Hi, everyone. I’m Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode, we will have Chaz Nuttycombe back on the podcast to talk about State Navigate and what they got right this election, and then talk a little bit about what he learned and what the parties can learn from the Virginia election. So Chaz, thanks for coming back on.

00:24.06

Charles Nuttycombe

Hey, Sam, thanks for having me back on.

00:26.10

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, so I guess before we get into the substance of it, how has it been post-election? Were you able to relax a little bit and and enjoy some time off?

00:33.82

Charles Nuttycombe

Yeah, it took a few days off, played a new Pokemon game. I feel like that’s kind of a tradition I have. is like it like Election time when I was in college would sit like Like right after midterms, if I recall correctly. So like election would be wrapped up, midterms are wrapped up, and I would just kind of sit and and play whatever new Pokemon game is out.

00:56.66

Charles Nuttycombe

The new one’s okay. it’s I feel like it wasn’t worth the 60 bucks, but c’est la vie. And yes, it took like we the team had five days off and now we’re getting back into the group of things and we’re about to launch in Alaska, North Carolina, Michigan. Just working on those. Alaska, hopefully out in a couple of days from now.

01:23.06

Charles Nuttycombe

But we’re working out some bugs and making sure that we got all our ducks in row first.

01:27.59

Sam Shirazi

Nice. Well, it’s it’s a good tradition to have after you Pokemon go to the polls to go play Pokemon.

01:33.44

Charles Nuttycombe

damn it i shouldn’t know you’re going to say that

01:37.21

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, yeah. I’m old enough to remember when that actually happened.

01:38.87

Charles Nuttycombe

That was good.

01:40.89

Sam Shirazi

So anyways, so so let’s talk a little bit about State Navigate. your your You had State Navigate, obviously had a good election. i think a lot of people doubted you. There were skeptics, but you proved everyone wrong. So I guess we’ll start with the polling side of things.

01:57.98

Sam Shirazi

Obviously, you had a couple of polls that showed the Democrats were going to do well. And frankly, it was pretty close to almost exactly right. I think you were pretty much the best pollster out there, particularly of the pollsters that polled every single race. So what do you think you got right in this election and and polling that maybe some of the other organizations didn’t?

02:20.70

Charles Nuttycombe

Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah. So the state navigate forecast would have been very, very accurate if polling was as good as state navigates. What’s funny is that our fundamentals model and the fundamentals only looks at presidential approval.

02:38.81

Charles Nuttycombe

and most recent election results uh and uh you know the economy like unemployment inflation uh that sort of thing right and it had span burger 15 but That doesn’t, that’s not all of the model, right? We still take it to other people’s polls when we’re doing our forecast. So we had Spanberger 11, so she did about four points better.

03:18.67

Charles Nuttycombe

which was not the goal. The goal was 97, but I decided to open the scotch anyway, given how good our poll was.

03:31.12

Charles Nuttycombe

And, you know, we were we were so close. and you know, there are plenty of other people who probably had poor nights in the house of delegates. So mac matter of fact is, uh, state navigate is, is still, uh, on top for forecasting, uh, Virginia elections. elections. Um,

03:48.32

Charles Nuttycombe

So in our poll, I think what like worked the best for us was honestly it just like a very simple understanding of Virginia history. Like, you know, I had talked about this before on the polls were probably gonna get bit in the butt for weighing their polls to 2021 and 2024, which would be a good year for Republicans. I also noted that you know If there is a larger democratic wave than what our poll and what our forecast was expecting,

04:24.21

Charles Nuttycombe

that it would be with high election day turnout that would benefit Democrats with low and mid propensity Democrats coming out, particularly more minority Democrats. And they came out. So that’s how Spanberger, you know, in the final forecast, I had noted in the article that her floor was nine and her ceiling was 15. And she got past that ceiling by what? 0.3, 0.4%, something like that.

04:46.18

Charles Nuttycombe

So it’s kind of similar to 21 because Youngkin was 0.06% away from that two-point ceiling I gave him. so But that’s what floors and ceilings are for.

04:57.18

Charles Nuttycombe

And you know i think at the end of the day, i mean, all you had to do was just know the fact of life that Virginia governor elections are always...

05:10.05

Charles Nuttycombe

beneficial to the party out of power from the White House. And but that those benefits include a turnout advantage point blank period. And so you had pollsters that were weighing only to of maybe maybe a electorate as blue 24 or and and thus a couple points bluer than 21 or maybe only a hair bluer than 24.

05:36.26

Charles Nuttycombe

And I think if they were doing that, it would be largely based on the early vote or something. But you know, we use like AP vote cast data and Gallup and vote hub and catalyst and all this sort of stuff to just look at that. The party ID was probably go to be like D plus eight D plus nine, something like that.

