Hi everyone, I'm Sam Shirazi and this is Federal of Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. This episode, we will go over the sprint that will start after Labor Day that's on Monday. Obviously, right around the corner, we have that holiday. And traditionally, the old saying is that the final sprint of the campaign starts right after Labor Day because that's when voters start to get tuned in to the election.

00:23.17

Sam Shirazi

So we'll kind of talk about the next few weeks are going to look like all the way leading up to Election Day. But before we did that, I did want to talk generally about polls because we did get one new poll this week.

00:34.22

Sam Shirazi

I'll go over that poll. But before I do that, I did want to just talk about the fact that we're going to be getting more polls. Obviously, the closer we get to Election Day, there's going to be more polls because more people are interested in the election.

00:46.29

Sam Shirazi

And pollsters sometimes wait till the end to poll because most people aren't super tuned in earlier in the year. or They don't know the candidates. Obviously, at the end, there's a lot advertisements. The candidate's name ID goes up.

01:11.13

Sam Shirazi

Now, I do think it's important to keep in mind before I turn to the poll that came out this week where polls come from and the fact that some polls are high quality, some polls are low quality. You know i think one thing to always keep in mind with a poll is who is the pollster doing it and is one side or another either sponsoring the poll or does that polling organization primarily work with one side or the other on the, of the aisle? Because I think while it's always good to have more polls, you don't want to just kind of blindly assume, oh yeah, every single poll is the same. They all matter the same.

01:44.60

Sam Shirazi

They all have the same purpose behind them because I think some polls clearly are being, pushed by certain sides, frankly, because they want to get a certain narrative out there or maybe for fundraising purposes.

01:56.82

Sam Shirazi

So it's always important to keep in mind where a poll is coming from. Is it a partisan poll or is it a nonpartisan poll? And even among the nonpartisan polls, so let's assume the pollster is nonpartisan, doesn't really just wants to kind of get some information out there about the state of the race.

02:12.63

Sam Shirazi

You still have to keep in mind, is this a high quality poll? Is it a low quality poll? Have they And, you know, I won't go into all the ins and outs of all survey methodologies and all those things, but long story short, I mean, there are some polls that are good. There's some polls that are bad.

02:26.74

Sam Shirazi

There's some polls that are partisan. There's some polls that are nonpartisan. I mean, these are all things you have to kind of think about. i think oftentimes a pollster's track record can be helpful. So obviously if a pollster has been accurate in the past, that's an indication, not always, but it can mean that they'll be accurate in the future.

02:41.68

Sam Shirazi

So all those things are kind of things to think about as we are getting more and more polls, the closer we'll get to election day. And so the poll that we got this week was from Coefficient, and typically they are known to be more of a Republican pollster. So that's something to keep in mind.

02:58.42

Sam Shirazi

With these types of polls that come from more partisan pollsters on either side, I typically treat them as basically internals because, you know, it's just the reality that there are more partisan pollsters out there.

03:11.50

Sam Shirazi

And you can't just assume, well, this poll is the same as a poll from you know, a news organization that's, you know, very nonpartisan, this poll might be a little bit more biased.

03:23.62

Sam Shirazi

And I think sometimes when you dig under the hood, you can kind of see reasons why certain polls are maybe skewed a little bit or are trying to get a certain outcome.

03:34.03

Sam Shirazi

And before I kind of go the the numbers in the poll in terms of who's up, who's down, they did make one decision in this poll that I thought was interesting. So in terms of self-reported party ID,

03:46.16

Sam Shirazi

Virginia doesn't have voter registration, so you can't ask someone, you know which party are you registered because there's no voter registration in Virginia. What you can do is ask someone, what do you identify as?

03:56.56

Sam Shirazi

Do you identify as a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent? So in this poll, the self-reported party ID was Republican 40%, Democrat 37%, Independent 23%.

04:09.64

Sam Shirazi

Now, honestly, I've been following Virginia politics for a while. I mean, typically, even on a really good night for the Republicans, the Democrat and Democratic and Republican party ID is about even.

