter. I mean, you you hear the people, on the Republican side, who are very loud and they are upset by this. And then you see people on the Democratic side who are excited about this. They want to send a message. They want to view this as a way to, you know, push back on D.C. and what President Trump’s doing. And you know those people are both loud. I think the people in the middle who don’t really talk about this, they don’t really want to, you know,
17:45.95
Sam Shirazi
advertise what their views are, I think those people going to really important. And it’s it’s hard to get a read on that because unlike a presidential election where you know a lot of those people may have opinions, something like this, that they’re going to be convinced probably in the last few days. And that’s why you’re seeing a lot of advertisements. I know there’s kind of jokes about all the TV ads and all the mailers. I’ve i’ve gotten a lot of mailers. I’ve seen a lot of TV ads.
18:08.23
Sam Shirazi
Certainly a lot of money being is being spent on both sides, even though I’d say the Yes campaign had a slight advantage. Not a slight advantage. They they had more money. But the the no campaign got a kind of a late injection of money as well. So end of the day, we’ll have to wait and see. I think that’s what’s exciting about this election. We don’t know. I will certainly be here to cover it all. Obviously, once we get the results, I’ll kind of do the post analysis of all that. And then once the referendum is done, we’re going to have to think about legal challenges at the Virginia Supreme Court that still exist. We have to think about the primary that’s going to be coming up for the congressional seat. So a lot to still cover in the
18:42.97
Sam Shirazi
Virginia elections, never a dull moment. And I appreciate everyone who’s been listening. And this has been Federal Fall Out. And I’ll join you next time.
