Hi, everyone. I’m Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fall Out the 2026 Midterms. This episode, we will go over some developments that have that have happened in the Maine Senate race. And then I also wanted to go over the state of North Carolina because I said that I would do a state a week during the run-up to the midterm so people have a sense of what’s going on.

00:19.00

Sam Shirazi

So I also wanted to cover that state. However, I did have to start with a lot of interesting developments that have happened in the Maine Senate race because obviously it’s been in the news and there’s a lot going on that I wanted to go over.

00:30.26

Sam Shirazi

My first episode of the relaunched podcast series was about Maine, and I talked all about the race. And then as soon as that was released, a couple days later, the whole Senate race was upended. And my first episode was called Maine Midterm Mayhem. And I think the term mayhem is certainly applicable right now in Maine because there’s something going on that’s you know pretty unique in terms of elections. And haven’t really seen anything like this in a while in terms of a lot of last minute changes right before the Democrats have an opportunity to flip a Senate seat in Maine. So let’s just set things up. As I discussed last podcast, the Democratic nominee Graham Platter was controversial and he was trying to defeat longtime Republican Senator Susan Collins. That seemed to be the dynamic in the Senate race.

01:21.18

Sam Shirazi

And Republicans were certainly happy about that because they felt that Platner was not a strong candidate. So they had they felt that even though Maine lean blue, Susan Collins will be able to win again in Maine, and that would really boost Republican chances of retaining the Senate.

01:35.13

Sam Shirazi

However, since my podcast last week, a lot has happened this this past week, and so I want to kind of summarize what happened. Basically, on Monday, a story came out where a woman that Platner used to, on an off date, that woman said that Platner had raped her and...

01:52.42

Sam Shirazi

Platner came out and denied the allegation. However, obviously, when you have something like that that is thrown into a Senate race and you know it was reported by a reputable news source, obviously, it was going to be a serious story for Platner and was was going to have to deal with it.

02:09.32

Sam Shirazi

I think the thing that happened, this was basically the the the straw that broke the camel’s back. I think there were a lot of controversies with Platner, and this was by far the most serious one because obviously it’s a very serious thing that was alleged to have happened. And so Platner, I think, really had no other choice but to withdraw from the race because essentially the National Democrats came out and said that Platner had to go. And even some of his most ardent backers on the progressive wing of the party, like Bernie Sanders, also said that Platner had to to withdraw from the race. So on Wednesday, he came out and said that he was suspending his campaign

02:48.90

Sam Shirazi

And essentially saying he was going to withdraw, although it was a long video where he talked about a lot of other things and, you know, explained how he felt that the establishment was somewhat working against his campaign.

03:03.08

Sam Shirazi

And if he’s withdrawn from the ballot, then it under main law, the Democratic Party would be able to pick a new nominee.

03:09.09

Sam Shirazi

And so that’s it’s a whole separate process where the Democrats have to figure out who their nominee was going to be. And there are a lot of different proposals. It seems like what’s going to happen is that there’s going to be a convention based on delegates coming from the various counties in Maine and the delegates are going to pick the nominee that is going to go up against Susan Collins if everything goes to plan and Platner pulls out of the race.

I think I wanted to talk about first the whole Platner dynamic and then we can talk about who may replace him on the ballot if that ultimately happens. you know I think Graham Platner in many ways was the most unconventional candidate, and I think that was by design. I think he was recruited by a certain wing of the Democratic Party that had gotten tired of the establishment, tired of what they saw as kind of bland candidates who were uninspiring. And they basically found someone who they felt was both you know charismatic, but also had a message that was different. And, you know, yes, was a contrast to Susan Collins, but but also was a contrast to much of the Democratic Party. And I think that was you know what people were selling him as, as a different type of candidate that can can win back voters for Democrats. I think the the downside in that, and I think the flaw in their plan was someone like Platner by nature comes with a lot of baggage. He has not been vetted.

04:22.100

Sam Shirazi

He’s never run for anything before. And he was basically virtually unknown about a year ago. And so this idea that you can just kind of pick a random guy and make him run for Senate, I think in the current environment, when people’s pack background are going to be really explored, and obviously Platner had been open about some of the issues he had in the past. And so all that was being aired out for a while. There were a lot of different controversies.

04:49.65

Sam Shirazi

from a tattoo that he had to Reddit posts to his relationship with women. And you know there was a lot of stuff that had come out already and that had you know hurt him to a certain extent. And I think Republicans were excited to run against him because they felt that Susan Collins was going to be able to potentially beat him, even in a tough environment for her.

05:06.64

Sam Shirazi

And then, as I mentioned, when this story came out, it was kind of the last straw. Essentially everyone from in the Democratic Party, from the establishment wing to the progressive wing, kind of realized that Platner was not going to be able to run a campaign and the deadline was coming up for him to withdraw. So that’s kind of what’s going on with Platner. I think there is this inherent tension where The establishment of the Democratic Party, when they pick candidates, they feel like they do a good job and they’re not always the most inspiring candidates in the world, but they’re usually pretty safe choices. I think the problem the the establishment Democrats had in Maine is they essentially picked someone to run against Platner in the primary. The person they picked picked was...

05:48.12

Sam Shirazi

Janet Mills, who is the current governor of Maine, and she is pretty old. She’s in her late 70s and just was not an inspiring candidate. And so sometimes the establishment comes in and picks a candidate that makes a lot of sense and is actually a very strong candidate. And we’re going to talk about that in North Carolina. However, sometimes the establishment comes in and picks perhaps the wrong candidate.