04:20.02

Sam Shirazi

And so I don't know if I remember an election where in the exit polls, there had been more Republican self-reported ID than Democratic self-reported ID. And this year,

04:31.42

Sam Shirazi

You know, obviously, given what's going on in D.C., typically party in the white out out of the White House has more enthusiasm because they're upset at what's going on in D.C. I think it's a little bit of a questionable assumption to say that the party idea is going to be plus three Republican in Virginia.

04:46.65

Sam Shirazi

And so that's just something to keep in mind that potentially this could skew the results in order to kind of give a more favorable result for the Republicans. Playing devil's advocate and, you know, defending the pollster. And look, I mean, a coefficient, I don't want to say, you know, I don't want to say that they're trying to rig the poll necessarily. i mean, if you want to present the counter argument, the counter argument as well.

05:10.21

Sam Shirazi

Look, polls in the past have been traditionally more friendly to the Democrats during the Trump era. Partly that's because Democrats perhaps will answer polls more because they're either more interested in answering the polls or, you know,

05:26.16

Sam Shirazi

Trumpier voters don't trust polls or it's harder to reach them because they might be you know lower income working class voters, whereas people who fill out form ah polls are more higher income voters. So some pollsters say, look, I have to kind of change some of these assumptions because our polls, if I just did it the old way, it would always be skewed towards the Democrats. So I'm trying to get a poll that is more accurate and maybe make up for the fact that there is some non-response from Trump voters. So, ah you know, I think you could make that argument.

06:01.24

Sam Shirazi

Ultimately, we'll find out in November. So, you know, that's the thing. Like, one thing I love about elections is you get an answer one way or another. You know, you everyone spends weeks arguing which poll's right, which side is up, which side's down.

06:14.21

Sam Shirazi

We'll get the answer in November. So I don't want to necessarily, you know, spend too much time unskewing the polls or going into all the assumptions upholster made. I think this poll, I spent a little bit more time than I usually do doing that because I just wanted to kind of maybe highlight the difference between maybe a partisan poll, nonpartisan poll, and and maybe coefficient will be right at the end. And, you know, they made the right assumption, but we just have to kind of wait till November to make that final call.

06:40.21

Sam Shirazi

All right. So but without further ado, let's just go through the numbers. So for governor, this coefficient poll had Spanberger at 48%. It had Earl Sears at 43%. For lieutenant governor, it had Ghazala Hashmi and John Reed tied at 43%.

06:57.18

Sam Shirazi

For Attorney General, it had Democratic nominee Jay Jones at 45 percent and the incumbent Republican Jason Meares at 44 percent. And then for the House of Delegates, the generic ballot in terms of you know which party do you support, the Democrats were at 47 percent and the Republicans were at 44 percent.

07:17.00

Sam Shirazi

So, you know this is showing Spanberger with a five point lead. I think Republicans obviously were pretty happy with this poll. They're saying, oh, the race is getting closer. It's not that. It's not that far. We're not that far behind. You know, you can make up a 5% gap. It's not like this race is a total blowout.

07:33.42

Sam Shirazi

I think... you know, again, you have to kind of assume that there were some assumptions made in favor of the Republicans in this poll. So it's possible the race is at 5%. It's also possible you might have to add a few points to just kind of make up for the fact that this is a Republican pollster and this is more like an internal poll. And typically internal polls, you know, are a little bit more favorable to the party sponsoring the internal poll.

07:58.04

Sam Shirazi

So all that's to say is I think The way I would read this poll is maybe Spanberger currently is up maybe between 5% and 10%. Being very favorable to this pollster, you'd say Spanberger is up by 5%.

08:12.02

Sam Shirazi

Maybe assuming for some of the this the fact that it's more of an internal poll, you can say, okay, maybe you should add a few points to this poll. But you know I do think there's – a thing to think about in terms of the specific numbers. So Spanberger being at 48%, that's a pretty high level already of support. So she doesn't need that many of the undecideds to back her to get to 50.1% because she's at 48%. So she only really needs like two more percent to basically get to the number she needs.

08:42.66

Sam Shirazi

Earl Sears, she's at 43%. I think this poll does show that there is more base consolidation among Earl Sears. And you know I think Earl Sears will get at least 43% of the vote.