05:58.54

Charles Nuttycombe

is what happened. so, you know, spam murder just did like 2% better because think the unders undecideds broke her way. And, I think we just barely weighed Republicans too much and should have weighed independents a little bit more. We’re talking like 41 versus 40 versus versus or something in that final so yeah I think, and you can go to our site and you can see like a great breakdown from, our data manager, Mary Radcliffe, i for, you know, how pollsters did amongst, uh, various categories, uh, to see, you know, who did well, who didn’t. And yes, as for any poll that asked for governor, Lieutenant governor, and attorney general, had the smallest error.

06:47.80

Charles Nuttycombe

and, You know, there were some polls that I think had suffered from the Jay Jones, shy Jay Jones stuff. I think ours did too, right? In our our second poll, we had Jones up by three and a half.

07:01.32

Charles Nuttycombe

I think typically there’s usually like a two or 3% bias, I guess, where where candidates with scandals overperform their polling. And that’s, you know, that’s what happened this year in the attorney general race. But even without that, I mean, Jones, if if polling was still right and the end,

07:22.16

Charles Nuttycombe

like ours was for you know that turnout advantage. I mean, that was what was going to get Jones across the finish line. It’s just a matter of the margin. So, you know I mean, I had texted with people who...

07:34.71

Charles Nuttycombe

uh, you know, kept asking me privately, like, you know, do you, do you really think Jay is going to win, Republicans and Democrats? Just a lot of them asked me that.

07:44.54

Charles Nuttycombe

And I just kept saying, yeah. you know, I didn’t really have, and didn’t waver in Jack and I’s Jack Hirsing, our development director and co-forecaster and I’s ability to forecast.

07:58.04

Charles Nuttycombe

And felt good about what we had in front of us and felt good about of our understanding of Virginia history and that there was going to be a polling miss of some sort of caliber.

08:08.79

Charles Nuttycombe

And that Jones was, you know, I mean, there was always a path for Mieras. You know, we had given him a one in three chance of winning pretty high.

08:20.25

Charles Nuttycombe

And he underperformed because of a polling miss. So, yeah.

08:25.72

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, i mean, all super fascinating stuff. I mean, I had one specific polling question, and I also want to get to the forecast. But in terms of the polling, you know, I think there’s this kind of old school understanding of polls, like you call a thousand people and then you see who they’re voting for. And, you know, nowadays, the weighing is so important. And obviously, like Republican pollsters will like weigh it to be more Republican friendly. And so I guess what I’m getting at is, you know, are polls almost like quasi models where you’re getting some input from,

08:54.52

Sam Shirazi

You know, the the poll takers in terms of like where independence, but essentially much of polling is just modeling who’s going to show up. And it’s less about like the answers that the people are giving you, because obviously like the Democrats and Republicans are usually pretty behind their their team. And you’re just kind of trying to figure out maybe where the independents are.

09:14.07

Charles Nuttycombe

I think there’s there’s some truth to that. you know You have to be able to weight your poll appropriately to make sure that you give each side its fair share of the electorate, and you determine that by looking at what the current environment is.

09:31.42

Charles Nuttycombe

And you have to use previous data to try and figure out what the current environment is. I think Republican pollsters in in my understanding, kind of let their party ID float, meaning that they didn’t really change much compared to what they had in the raw data.

09:50.04

Charles Nuttycombe

That’s not what we we did. we waited, we tried to get a sample, especially in our second poll that was as close to our targets as possible and not in like the, the democratic kind of thing, right? Like, oh, let’s, let’s say like our first day is like two Republican or something, but more so like in the demographics, demographics, um,

10:09.01

Charles Nuttycombe

i mean there are definitely tricks you can do like i think trafalgar and their polls right had uh you know uh harris plus six electric which is yes how virginia voted but you can get a poll to say anything if you know how to toy around with the numbers in in my experience when you know we were trying to figure out uh our our weights uh like you know when looking at the ap vocast data try and get it as close to the actual result as possible uh so you know i think like trafalgar they had like five percent of respondents say that they are other in their race for example right and i think

10:55.12

Charles Nuttycombe

I want to say Signal also had that issue. I don’t remember. I know that it was noted in the article. We have a table on it. But like the other group for when you when you when you’re getting with those demographics.

11:08.10

Charles Nuttycombe

people that select other are more likely to be Republicans who don’t want to tell pollsters like, you know, anything about themselves. And whereas like the actual, you know, I guess let’s just say people who are racially ambiguous in an actual election results are overwhelmingly Democratic.

11:28.69

Charles Nuttycombe

so they, and, and, and the reason why i bring up, it’s like, they made it 5% in the Trafalgar poll is like, they really only make up 1% of the electorate pretty much every time.

11:39.36

Charles Nuttycombe

so they gave it much more weight to try and get a more Republican result. I talked to somebody on the Republican side, and they said, that Robert, Robert, whatever his name, I like, I just like to call him bow tie boy.

11:54.62

Charles Nuttycombe

bow tie boy said, you know, what do you want me to get the poll to say? Right. and And look, I think something that separates State Navigate from the rest of the pack is, is we don’t really have a a team to root for.

