Hi, everyone. I’m Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fall Out 2025 Virginia Elections. This is a special bonus episode where we will go over some of the latest updates on the campaign trail, specifically about the attorney general race, and then quickly touch base about the debate that will be happening this evening, Thursday, October 9th in Virginia. So to begin with, there’s a lot of things happening in terms of the attorney general race since I last talked about that on Sunday.

00:29.38

Sam Shirazi

Specifically, President Trump made his biggest direct intervention into the Virginia elections when he called for the Democratic nominee, Jay Jones, to drop out of the race. Obviously, that has not happened. And from all indications, it seems that Jay Jones is going to stay in the race, that he is going to continue.

00:46.71

Sam Shirazi

And for the most part, Democrats have completely backed him. So I don’t think that there’s any sort of dynamic where we’re going to see any sort of swap. I think the race is set. It’s going to be Jay Jones and Jason Meares for attorney general.

00:59.90

Sam Shirazi

And frankly, I think this is going to be the race everyone’s going to be looking at on election night because while in theory things could change at the top of the ticket, frankly, I think both sides understand that there probably isn’t going to be enough movement in the governor’s race to change the outcome.

01:16.43

Sam Shirazi

Lieutenant governor, similar thing. But attorney general, I think has gotten to the point where Things could be interesting on election night, depending how everything shakes out. And I wanted to talk about some data that we got. So I’m not just kind of speculating. I’ll talk a little bit about the data and then I’ll talk about what I’m seeing in terms of the attorney general race, because there’s just been a lot of focus on it. lot of thinking about it, thinking about the ticket splitting and all this other stuff. And I think while,

01:43.64

Sam Shirazi

It’s certainly going to be an interesting race. I do want to not jump to any conclusions before we get nonpartisan polls. That’s the one thing we haven’t gotten. We haven’t gotten a nonpartisan poll, which I think will be really interesting.

01:54.63

Sam Shirazi

What we have gotten are two sets of internal polls. And so typically with internal polls, you always want to caveat it. You always want to take it with a grain of salt. You don’t want to 100% buy the number from either side because Internal polls, some are better, some are worse. You can kind of look under the hood to get a sense of why it might be good, why it might be bad.

02:29.88

Sam Shirazi

All right. So first I will go over a poll released by the Jay Jones campaign that showed him up slightly in the race. So this was done after the news of the text came out. And so it showed Jay Jones at 46% and it showed j Jason Millares at 45%.

02:46.90

Sam Shirazi

One thing I noticed in this internal poll was that the recall 2024 was... Harris plus six. So basically it was exactly what happened in 2024.

02:58.40

Sam Shirazi

So that’s a little bit of an assumption that 2025 2025 is going to look like 2024 in Virginia. We’ll see if that’s true. It could be more Republican, could be more democratic. Typically the trend is that after the presidential election, the Virginia elections become more favorable to the party out of the white house. So that’s one thing to keep in mind. So long story short, this, uh,

03:18.57

Sam Shirazi

Jay Jones internal showed him up by one. i think it did acknowledge that he had lost some ground with independence. And I think also acknowledged that he, you know, the story made an impact. So they weren’t just pretending like nothing happened. They did understand that it did,

03:35.32

Sam Shirazi

you know, talk about, it didn’t hurt his image with voters, particularly voters in the middle. And so that’s something that he’ll have to deal with. But at the same time, it showed this, that he has a path to victory according to this poll.

03:47.61

Sam Shirazi

All right. Now I want to talk about the Jason Miara’s poll because he or the Republican Attorney General Association on his behalf essentially put out a Republican internal, which found somewhat similar things, although I think they found Miara’s up. So the Republican internal had Jason Miara’s at 46 percent and then it had Jay Jones at 44 percent. And and Apparently, there they had been doing a poll in September, which I don’t think was released at the time.

04:16.43

Sam Shirazi

According to the September poll, Jones was at 46.5% and Miárez was at 42.5%. And so according to this poll, there’s been movement towards Miárez and away from Jones in the attorney general race.

04:33.79

Sam Shirazi

I think one thing that was interesting is we got these two polls at the same time and I don’t think it’s a huge surprise. One side released an internal. So the other side wanted to re release their internal. You know, I would focus less on the specific numbers because, you know, you’re kind of getting granular at that point. I think big picture, both of the polls show that the race is close. So I think essentially you could say both the internals are showing roughly the same thing.

04:57.68

Sam Shirazi

You know, obviously the democratic internal is going to show the Democrats slightly up. The Republican internal is going to show the Republican slightly up. both of these polls have Miara’s roughly at 45 to 46%.