08:53.68

Sam Shirazi

You know, that's not ah ah necessarily a super difficult number for a Virginia Republican to get. I think the real question is how much higher can she go above 43 percent? I mean, can she get to 45 percent?

09:04.67

Sam Shirazi

Probably. The question becomes, like, how does she get to 50 percent? and And I think. Well, there there certainly is a lot of enthusiasm on the Republican side among the base now after what happened with the sign we talked about in Arlington and kind of this reboot of the Winston Earl Sears campaign. I do think there's more enthusiasm.

09:22.19

Sam Shirazi

I do think she's probably got some base consolidation. The open question is really how is Earl Sears going to do with the voters in the middle and how much more support can she get to maybe break out of that ceiling that Virginia Republicans typically have, you know, the one Virginia Republican who's been able to win statewide in the last, you know, 10 plus years was Glenn Youngkin in 2021. And so typically you see this with Virginia Republicans.

09:51.92

Sam Shirazi

It's really easy for Virginia Republicans to get 40 percent and it's not too hard for them to get 45 percent. The problem they have is just that ceiling around 45 percent. It's just very hard for the Virginia Republicans to get up to 50 percent.

10:05.52

Sam Shirazi

not Not to say it's impossible. Glenn Youngkin did it in 2021. So there certainly is a path for the Virginia Republicans. If the stars align, I think the challenge that they have is, know, is this the year with everything going on in D.C. with Trump?

10:21.28

Sam Shirazi

Is this the year where the stars are going align like did in 2021? We'll obviously find out. I think Republicans are feeling more optimistic, but it doesn't necessarily mean that even if they do slightly better than perhaps they thought in July, doesn't mean they're going to win.

10:35.13

Sam Shirazi

And I did want to talk about one other nugget that was in this poll that I found was interesting. And then we'll kind of move on to the state of the race and the final sprint at the end of Labor Day. So the poll had a number of questions. I mean, I think part of the reason why this was more of a Republican-leaning poll is a lot of those questions had a lot of, would say,

10:54.77

Sam Shirazi

you know favorable framing for the Republicans. And one of them was on the federal job cuts. So the question that the poll asked was, how concerned are you about federal job cuts in Northern Virginia?

11:05.75

Sam Shirazi

Now, I wouldn't have phrased the the question like that because I think obviously the federal job cuts are not limited to Northern Virginia. And so the way you're framing it, if you're not from Northern Virginia, it's kind of priming you to say, I'm not that concerned because this is a Northern Virginia issue and maybe I live in Hampton Roads.

11:22.15

Sam Shirazi

So I think... The poll question, for example, with that one, I i would not have phrased it that way. But even with that framing, which kind of made it a Northern Virginia issue, 44% were very concerned and 17% were somewhat concerned. so So 61% of Virginians were either very concerned or somewhat concerned about federal job cuts.

11:44.42

Sam Shirazi

And I think that's a big issue that Virginia Republicans are going to have because it shows you it's not just isolated to Northern Virginia. It's not just isolated to... democrats You know, there's certainly a lot of independents who are concerned about this issue.

11:58.28

Sam Shirazi

And so obviously, Virginia Republicans cannot really run on this issue. We've talked about this in the past. They can't really embrace the job cuts. They can't distance themselves from the jobs cuts. So I think that's a number that was interesting to me, particularly given the way it was framed, that that it was still 61 percent.

12:16.61

Sam Shirazi

And I think obviously with Earl Sears, part of her strategy that we've seen with the reboot and talking about some of these trans issues is they're trying to shift the focus from these job cuts in DC to the other topics that they think are they're stronger on. on And you know we'll see if that works. I think that works with your base. I think certainly your base is more interested in hearing about Those issues, then the federal job cuts.

12:37.08

Sam Shirazi

The question is the voter in the middle or, you know, the swing voter in Hampton Roads, you know, is the trans issue their number one issue or is their number one issue the federal job cuts or is there their number one issue the economy?

12:48.57

Sam Shirazi

You know, we'll find out in November. i think that'll be an interesting moment when we see what's going on in terms of the. Final outcome. So now I'll shift to kind of the state of the race and then I'll run down the post Labor Day timeline in Virginia.