12:07.70

Charles Nuttycombe

We don’t have anybody to please, you know, it’s like if somebody sponsors our poll, it’s like, okay, but it’s like, you know, we’re we’re publishing. what we have, regardless of whether you like it or not. It’s not like a sponsor will be like, oh, we want to pull say this. It’s like we’ve never had that. And if somebody said that, I’d be like, you’re better off putting your money elsewhere because we care about accuracy and we care about just being able to put out good data there.

12:31.21

Charles Nuttycombe

So, you know, at the end of the day, and another thing is like pollsters are they have clients, right? They have a clientele. and And in some cases, they usually have have one preferred party.

12:46.06

Charles Nuttycombe

And they have to keep them satisfied. They got to keep their clientele because that’s what keeps the lights on. What keeps the lights on for State Navigate is just like as long as we have our bare minimum funding, those House of Delegate District polls cost $900 to I want to say like maybe the most we spent was like $1,300 for a pretty good sample size, like in like the $300 range or I think in in the House District 783 poll is like closer to $400. So yeah.

13:11.75

Charles Nuttycombe

so Whereas, you know, in context, those that would probably cost at least twice the amount if you’re paying an actual pollster. And so as long as we just have our bare minimum funding, it’s kind of like our Costco hot dog, right? It’s it’s a loss leader.

13:27.92

Charles Nuttycombe

It’s like, yeah, we had to spend a lot of time on it, but it’s like we do this for love to gain. We don’t do this to like. push a narrative or like say, we want this person to win, let’s let’s go have him up by a lot. Or we want this person to be in a close race, let’s let’s make this race close, which I think like some like internals and whatnot do.

13:49.62

Charles Nuttycombe

We don’t like, I think just one thing that kind of separates us compared to pollsters, particularly those who are like, who, you know, or are actual polling firms versus like a college, right?

14:03.28

Charles Nuttycombe

is that they they have a clientele, whereas we do not.

14:08.15

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, and you know I’ll give a pitch to anyone who is looking for worthy causes to donate. You may want to consider State Navigate because, you know as you as you mentioned, I think it’s hard to get good political data that’s nonpartisan, that is really just trying to be accurate. And there’s so many different organizations out there with various agendas, and they don’t always disclose it. So I i think having State Navigate was really...

14:28.89

Sam Shirazi

awesome in this election and, you know, helped me understand a lot of what was going on. So just the pitch for state navigate. So turning from the polling to the forecast side of things, in terms of the forecast, you know, it was kind of interesting. You mentioned that almost, it would almost have been better if you didn’t put the polling in there. And, you know, is that kind of reflection that the environment drives so much of these elections? And there are a lot of these partisan polls that are trying to push various views, like, is it just better to kind of almost ignore the noise and be like, look at presidential approval and just look at the environment versus, you know, every single check every every single poll that comes out obsessing over

15:07.39

Charles Nuttycombe

well Well, first, before I answer that, I will say i very much appreciate the kind words. And I will know, quite frankly, I mean, State Navigate has its funding through the end of January.

15:17.24

Charles Nuttycombe

As of this moment, I’m back on the fundraising grind in my jobs as executive director. So there’s any of your listeners who want to support our work as we expand nationally and expand our content for our 501c3 nonprofit, you can shoot me an email. This is chas at statenavigate.org.

15:34.79

Charles Nuttycombe

So with the the question on weighing polling and in a forecast, I mean, look, in in the fundamentals model we had, it only went back to 2005 for building that model. So the end is pretty small. So that was why we gave polling as much weight as we did. because you know we just didn’t really have that high of a confidence interval in it but hindsight is 2020 maybe 20 years of uh you know of data i guess in in a way is is useful being able to predict at least virginia elections and

16:13.13

Charles Nuttycombe

we’ll see if we want to try and do that same fundamentals model and weigh the fundamentals a little bit more in these statewide forecasts and which are of course closely tied with the how you the state, let us say the forecast in each state going into 2026.

16:29.44

Charles Nuttycombe

So, i mean, look, you know, yeah it I noted this in the piece that Mary and I worked on is that, you know, a good data should be a right. And I think that includes polling.

16:41.79

Charles Nuttycombe

You know, I think that we are all in the same boat and I think it’s a scientific miracle that we we have the capability to see in real time what public opinion is, right? G. Eliot Morris has a great book and and he kind of talks about, i think in the in the last chapter,

17:05.62

Charles Nuttycombe

on how, you know, when Lincoln was president, Lincoln would make decisions on on public opinion by by who would be able to come and visit him at the White House.

17:19.86

Charles Nuttycombe

Those are going to skew more more wealthy and and elite and people probably older who had the time to go try and talk to the president, right? But now we have the technology to where we can just ask the average Joe.

17:34.07

Charles Nuttycombe

And and I think that you know the only other way for our elected officials to know what the people want is, of course, via elections.