05:11.05

Sam Shirazi

And the Jones poll had him up a little bit more. Miara’s poll had him down a little bit more. I did think it’s interesting. So even in Miara’s own internal, he’s at 46%. So he’s at 50%. And keep in mind,

05:22.45

Sam Shirazi

and keep in mind Jason Meares is an incumbent and he’s at 46%. Now, obviously the environment is tough for Meares. Top of the ticket is tough for Meares. So I think his folks will say like 46% for him is a good number.

05:35.20

Sam Shirazi

And in September they were at 42 and a half percent. So lot of movement towards Meares in this poll. And they’ve all, the Meares folks I imagine would point out that Jones has gone down, which you never really want to go down in the poll.

05:47.92

Sam Shirazi

You want to go up in the poll. So i think overall, you know, I wouldn’t hyperfixate on the numbers from either side because I think what both internals are trying to signal is it’s a close race and they both want to signal that they’re slightly up.

06:01.85

Sam Shirazi

Now, I wanted to think through the dynamics for the election and which side might be able to pull it out in the Eternity Journal’s race, because I think almost everyone admits that’s going to be the closest race for the statewide offices on election night.

06:17.06

Sam Shirazi

And I think you basically have two dynamics. You have the turnout dynamic, and then you have the independent dynamics and the voters in the middle dynamics. So, and and it goes back, remember my last couple podcasts ago, i was talking about turnout versus persuasion. So you have both the turnout angle in the attorney general’s race and the persuasion angle.

06:34.24

Sam Shirazi

I’ll talk about turnout more. Sorry, I’ll talk about turnout first. So turnout, I think in this race comes down to a specific set of voters. And you’ve heard me talk about them before.

06:44.76

Sam Shirazi

It is black voters and specifically black black voters in Hampton Roads. Why are they so important in this race? So if you think about the voters that are most likely to stick with Jay Jones, they’re probably going to be black voters and black voters in Hampton Roads. Why? Because Jay Jones is from Hampton Roads.

07:01.64

Sam Shirazi

He’s black. You would think that you know generally those types of voters would want to stick with him. They know him. We’ve talked about you know his family has a long history in that area. So I think in the primary, his base was Hampton Roads.

07:14.47

Sam Shirazi

That’s what got him the win in the primary. So you would think he needs to do well with those voters and and not so much do well, because I think at the end of the day, he’s going to win them. The question really is,

07:24.92

Sam Shirazi

are they going to turn out in sufficient numbers? So black voters or make up roughly 20% the voters in Virginia. In 2021, according to the exit poll, they were only 16% of the total voters. and Why? Because the turnout was lower in some parts of Virginia, like Hampton Roads.

07:43.25

Sam Shirazi

It was higher in more rural white areas. So you saw there was that differential in the turnout. And so This election, I think the question becomes, what is the turnout looking in Hampton Roads, in Southside, in Richmond area, in Prince William County, areas with higher black population? Because that is going to be key, not just so to Jay Jones, but also to the House of Delegates. Several House of Delegates seats are going to essentially going to be decided by black turnout.

08:10.77

Sam Shirazi

And I have talked about this in the past, and I think most Virginia Democrats will acknowledge this. you know, one of the areas that they struggle, especially in these state elections that happen on the off years or the odd number years is just black turnout. And sometimes it’s just not there for whatever reason.

08:27.78

Sam Shirazi

I think, you know, that is going to be an important dynamic. And, you know, obviously the Republicans are hoping there could be some crossover at the top of the ticket where some black voters might end up backing Winston Merrill Sears.

08:40.32

Sam Shirazi

I do think for the attorney general spot, I think Jay Jones could be doing better with black voters potentially than Spanberger. We’ll see if that ends up happening. But ultimately, I think regardless, I think the Democrats, any of the offices are going to win black voters by a large margin. And so the question is not so much do they persuade black voters to vote for them. It’s more about turnout.

09:19.66

Sam Shirazi

All right. Now let’s talk about the persuasion angle. So the other dynamic that’s going to decide the attorney general race are the voters in the middle, the independents. So the Jay Jones internal poll showed, according to that poll, that independents were slightly going for Miárez, I think by one point in the Jay Jones internal poll.

09:40.21

Sam Shirazi

that’s probably around where it’s going to be close. Because I’m guessing at the top of the ticket, Spanberger is doing pretty well with independents. Almost all the nonpartisan polls have showed, and even the partisan polls, Republican polls, have showed Spanberger doing well with independents.

09:54.52

Sam Shirazi

So I imagine... Independents are going to break pretty strongly for Spanberger. Question becomes, what do they do when they get to the third but spot in the ticket? And remember, independents, they may lean right. They may lean left.