13:05.80

Sam Shirazi

So in terms of the state of the race, I think the Republican campaign was kind of at the low point in July. We talked about the panic pieces that kind of forced Winston-Manuel Sears to do a reboot of her campaign.

13:18.47

Sam Shirazi

And I think certainly among the Republican base, there's more enthusiasm and there is more of a hope that maybe they can do better than they thought they were going to do. I think and so saying all that, I mean, I don't necessarily think this is like a blowout territory where.

13:34.59

Sam Shirazi

Spanberger's going to win by like 20 points, something close to like 2009. I think partly that's because partisanship is so strong that it's it's basically impossible for anyone to get a win that big these days.

13:45.57

Sam Shirazi

Partly that's because I think the if the Republican base wakes up and shows up, as I talked about earlier, you know they'll get close to 45% on even not a great night for them.

13:56.13

Sam Shirazi

So I think in that sense, I think the Republicans have made some progress. I think the question becomes... you know, is this like a 2017 scenario where Ralph Northam won by 9%? That was obviously the last time we had Donald Trump in the White House.

14:13.54

Sam Shirazi

Or is this closer to, you ah you know, traditionally a tight Virginia governor's race, like in 2013 or 2021, where the party that won only won by a couple points or three points. And I think There's no way of knowing that right now because we still have the final sprint of the campaign. And sometimes these elections are won or lost in the final few weeks.

14:34.75

Sam Shirazi

you know I've talked about elections in the past being a big shift. It's kind of hard to move. I think that's true. But there are also times where things happen at the very last minute that might shift the momentum one way or another in a race.

14:48.01

Sam Shirazi

And so that's why I want to kind of lay out what's going to be happening in the next few weeks and potential ways that things can happen in these final few weeks that are basically – I don't want to say complete game changers, but obviously there could be the October surprise, which comes out and maybe changes dynamics to benefit one party or another.

15:07.90

Sam Shirazi

All right. So Monday's Labor Day. Everyone's going to be relaxing, enjoying the end of summer. And then after Labor Day, that's when the election really kicks off into full gear.

15:19.01

Sam Shirazi

And we haven't talked a lot about this on this, on this podcast, because obviously we're more focused on the state elections, but don't forget on September 9th, there is a special election in the 11th district in Northern Virginia for the congressional seat that, Congressman Connolly used to hold after he passed away.

15:37.50

Sam Shirazi

Unfortunately, they had to have a special election. And so almost certainly that's going to be a democratic win. It's a very blue district. Uh, you know, People who closely follow elections, they tend to look at how big of a victory that each party gets. Is this going to be ah ah ah ah bigger win than the Democrats got in 2024? Are the Republicans going to make a little bit of inroads?

15:58.81

Sam Shirazi

I mean, frankly, I don't think it's super important in the grand scheme of things because this is a very relatively low turnout election. It's kind of been a sleepy election because it's such a safe seat and the fact that you had the state elections going on at the same time. So it's hard for those candidates running in the special election to get a lot of attention separate from the state election. So personally, I wouldn't read too much into the special election that will happen in the 11th district. I think obviously pundits and other people might spend some time talking about it, but it it is important to know that's coming up and the margin will probably matter in the sense of it'll have a few days of discussion or surrounding it.

16:37.99

Sam Shirazi

I honestly don't know what's going to happen. There's things that I think will benefit each side in that election. So typically in these special elections, there's more mail voting because of the permanent absentee list. I've talked about that in past.

16:50.19

Sam Shirazi

So I think that might help the Democrats a little bit. I do think in a place like Fairfax County, traditionally, i would say down ballot, it's still a little bit more Republican because there are some voters who might not like Trump, but they might vote for the Republicans at the congressional level. So that's just something to keep in mind.

17:09.76

Sam Shirazi

Ultimately, i will obviously go over the result when it happens, but I wouldn't necessarily dwell too much on the special election on September 9th. I don't think it's going to be a game changer one way or another, unless there's some really, really crazy outcome, which I think is relatively unlikely.

17:24.10

Sam Shirazi

But it's coming up. So that's something to keep in mind. Okay, so that's September 9th. And then September 19th is the next big date because that is the start of early voting in Virginia. And so there's a lot of early voting. We have 45 days. People can go to their local election office and cast their ballots on September 19th.