17:45.99

Charles Nuttycombe

But the elections are only every so often. And I think that you know the trying to help polling as much as we can, I mean, that’s why we did our our article on like, here’s what we think other people did wrong.

18:02.99

Charles Nuttycombe

here’s what we did that we think can help like we had an article on like we did this experiment on putting all lowercase in your text it works really well trying to get 18 to 29 year olds to respond right we we want to help the polling industry we want to help the average joe understand state government we want to help professionals be able to easily access and download data because at the end of the day, data should on state government should be a right and and not a privilege.

18:35.07

Sam Shirazi

Well, I think that’s certainly a very worthy goal, and I hope you you keep at it as we move on to the midterms. And you know speaking of the midterms, I wanted to kind of talk about a a little bit about kind of the lessons from Virginia and what you’re seeing in the midterms. Because obviously, anytime there are big wins like there were in Virginia and New Jersey, there’s kind of this idea, oh, yeah, the Democrats are doing really well. There’s going to be a blue wave in 2026.

19:00.51

Sam Shirazi

I think that happened after 2021 and everyone thought there’d be a red wave 2022. Now, obviously there was the overturning of Roe and you could argue that changed the dynamics, but I mean, i don’t want to make any assumptions, but is your sense like unless something changes, there’s probably going to be a blue wave in 2026? Yeah.

19:17.08

Charles Nuttycombe

Yeah, pretty much. I mean, unless President Trump gets a lot more popular, i think President Biden’s popularity may have improved a little bit in 2022 compared to 2021. But yeah, I mean, it was it was it was Dobbs that changed the kind of the trajectory of the midterms then, quite frankly.

19:42.64

Charles Nuttycombe

But still Republican tilting. And yeah, so I want to say that like 2018 was like D plus seven in its like estimated generic ballot when, you know, accounting for uncontested districts and all that sort of thing. Right. I think that’s like the floor we’re looking at. Yeah.

20:02.89

Charles Nuttycombe

for like what the mid 2026 is going to look like. So this is probably best case scenario in the generic ballot going to look like 2018 for Republicans. But that’s probably not really going to be as much of a bloodbath as 2018 was. Reason why is because there aren’t really as many endangered Republicans in these like you know seats that voted for Kamala Harris, right? There’s fewer of those kind of incumbents.

20:48.12

Charles Nuttycombe

So, I think the the highest wave scenario when we’re talking about environment is t plus 10. So like what that translates to in Congress, you know, I don’t know. I’m i’m retired from federal forecast because it’s not really something I care about.

21:06.99

Charles Nuttycombe

I think, you know, people look at me like I’m crazy when I say I don’t care who the president is and that I really only care about who is in the state legislatures for a variety of reasons. One, bigger impact on your day to day life. Two, I think it’s more interesting.

21:24.70

Charles Nuttycombe

But so so that’s what, you know, we’re looking for is like when we talk about like what the likely environment is and how we should build our forecast is just really going to be for state government in 26.

21:40.27

Charles Nuttycombe

you know but But let’s also keep in mind that i think i think there’s been, and i think I’ve been kind of in that boat of of kind of extrapolating too much from the Asian and and Latino stuff this year. Yeah.

21:57.45

Charles Nuttycombe

So Democrats definitely won back some Trump voters who are Asian and Latino that you know from 2024. I don’t think it was a whole bunch. Most of them stayed home, those Latino and Asian voters, whether they be firmly Republican-leaning or whether they be independents.

22:18.50

Charles Nuttycombe

which we were kind of seeing an early vote and it looks at like that’s what happened on election day. We put out, I put out a map on Twitter of just like, you can see in parts in the areas of Nova,

22:30.61

Charles Nuttycombe

in like Centerville or Manassas or Eastern Loudoun or Bailey’s Crossroads or going into Richmond, like Southside Richmond, which, you know, are very Asian and Latino, that these voters didn’t really come out.

22:45.33

Charles Nuttycombe

So I think that, Trying to extrapolate like for like a presidential election is just too difficult to know, like, you know, what whether those folks are going to come out in 2028 or whether Republicans have the same issue that Democrats had in 2024, where a lot of their base doesn’t show up because they’re not happy with them.

23:06.35

Charles Nuttycombe

Are we in a much shorter timeframe of intense thermostatic public opinion, la UK, instead of, you know, the traditional 20th century it takes eight years for the party to change the White House.

23:20.33

Charles Nuttycombe

So, you know, it’s where I like to say Virginia elections are a mile long racetrack. We’re at the second, we just finished the a second quarter mile.

23:34.94

Charles Nuttycombe

2026 is the third quarter. 2027 is fourth quarter. And then we’ll have a better idea of who’s going to win in 2028.

23:45.78

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, it’s certainly a a little bit too early to know for sure, but interesting stuff we can get kind of glean from the data. I did want to ask you, because one thing I’m interested in, and it doesn’t get talked about a lot. So, you know, in terms of Virginia, obviously, some parts of Virginia, the Republican turnout was down, like in Southwest Virginia. but Just looking at the data, it didn’t seem like Spanberger made that many gains relatively with like white working class voters. And I think that’s been the problem for Democrats since Trump was elected in 2016. They just haven’t been able to figure out how to win back white working class voters.