10:06.83

Sam Shirazi

I think what makes them unique is they’re not loyal to either party. That’s why they consider themselves independent. So I think they’re they’re more likely to ticket split. And I think if Jay Jones can get about an even split, that should be close enough where if with the turnout and other dynamics, he should be able to pull it off. So I think for Jay Jones, he’s going to want to get around even split of independence.

10:28.50

Sam Shirazi

I think Miarez will need to get win independence. So he has to win them maybe by 5% or 10%. Remember in 2021, Glenn Youngkin won independence by about 10%. That gave him a 2% win. So again, you know, Miara needs to get a slight win with the independence.

10:46.75

Sam Shirazi

So he’s going to focus on the persuasion angle, trying to win over those independents. I think Jay Jones is going to have to focus both on keeping the independents close, keeping it about a split, and then getting black turnout. I think that’s essentially going to be the dynamic of the race.

11:01.27

Sam Shirazi

And the question becomes, who does a better job? Does Miareza do a better job of persuading the independents to back him to split their tickets from the top of the ticket? Or does Jones do a better job of keeping the independents close and then getting out the black turnout in his base of Hampton Roads?

11:16.20

Sam Shirazi

And I think the other thing to keep in mind, both these polls were taken very recently after the news came out. And I think that can go both ways. One way is this is like the top thing on people’s minds because they they just saw the story and it and they’re processing it. And so it’s very high in their mind when they’re telling you how they’re going to vote in the poll.

11:33.54

Sam Shirazi

So what could happen is by Election Day, they kind of forget about the story or it it becomes less important for whatever reason because the shutdown is going on a long time and the shutdown becomes a dominant story or whatever whatever ends up happening by Election Day, where maybe this story is just less important by Election Day. And so voters don’t make the decision based on just this justice one story.

11:53.95

Sam Shirazi

Or it could go the other way where voters, this was their first impression of the story. It gets reinforced, particularly if the Republicans keep talking about it. There’s more ads about it. It gets reinforced. And so maybe by Election Day, their feeling is stronger and that actually they’ll end up deciding more based on this story rather than less.

12:12.00

Sam Shirazi

Again, we don’t know that. We just have to see how it plays out. What I’m really looking for is a nonpartisan poll because I do think These partisan pollsters on both sides, they are obviously you know trying to figure out what’s going on and give a certain estimate of the the election, but they also tend to show that their side is up. And so I want to see what a nonpartisan pollster who doesn’t have any skin in the game is going to find in the attorney general’s race.

12:39.11

Sam Shirazi

And then the last thing I want to flag before we move on to the debate is just the fact that the issue with polls down ballot is there can often be a lag between the top of the ticket and down ballot. And I’ll give you a good example from 2024. 2024,

12:54.48

Sam Shirazi

the The polls for Senate were so often certain races. And I think the biggest shock on election night was in Pennsylvania, Democratic Senator Bob Casey lost his reelection, even though he had a long history in Pennsylvania. His family had a long history in Pennsylvania. Why did he lose? Essentially, it was because Trump won at the top of the ticket.

13:11.83

Sam Shirazi

What the polls were showing for president... they were basically showing a very close race in Pennsylvania for president. I think everyone kind of understood Pennsylvania at the presidential level was going to be close. However, I think at least on the Democratic side, maybe some Republicans were more optimistic, but Democrats certainly thought that the,

13:28.81

Sam Shirazi

Pennsylvania seat was going to be okay because they thought, okay, well, yeah, I mean, maybe Trump might even win Pennsylvania, but Bob Casey, you know, he’s been there a long time. He’s got a strong brand. He’s going to win the Senate race.

13:39.97

Sam Shirazi

But that didn’t end up happening. I mean, there was a little bit of ticket splitting, but essentially people just went straight ticket. And the polling wouldn’t show you that. The polling showed, I think, Casey roughly up by about 2% at the end, and then he lost, obviously.

13:52.48

Sam Shirazi

And the reason for that is... people were just not giving you, they just didn’t know that much about the race or they weren’t answering the polls. So so the the percentage of voters responding to the Senate poll was less than the presidential poll. So long story short, there were a certain number of people who might’ve said, oh yeah, I’m undecided in the Senate poll.

14:11.17

Sam Shirazi

But then when they showed up, they voted for Trump. They just voted straight ticket. They didn’t think too much about it. And that’s why you got that result in the Pennsylvania Senate race. And so I think there could be a similar dynamic. Remember, neither candidate is close to 50 percent, even in his own internal. Jason Meares at 46 percent. So I think you could see this dynamic where Meares is maybe... keeping it close or even up a little bit in the polling.

14:34.16

Sam Shirazi

But at the end of the day, the like late deciders, though the the people who vote at the end who tend to be the least engaged voters, they’re not really thinking too much about these elections. they’re not looking at the individual candidates. They’re just kind of wake up on election day, realize there’s an election, go to the polling booth.