17:44.15

Sam Shirazi

I think there's going to be a lot of, you know, both campaigns going to make a big deal about that. They're going to show that their voters are out. They're going to try to get their voters to vote early. Typically, what you see is a big surge in early voting at the beginning because the most hyper engaged voters go vote early.

17:58.70

Sam Shirazi

Then there's a little bit of a lull, and then there's this surge at the end, both when more regular voters wake up and when there are more early voting ah ah locations opening up, which are typically later in the early voting cycle.

18:12.26

Sam Shirazi

And there's also going to be Saturday early voting for the last two Saturdays before the election. So long story short, September 19th, it's kind of an important date in that votes will actually be cast, but not a whole lot in the grand scheme of things will be cast at the beginning. Most of them get cast at the end.

18:29.39

Sam Shirazi

But obviously, once votes go in, they're kind of locked. And so typically, the party that's ahead tends to benefit from more early voting in the beginning because votes are getting locked in.

18:40.36

Sam Shirazi

People can't change their mind. So it'll be important to kind of think about that. I will go over early voting. thing I'm a little worried about is there's often, especially in this election when there's not a lot else going on in terms of other elections in the country besides New Jersey, I think there's going to be a lot of hyper focusing on the early voting numbers.

19:00.06

Sam Shirazi

I don't think that's super healthy. I think there's going to be a lot of over extrapolation from early voting numbers. um I will try to kind of give you my takes as they happen and maybe not read too much into it. But anyways, long story short, September is the next big date on the calendar because that is the start of early voting.

19:18.64

Sam Shirazi

All right. And then we will get our next big deadline or election date, which is September 30th slash October 1st.

19:28.43

Sam Shirazi

And there's two big reasons that's important. I would say the more important reason on that date is when government funding runs out. So theoretically, starting October 1st, there could be a government shutdown.

19:40.100

Sam Shirazi

That happened in 2013, where right before the election on September 30th, the government funding ran out and there was a government shutdown. Generally, the idea was that that helped the Democrats in that election because the Republicans were more forcing the government shutdown at that time over Obamacare.

19:59.79

Sam Shirazi

I think there is a possibility that there could be a government shutdown again, given that the parties are pretty far apart and there isn't a lot of goodwill left to make kind of last minute deals that often happens in these situations. So I would not be super shocked if there's a government shutdown. However,

20:17.99

Sam Shirazi

I think typically it's a good idea to not assume there will be a government shutdown. There have been plenty of times where it looks like there's going be a government shutdown, but at the last minute it's averted.

20:29.09

Sam Shirazi

And I think in this environment with this specific government shutdown, I do think particularly the Republicans have an incentive not to do a government shutdown because they know the Virginia elections are coming up.

20:41.65

Sam Shirazi

Typically, they can try to, you know, each side tries to blame each other. But I do think the Republicans might get some heartburn about a potential government shutdown, given how close it is to the Virginia elections.

20:53.18

Sam Shirazi

We saw that in 2023 when right before the Virginia elections, it looked like there was going to be a government shutdown. And I would say last minute, the Republicans were willing to come up with a deal to avoid the shutdown, partly because I think they were worried that was going to hurt their chances in the Virginia elections.

21:09.13

Sam Shirazi

Obviously, Democrats have the same calculation. you know i would say that their base of the Democratic Party is more willing to push for a shutdown.

21:19.00

Sam Shirazi

And so if it looks like the Democrats are shutting down the government, that would also probably not help them a lot in the Virginia elections if they take most of the blame. Obviously, both sides are going to try to blame each other. But I do think there's an incentive for both sides to just kind of make this go away so it's not an issue in the Virginia governor's election.

21:39.51

Sam Shirazi

And so I would say that increases the likelihood that there could be a deal. I mean, frankly, if the Republicans want to make a deal with the Democrats, I think almost certainly the Democrats would take some sort of deal.

21:50.39

Sam Shirazi

I think the scenario where there could be a government shutdown is when the Republicans, because they say, you know, we're in charge of the White House, we're in charge of the Senate, we're in charge of the House, it's our way or the highway, we're making the rules, we are going to pass our bill.