24:17.70

Sam Shirazi

Is that kind of what you saw this year in Virginia? And like do you think there’s any way the the Democrats can can win those voters back? Because obviously it’s a big deal for for many districts at the state level and in the federal level.

24:28.76

Charles Nuttycombe

I mean, that’s a good question. i mean, she won some, but when you talk about, I guess, trends, like it’s it’s not something like, oh, there’s this big reversion relative to the statewide swing, right?

24:43.100

Charles Nuttycombe

I mean, really Democrats had a large turnout advantage and and gained back some ground in a sort of reform as they are kind of reforming the old Biden coalition of, you know, working class minority voters, or really you could say the Clinton coalition because because Latinos and and Asians got more Republican in 2020. But if I recall correctly, and just, you know, we’re all,

25:09.06

Charles Nuttycombe

only a few weeks away from this election, there’s going to be people who are much smarter than me who are going to be able to put this data together. But I don’t think on on how the minority voters broke down that they were as blue as they were and on the presidential level in 2020 when we were talking about Asians and Latinos.

25:24.10

Charles Nuttycombe

But yeah, we talk about the white working class. I mean, yeah, I don’t think Spamber really did much in Southwest. Southwest didn’t trend leftward. There were only like 23 localities that trended leftward.

25:38.12

Charles Nuttycombe

Relative to the from from 2024 presidential to 2025 governor, 11 of which were in northern Virginia. So I think that is because of the shutdown and because of the groups that make up for the Virginia, which are this is a very diverse region, right, racially.

25:55.36

Charles Nuttycombe

And, you know, then you had like, what, five college towns or six college towns. Democrats actually did pretty well with young voters. They had pretty pretty good turnout, especially in some of these campuses, even somewhere like VCU, which I was kind of surprised. But yeah, so, you know, I think that while there, I think that, uh, you know, there are areas that Spanberger did worse than Tim Kaine.

26:28.58

Charles Nuttycombe

There was a precinct in, uh, in Russell County that i want to say Tim Kaine won that Spanberger lost handling. It’s a very small precinct, but, You know, I don’t think she really campaigned for ancestral Democrats. She played to her strength, which is the suburbs and in areas that she has represented before.

26:46.24

Charles Nuttycombe

And she won. And she won by the largest margin pretty much since black people for for a Democrat running for governor, since black people have been able to vote truly in Virginia when we became a two party state in the 1960s after the Civil Rights Act.

26:59.26

Charles Nuttycombe

So it was a effective strategy and it paid off for her.

27:04.00

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, in terms of that specific race at the top of the ticket, you know, I think 15% was certainly top of everyone’s, or at least I thought it was theoretically possible, but I think most people didn’t expect it. And, you know, that level of victory, do you think...

27:20.30

Sam Shirazi

It was really the environment versus candidate quality. you know There’s been a lot of talk that the lieutenant governor’s race was kind of the generic D versus R, 11%. And did Spanberger kind of get the 4% extra just because her candidate quality versus Earl Sears?

27:34.51

Charles Nuttycombe

Yeah. Yeah. So I think like when, when we talk about, I mean, the, the, this election was probably like Harris plus 11, in, in the electorate this year. and there’s a few things with that.

27:46.54

Charles Nuttycombe

That’s just kind of a ballpark estimate based on, uh, precinct turnout and the state navigate polls, as well as just for the, the house delegate results and Lieutenant governor result.

27:59.21

Charles Nuttycombe

You know, there wasn’t much money spent in the LG race that and and the result between like what the estimated popular vote was was, which was D plus 11.6 was pretty much identical to the margin for lieutenant governor. That’s the generic Dem race versus generic R.

28:16.28

Charles Nuttycombe

And then, yeah, when we talk about a poor Democratic candidate and a strong Republican candidate, that’s the attorney general race and then vice versa for governor. So that’s why you had that, you know, those those differences between LG and gov and gov versus AG.

28:34.65

Charles Nuttycombe

So, yeah, I think that, you know, there I mean, To talk a little bit about the house, if if our forecast had been plugged into a D plus 12, just about house delegates environment with a Spanberger 15 victory, we we would have got a 99 out of 100, so three more seats right.

28:58.67

Charles Nuttycombe

The biggest upset at night is just absolutely Nicole Cole beating Bobby Oroc and by a comfortable margin, frankly. I mean, the the effect and this is kind of my thing as a Richmonder is like, you know, I was wrong on how much the shutdown had an impact on this election. It had a big impact. And and the question is whether those gains that Republican or sorry, Democrats have made because of the shutdown are going to hold in 2027 beyond or whether.