14:48.29

Sam Shirazi

And then they just vote straight ticket. And that would help Jay Jones because they aren’t thinking about the individual races. They’re just kind of voting straight ticket. And that would hurt the the incumbent Meares. And I think that’s kind of what happened to the Bob Casey, where remember, Trump does really well with low propensity voters, voters who aren’t necessarily living, breathing politics.

15:06.66

Sam Shirazi

They might not know who Bob Casey is. They might not care who Bob Casey is. So they just showed up on election day. They voted straight ticket for the Republicans. I think you could see a similar dynamic here. here in Virginia, where the late deciders, the people aren’t super engaged, if they break towards the Democrats, they just vote straight ticket. And that is going to help Jay Jones.

15:25.03

Sam Shirazi

On the other hand, I did, you know there were Senate races like in Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, where people did split their ticket from the top of the ticket. And Trump was able to win those states, but the Democratic senators were able to hang on because there was enough ticket splitting.

15:39.66

Sam Shirazi

So long story short, I think it’s it’s pretty un unpredictable to know what’s going to happen right now. I think these internal polls were helpful. I think they confirm what everyone kind of feeling that it was going to be close at the year attorney general spot on the ticket.

15:53.55

Sam Shirazi

I think what would be really useful is getting a high quality nonpartisan poll to just get a temperature check of where the attorney general race is. And so hopefully we get one of those soon. And then obviously if we get one, I will report on that.

16:06.28

Sam Shirazi

The last thing I wanted to mention is that there will be a debate in Virginia. I think it’s gonna be very interesting. I think it’s gonna be high stakes. Obviously on the Republican side, they are gonna wanna talk about the story with Jay Jones and the text and highlight that. And I think that’s gonna be one of Winston Merle Sears attack lines in the debate.

16:23.73

Sam Shirazi

So gotta see how Abigail Spanberger responds to that. From the Republican standpoint, they what they’re going to be defensive on or potentially have to answer questions on are the shutdowns.

16:34.08

Sam Shirazi

Is the shutdown dynamic and the federal cuts? I’m sure Spanberger is going to be more on the offense talking about the shutdown, talking about the federal cuts. And so you’re going to see that dynamic, see which one kind of dominates the debate. it going to be more about the shutdown?

16:48.83

Sam Shirazi

Federal issues is it going to be more about... The text, i think I think that’s going to be interesting to see how that plays out. And I guess the last thing I wanted to close with is the shutdown is really kind of this wild card in the background. Because as I said, the longer the shutdown goes on, the bigger deal it’s going to be in the Virginia elections.

17:07.01

Sam Shirazi

At this point, it looks like the shutdown is going to last at least 10 days. We could be coming up on two weeks next week if the shutdown is not resolved. And so that’s going to be increasingly going to dominate the Virginia elections if the shutdown just keeps going going. And, going and you know, I actually did the math. So the last shutdown during Trump 1.0 was the longest shutdown we’ve had, and that was 35 days.

17:30.38

Sam Shirazi

And so if this shutdown that we’re currently in lasts 35 days, that will go all the way until November fifth And obviously, Election Day is November 4th. So I don’t necessarily think it’s going to happen, but I do think there’s a non-zero chance that the shutdown could still be going on on Election Day. And so I think...

17:48.54

Sam Shirazi

Given that possibility, I mean, there is a chance that the election at the end is going to be dominated by the shutdown. So while you don’t hear about it every single day, i think the longer the shutdown goes on, the effects are real. There’s been reports of flight delays because of FAA staffing issues.

18:05.79

Sam Shirazi

I saw that DCA airport in Arlington was having some delays. Obviously, federal workers eventually are going to start missing paychecks. There’s going to be services that are not being rendered with the various agencies. So a lot of stuff that I think is kind of building under the surface.

18:21.73

Sam Shirazi

And the longer this goes on, the more it’s likely to explode. And so while I think... The story right now with Jay Jones and his texts are dominating things and it’s an important story and I get why it got a lot of attention. i also understand that there’s other story going on with the shutdown and that could be really important in Virginia election. So all this is stuff we have to keep an eye on.

18:43.53

Sam Shirazi

I think it’s, you know, October is seems like a pretty crazy month already and it’s, we’re barely in one week into October. so A lot of stuff going on in the Virginia elections. I’m going to try to keep everyone updated. I hope everyone finds the podcast interesting. i will keep everyone going, keep everyone updated as this wild ride of the Virginia elections comes to a close. And I appreciate everyone who’s been listening. And this has been Federal Fall Out. And I’ll join you next time.

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