22:05.79

Sam Shirazi

And if the Democrats don't filibuster of the bill in the Senate, then it's on them and we tried to pass our own bill. And so essentially the scenario that would lead to a shutdown is when the Republicans don't compromise with the Democrats or they don't come up with a bipartisan bill to keep the government open.

22:24.99

Sam Shirazi

And that's what happened last time. So and in the spring, there was a shutdown fight. And the reason Democrats were really upset was the Republicans didn't negotiate with them. The Republicans were basically like, this is our bill.

22:37.05

Sam Shirazi

You either vote for it or there's a government shutdown. And most Democrats felt like that the Democrats shouldn't have done, shouldn't take that deal or shouldn't take that treatment from the Republicans. And they were willing to shut down the government. However, as we talked about a long time ago, there were some Senate Democrats that were willing to compromise or at least vote for the Republican bill.

22:56.02

Sam Shirazi

And so the Republican bill was able to move forward. And that avoided the shutdown in the spring. I think we'll see which approach the Republicans take this time. i think, as I mentioned, I think if they want to make a deal with the Democrats, almost certainly I think the Democrats are willing to make a deal to avoid a government shutdown.

23:12.88

Sam Shirazi

The question becomes if the Republicans don't want to make a deal, they have their own bill, they just want to kind of shove it down the Democrats' throats, which, you know, I think there's a decent chance that could happen. Will the Democrats take it this time?

23:24.50

Sam Shirazi

Maybe they will because they Basically fold it last time. Maybe they won't because this time they're willing to fight. Maybe they're worried about the Virginia elections. They do take the they do vote to allow the bill to move forward. So a lot of stuff going on, lot of uncertainty right now. I don't want to spend too much time speculating. I just kind of wanted to set up the the different scenarios that might happen.

23:47.39

Sam Shirazi

But definitely keep in mind the government shutdown deadline. And then also at that time, I mean, this is separate. It's not going to really be affected by the government shutdown deadline. But in the spring and the early part of the Trump administration, there was the fork in the road offer that Doge basically pushed out to federal government employees, which basically told them that if you except to resign from the federal government, you can still get paid through the end of the fiscal year, which is September 30th. So there's still a lot of workers across the country, including a lot in Virginia, who are getting paid by the federal government, even though they're not working anymore.

24:27.47

Sam Shirazi

but that ends on September 30th. So those paychecks will stop going out. And so we'll see, maybe that leads to a rise in unemployment. Maybe, I mean, almost certainly it's going to lead to less money coming into Virginia from the federal government because those employees aren't going to be getting these checks.

24:42.74

Sam Shirazi

Now, some of them have probably found other jobs. Some of them have maybe moved on to retirement. So it's not like all those workers are going to be unemployed, but I mean, it's still less money coming into Virginia and you know It's not necessarily the turnaround is not going mean that all of a sudden the Virginia economy is going to collapse because of that.

25:01.91

Sam Shirazi

But perhaps there's a little bit of a hit or at least people start feeling the pinch a little bit more on September 30th or October 1st, right before they vote. And so maybe that influences their decision. So another important date in terms of what might happen. And I think i think the government shutdown is the biggest wild card, because if if there is one, that's going to totally change um trajectory of the race, particularly depending on which side takes more of the blame.

25:27.07

Sam Shirazi

But let's assume there's not a government shutdown, or even if there is a government shutdown, the next date that will be important will be on October 9th, because that currently seems like the only debate that's going to be happening between the two candidates for governor.

25:43.13

Sam Shirazi

Now in the past, I've heard things like basically, oh, debates don't matter. And, you you know, no one really watches these debates. You know, i think that's true to a certain extent, but I have seen non-presidential debates, particularly if one candidate does a gaffe where it really does hurt their campaign.

25:59.23

Sam Shirazi

And I do think Debates are those things where they can't really help you, but they can certainly hurt you. And the best example of this in Virginia governor history is in 2021, where.

26:11.01

Sam Shirazi

there was a debate between Glenn Youngkin and Terry McAuliffe, and Terry McAuliffe made those statements. you know You could say, well, he was trying to make one type of point, but the Republicans ran with his statement, which was basically, in their mind, where the way the Republicans presented it was that parents shouldn't have a say in how their students are or their kids are taught.