29:26.72

Charles Nuttycombe

You know, you have like maybe two or three percent of voters in northern Virginia who were in these swing districts who were just mad at Republicans over the shutdown are going to go back to their ways in 2027. They’re showing out and vote Republican.

29:40.05

Sam Shirazi

Well, I did want to ask about 2027 because I know you and a few other people think about 2027, even though probably no one else is. Obviously, Virginia will have the state Senate and the House Delegates up for election, all of it in 2027.

29:54.37

Sam Shirazi

and think state Senate is going to be rough for the Republicans. Do you think in the House of Delegates, the Democrats are basically like at their peak or do you think they can keep making gains?

30:05.31

Charles Nuttycombe

No, there were, what, three or four Republicans in Spanberger districts. Ann Farrell-Tata, Rob Bloxham, Mike Cherry, and Tony Wilt.

30:17.42

Charles Nuttycombe

Tony Wilt, was proud i would if you had to make me pick, I think Tony Wilt probably loses. There wasn’t as much investment at JMU versus Virginia Tech.

30:26.73

Charles Nuttycombe

So that’s probably going to change. And, you know, that seat, I think, is probably their best pickup opportunity for the Dems. Maybe college soon out college student turnout won’t be as high, though.

30:37.71

Charles Nuttycombe

There was a drop-off at Virginia Tech from 2017 to 2019. Then again, I want to say that jane the the old equivalent, when you know Wilt was running in whatever number it was in the old Harrisonburg district and Rockingham district, got closer in 2019 than in 2017. That’s just because Democrats actually targeted it.

31:02.48

Charles Nuttycombe

and Wilt won by like, what, just under a point. Uh, so that’s a pretty decent pickup opportunity for them. i think Republicans have some pickup opportunities.

31:13.21

Charles Nuttycombe

uh, you know, I mean, uh, looking looking at the results here, if if I can get it in front of me. Let’s see, in the margin, like, yeah, I mean, maybe house district 30 69, 73 is probably not gonna come back. And the reason why, even though it’s like, well, you know,

31:33.08

Charles Nuttycombe

early only lost by 3.7% is because that’s going be two years from now. And that district was probably about Harris plus five this year. It’s probably goingnna be closer to Harris plus 10 in its electorate in 2027.

31:44.83

Charles Nuttycombe

Too many Yankees, too many people from Nova moving down to Chesterfield. That’s a safe Democratic district for virtually. Maybe like a one in 10 chance Republicans can flip that back with a a very moderate Republican, kind of Kerry Coiner-esque.

32:00.12

Charles Nuttycombe

But it’s it’s very unlikely. Probably 66 could be an interesting one to watch. The one that Bobby Orrack just lost. If there’s, you know, that win was inflated by anger of the federal government shutdown.

32:15.15

Charles Nuttycombe

74 is going to be interesting with Mike Cherry because it’s kind of the now, I think, the equivalent of House District 73 where you’ve got Yankees moving in. The development there is not as fast as in like the mid-low area, but it is still moving leftward.

32:31.62

Charles Nuttycombe

Cherry won by five points. Spanberger won his district. Yeah. And, yeah, so I think Democrats are they’re probably not going to gain many seats in the House next time, maybe a seat or two, if I had to guess. But, you know, this is two years from now.

32:48.29

Charles Nuttycombe

Senate, yeah, it’s going to be a bloodbath for Republicans. Glenn Sturdivant is pretty much dead on arrival. He’s not coming back. And then i would say, i think that it’s it’s probably about the same odds as, you know, like like a one in 10 chance, maybe, that Danny Diggs can win.

33:10.95

Charles Nuttycombe

Maybe eight in 10, or a one in 10 chance, I’m sorry. if I said that right, that Danny Diggs can win in on the Peninsula Sea and then in State Senate District 2017, in 17, I’m sorry, in Southside with Emily Jordan, maybe like a two in 10 chance. Southside, Democratic Black turnout always flops.

33:35.54

Charles Nuttycombe

But, you know, you still have like Portsmouth and Suffolk, which comes out pretty strong. And then... Tara Durant’s seat is probably flipping.

33:45.07

Charles Nuttycombe

And, you know, if I had to guess, I would say probably sewer line seat flips. Democrats had like an OK candidate there and she only lost by five.

34:00.08

Charles Nuttycombe

in in a very Republican friendly year. And the thing is like the, the, when you think about 2019 and 2017, right? Like the state legislative environment didn’t really change much. It got like maybe half a point bluer in 2019 versus 2017 as, you know, Democrats.

34:16.98

Charles Nuttycombe

And this is like talking about the, you know, estimated popular vote. As Democrats got an incumbency advantage in 2019 and only increased by like half percentage point.

34:28.18

Charles Nuttycombe

So like this isn’t going to be like, oh, oh, yeah, it’s going to like 2023 where it’s like D plus two. No, it’s it’s more likely than not going to be like, don’t know, generously to Republicans like D plus nine.