26:32.29

Sam Shirazi

Now, I think you could argue Terry McAuliffe was trying to say something else, but he was certainly not very articulate in how he phrased that. And so I think That gave the Republicans this golden opportunity where education was already ah top of mind issue in 2021 because of the COVID school closures and because Republicans were talking a lot about it.

26:50.31

Sam Shirazi

And this kind of gave Glenn Youngkin the perfect opportunity. And I think you all the all the Democrats you know at that moment kind of cringed because they knew it was going to be a tough thing to overcome. And I don't want to say that one moment was the reason.

27:05.38

Sam Shirazi

Glenn Youngkin won and the Democrats lost in 2021, but it certainly didn't help. And I think it fed this narrative that the Republicans were trying to build about education and the Democrats being weak on that issue, given some of the COVID school closures.

27:19.18

Sam Shirazi

So long story short, i do think the debates are kind of a wildcard moment. As I mentioned, I think they could mainly hurt a candidate. You know, I will say in the past, there has been one moment with Abigail Spanberger that actually helped her. It wasn't so much that her his ah ah her opponent in that race hurt himself. It was actually, i think, more of a kind of viral moment where she did a good job in a debate.

27:44.74

Sam Shirazi

And that was in 2018. So when she first ran, she was running against an incumbent, Dave Brat. She was considered more of the underdog. And Dave Brat's strategy was to link Abigail Spanberger to Nancy Pelosi.

27:57.93

Sam Shirazi

So he kept talking about Spanberger as Pelosi. and And at the end of the debate, Spanberger basically got up and said, ah you know my name is Abigail Spanberger. I'm not Nancy Pelosi.

28:09.18

Sam Shirazi

That was kind of a viral moment. And I think for a lot of people, it was ah ah it was an indication like maybe she might be able to win this thing. And obviously she won that. election. So long story short, I do think there's a potential for Spanberger to have a similar moment or, or you know, she she is, she can be good in those moments. Earl Sears, there are moments when she's really poised and confident, particularly like when she's talking about this trans issue, which she feels more confident about and more you know thinks her she's she has the right position on it.

28:39.33

Sam Shirazi

I do think when she's talking about the federal cuts, she gets more nervous. And I think there's a potential where she could slip up. obviously there's a potential that Spamberger could slip up on the trans issue. So again, debates are kind of this wildcard, unpredictable thing. 2024, we saw what happened with the first debate with Joe Biden.

28:57.07

Sam Shirazi

I think we've kind of entered this era where you can't just say debates are meaningless or they don't matter. So anyways, that's the October 9th debate between Spanberger and Earl Sears.

29:07.45

Sam Shirazi

I also think um there there's going to be potentially ah one debate with the attorney general candidates. We'll see if there's a lieutenant cap governor candidate debate. I mean, I think, frankly, ah ah below the governor's race, unless someone has a really crazy gaffe, it's probably not ah as important.

29:22.10

Sam Shirazi

then potentially we could see some House of Delegates debates. So that's all the way up through October 9th. I'm not going to go past that because I think we've already covered a lot.

29:33.02

Sam Shirazi

And the last month of the campaign will be even more unpredictable this far out. But I just kind of wanted to lay that out for you because I think we kind of know where the race is right now in the sense of probably the Democrats have a little bit of an advantage. It's not necessarily blowout territory.

29:49.70

Sam Shirazi

And I think the wild card is what's going to be happening in these last two months of the campaign. And as I mentioned, a lot of things could happen, some of them good for either side. And so it's just it.

30:01.65

Sam Shirazi

There's no way of knowing. And so I think that's what makes this election exciting. We're going to just have to wait and see what happens. you know I'm obviously going to be covering it all. I think it's going to be ah super interesting to see what happens in the final weeks of the campaign. So I appreciate everyone who's been listening. I hope everyone's going to have a good Labor Day. And then when we come back, it's going to be the sprint to the end. And I'm excited about it. So I appreciate everyone for listening. And this has been Federal Fallout. And I'll join you next time.

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