34:39.86

Charles Nuttycombe

And, you know. Probably generously to the Democrats, D plus what, 12 and a half. If I were to say that’s probably the range for the environment for the state legislative stuff in 2027, that’s what I would say.

34:53.00

Charles Nuttycombe

So, you know, the question is, are Democrats getting super majorities in each chamber? It’s going to be unlikely that they do so.

35:02.41

Charles Nuttycombe

because it runs through Trump’s fan burger districts where they have not really tried beating some incumbents before who have a strong incumbency advantage.

35:13.20

Charles Nuttycombe

So, yeah, I mean, that’s that’s just kind of the question is it’s it’s kind of like 2015 in a way where it’s like, you know, one party’s on the precipice of either keeping, or I guess, you know, losing their super majority and people are just looking at the super majority. Nobody’s looking at the odds of majority, right? Both chambers are safe democratic. It’s, it’s virtually 100%, that Democrats keep their trifecta in 2027.

35:38.83

Charles Nuttycombe

But the question is like, do they get a super majority for the first time since what the nineteen eighty s If I were to kind of ballpark, it’s probably in like the 30 to 40 something percent range.

35:52.66

Charles Nuttycombe

Low 40s, I would say. But, you know, it’s we’re not going to work on a forecast until, you know, summer or like, you know, beginning of 2027 release in the summer like we did this year for 2025.

36:09.54

Charles Nuttycombe

But yeah, so Democrats probably pick up. on a bad night for them, four seats, a good night, six for the Senate.

36:21.74

Charles Nuttycombe

And then I guess on a good night for them in the House, it would be picking up four seats. Bad night would be probably losing maybe two or three seats.

36:36.71

Charles Nuttycombe

But, you know, it’s, it’s two years from now. We’ll, we’ll see what changes over the next, uh, you know, quarter mile the racetrack.

36:46.21

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, it’s kind of crazy how much the environment really affects these elections in Virginia. And so we’ll just have to wait and see what 2027 is like. i you know As we kind of start to wrap up, I wanted to just see what you were thinking about doing in 2026 in the midterms, what state navigate is going to do, and kind of also maybe pitch why people should care about the state legislative elections in 2026. Because frankly, I think most people are going to be hyper-focused on the House and the Senate. But as you mentioned, I mean, so many important decisions. Even things like redistricting are really done at the state legislative plus level.

37:18.22

Charles Nuttycombe

Well, you know, I think there’s a whole, but so for for what state Navigate is working on next year, you know, we’re looking, we’re opening up in five states right now. the first nine months of our development was focused on getting a framework to where it’s going to be easy to cut copy paste.

37:32.99

Charles Nuttycombe

So now it’s only going to take one to three weeks to get out in each state. Like one, like one to three weeks per state, not like all 50 states within one to three weeks from now so Alaska is just about to come out and North Carolina and Michigan, not far behind.

37:48.42

Charles Nuttycombe

And so that’s what we’re working on. And, you know, we’re going to be, I think we might dabble in trying to do like some primary state, let us say a primary analysis in some of these states like West Virginia, maybe Wyoming, because that’s pretty much where the general election is. Not sure if we would do a forecast itself or what.

38:11.48

Charles Nuttycombe

We would like to hire a polling director if we’re able to have the money. Otherwise, we’re probably probably not going to be able to do much polling. Just because, I mean, it’s with with the amount of time that Michael, our elections coordinator, and i are going have spend. it’s I mean, we’ve got to focus on getting states out and getting content out.

38:30.74

Charles Nuttycombe

We can’t be dealing with polling and all that. So that’s what we have coming up. So make sure you subscribe to our newsletter and keep up in the loop. Just go to statenavigate.org go to get connected and sign up for our free newsletter.

38:46.62

Charles Nuttycombe

And then what what was the other part of your question?

38:49.62

Sam Shirazi

Just like why people should care because I mean people going be focusing on the Congress congressional races.

38:51.91

Charles Nuttycombe

Right. Yeah, I mean, i think that first of all, state legislatures are more much more interesting than Congress. You know, we talk about on a data perspective or just like the kind of characters, right? It’s a rarity where you get like a child molester a wife beater and in in a race in Congress, where it’s like, I just i saw both of those things in 2024 for people who were running and one of them won, the wife beater won.

39:21.98

Charles Nuttycombe

by a single vote. So, you know, there’s more interesting stuff there, more interesting data in terms of ticket splitting. And look, I mean, the state lets the state government affects your day to day life more than like what President Trump does if you’re an American, right?

39:41.58

Charles Nuttycombe

Keyword, if you are an American. So, so you know, I mean, there’s going a whole bunch of stuff probably changing with the new democratic trifecta, which hasn’t occurred since 2020. that’s much more liberal than the old, older try. Well, not much more liberal, but, definitely more liberal than the old trifecta, Northam.

40:01.90

Charles Nuttycombe

Right. So if you don’t like that, then hey, get involved. If you like that, hey, get involved, right? Pay attention to what’s going on your state government.

40:12.26

Charles Nuttycombe

And look, if you want to figure out like, okay, where should I spend my time and resources and money? I guess you go to State Navigate. You look at the data that we collect in each state and we put these forecasts together so that we can help you navigate what’s going on in state governments around the country.

40:30.83

Charles Nuttycombe

So, you know, we provide a whole bunch of of resources, including aggregating news, calculating ideology of legislators using their floor roll call votes, every single one in relation to one another, forecasting the outcomes of state legislatures, polling districts and statewide stuff for horse races and issue polling, putting together a demographic data by district and pulling together lists of candidates, all that sort of thing. So.

40:54.91

Charles Nuttycombe

All that being said, you can find it all at statenavigate.org.

40:59.90

Sam Shirazi

All right, well, one last question, just to kind of end on a fun note. What do you think was the most fun part of the Virginia elections for you this year?

41:09.66

Charles Nuttycombe

that’s That’s a good question, actually.

41:12.83

Charles Nuttycombe

I mean, honestly, Benny’s Pizza in Richmond kind of sucked. It’s not as good as Blacksburg. So that was kind of a disappointment for me, and frankly. But c’est la vie. There’s better pizza around here. I’m living in Churchill now.

41:28.96

Charles Nuttycombe

you know it was It was fun seeing the I mean, you know i streamed on election day, calling up the registrars and and just kind of shooting the s**t with them, which was fun. you know they They do such tremendous work. They’re saints.

41:45.08

Charles Nuttycombe

And especially for those I was able to get data from, God bless them, for county level, precinct level stuff. It was really fun just like seeing how well the NAVCAST did. i mean, if if you didn’t have the NAVCAST in front of you, you were behind. And then that’s what I was saying is that if you don’t have this in front of you, you’re going to be behind on knowing who won.

42:06.04

Charles Nuttycombe

So we beat, you know, we were the first to call the race for governor. We called it when polls closed. And because we had saw what was going on in turnout and that we knew Spanberger was going to win and by a comfortable margin, a very comfortable margin.

42:19.96

Charles Nuttycombe

and, uh, then we’re also the first group. I think, I think we beat DDHQ by a minute for the race for attorney general. and, uh, you know, it was, it was, uh, Ben, Ben Tribbett, who has, has been a mentor, uh, to me, I think, especially in the beginning of my career.

42:40.96

Charles Nuttycombe

and I very much look up to him. It was pretty much just him and I doing, uh, you know, uh, or, you know, like myself and and Jack and and Michael and Ryan Bruhn, who’s our our race call team.

42:53.72

Charles Nuttycombe

It was us versus him. And I, I, I think we beat Ben on like getting the race calls out a little quicker. And, but you know, i mean, it’s, it’s at the end of the day, when we beat the AP and that’s just what matters as, as an organization.

43:13.64

Charles Nuttycombe

yeah, but Yeah, and and Ben, you know, did fantastic stuff that night. And yeah, just, I mean, seeing the NavCast especially, I think, was the most fun.

43:31.17

Charles Nuttycombe

Like seeing how well it worked, especially in comparison to other folks kind of live modeling. to where you’re able to see the odds of who’s going to win. i mean, people were putting out our race calls before us because the NavGas had like 98% chance of a Dem win or 99 or something.

43:49.52

Charles Nuttycombe

And we’re like, you know, we’re trying to get, maybe like we’re focusing on trying to get this one call or like, Oh, the model, like there these new results posted, it’s now 99. Let’s go check, you know, and make sure that this is right. Okay. Is this here? Is this here? Anything out? Okay. Let’s do it.

44:05.24

Charles Nuttycombe

So, yeah, I think Jack did an amazing job on the pages. You know, he’s is’ very brilliant. And, you know, Ali was here in my office, office, my apartment with me.

44:20.01

Charles Nuttycombe

And, you know, I would just say, cue that up, cue that up. This district, this person, go tweet it out. Like it’s it in and on election night, like any whatever room I’m in especially in Virginia, turns into a war room, quite frankly.

44:39.70

Charles Nuttycombe

so so it’s very fun probably the most fun i’ve had i guess since 2021 in college i think that’s always still going to be my favorite election night i think that’s always going to still be my favorite election night that’s when the pizza tradition began and very laid back and you know, it was, it was, it was very fun.

45:03.26

Charles Nuttycombe

So I think this was my second favorite election night that I’ve, I’ve worked on in, in Virginia throughout the last eight years.

45:13.34

Sam Shirazi

Well, I certainly appreciated everything that you did, especially on election day and election night. i Obviously, I was going to stay navigated as my go-to source for info. So I really appreciate everything. And yeah, thanks. Thanks so much for coming back, Chaz, and giving people’s perspective up after the election on how everything went.

45:30.82

Charles Nuttycombe

Yeah, Sam, day thank you so much for having me on.

45:33.26

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, and this has been Federal Fallout, and I’ll join you next time.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit samshirazi.substack.com