06:08.88

Sam Shirazi

And I think the the the problem here was that the person who was able to kind of fill the void was Graham Platner, even though he was not vetted even though he had a lot of issues and it just has not been going well for the Democrats in Maine so far. And before I turn to the but potential candidates who the Democrats could run in the Senate race, I wanted to talk about Susan Collins and the Republicans. I think for a long time, Susan Collins felt that she you know she was in a good spot because she was running against Grant Platner.

06:38.91

Sam Shirazi

you know obviously, all the chaos that’s happening on the Democratic ticket in some ways also helps Susan Collins because every moment the race is not about Susan Collins or it’s not about Donald Trump is to her benefit if it’s about Graham Platner and the problems the Democrats have in Maine and the Democrats fighting each other like the progressive wing versus the establishment wing. That is all good news generally for Susan Collins. However, I think the danger for her and the reason why some Republicans are actually a little bit nervous is, you know, let’s say the Democrats pick a broadly acceptable candidate.

07:08.82

Sam Shirazi

You know, pretty soon the conversation is going to be shifting from Graham Platner to Susan Collins versus this other Democrat. And you know there’s kind of this old adage that the election doesn’t really start until after Labor Day. So yes, some of the hyper political people are paying attention. And this story is obviously going to get a lot of attention.

07:28.01

Sam Shirazi

But a lot of people aren’t necessarily paying attention either. And they may tune in after Labor Day. And there might be a lot going on between now and then that makes us forget about this specific moment in time. And everyone’s going kind of move on. That’s one possibility. And I think that would be a difficult situation for Susan Collins, because I think she’s going to have to run more of a race based on her record and her being the incumbent. And I mentioned this last time, anytime you can make the election about your opponent and the the flaws they have, that’s better for you. The more it’s about you and your record as an incumbent, that could create problems for you.

08:17.56

Sam Shirazi

Ok now let’s talk about who may end up winning the Democratic nomination after the Democrats pick their nominee for the U.S. Senate seat.

So I think essentially what we’re going to see is a rerun of the Democratic primary for governor. I think there are three candidates who all would have a shot in any sort of contest. And so to kind of unpack what happened in the governor’s race, essentially almost all the big names in main democratic politics ended up running in the governor’s race and no one ran for the Senate. And again, that that was probably a mistake in hindsight. But Hannah Pingree ended up winning the governor’s nomination. So she’s obviously the Democratic nominee for governor. She’s not to run for Senate.

08:51.86

Sam Shirazi

So she’s off the board. Number two was Nirav Shah. He was the director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention from 2019 to 2023.

09:04.60

Sam Shirazi

Obviously, that was an interesting time to be in that profession and that job because of what happened with COVID. And so he got a lot of attention in Maine because he was in charge of a lot of the various COVID protocols that were going on in Maine. So his name got in the news and he ran for governor and ended up second after ranked choice voting. I would say he’s more from the establishment wing of the Democratic Party, kind of more towards the middle of the candidates that are thinking about running for the Senate seat.

09:34.31

Sam Shirazi

And then we have the the third place finisher, in the governor’s primary this year, and that is Troy Jackson. He is used to be in the Maine State Senate, and he comes from Northern Maine and is known to be more of a progressive Democrat, closer, I would say, ideologically to Graham Platner.

09:58.26

Sam Shirazi

And so a lot of progressives are trying to get behind Troy Jackson. Some of the arguments they’re making is essentially that Yeah, I mean, Platner had his personal issues, but essentially people wanted a progressive as the nominee. And so if you’re going to take out Platner, it makes sense to nominate someone like Troy Jackson, who is from the progressive wing and generally...

10:20.79

Sam Shirazi

is broadly acceptable to more of the middle of the party or the establishment of the party. So you have someone who can bridge that divide and make both progressives and establishment, uh, Democrats happy. And he’s been in Maine politics for a long time. He’s a known quantity. So that’s Troy Jackson as a potential candidate.

10:39.12

Sam Shirazi

And then there’s finally, there is Maine secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, ended up fourth in the primary and she is is is mo known to be more of a liberal. She used to be the executive director of the main ACLU.

10:57.05

Sam Shirazi

So certainly I would say comes from perhaps closer to the liberal wing of the party. And so you have you see how that you have these candidates who all have a little bit of a different dynamic, different background.

11:08.41

Sam Shirazi

And I think ultimately it’s going to be decided at that convention who’s going to be the nominee. And you know, that’s going to be a pretty unpredictable process. And it’s hard to really speculate who that’s going to be. And and once the the nominee is selected, perhaps I’ll update everyone in a podcast. That’s not going to be for a while, because I think basically the Maine Democrats have almost to the end of August to pick someone. So it’s not like there’s a huge rush. And I think the Maine Democrats are going to want to take their time, make sure they pick someone who one is, you know, going to be able to run against Susan Collins, but also is able to kind of unite the different wings of the party. Because I think there’s been a lot of,

11:45.31

Sam Shirazi

conflict and tension between establishment Democrats and progressive Democrats, both in Maine and across the country. And I think this race is kind of tearing open a lot of those wounds. And I think while there’ it seems to be the sense that Platner was not the right candidate, you know, I think there is a sense that the establishment is trying to come in and deny the progressive wing of the party a chance to take out Susan Collins. And so I think it’s going to be interesting to see do the main Democrats go with Troy Jackson for that reason, because I think he has credibility with that wing of the party and a lot of kind of internal democratic politics going on here. So I think super interesting. You know, I’ll provide probably one more update when the Democratic nominee is selected. But truly, it is mayhem in Maine right now in the Senate race, more so on the Democratic side. And we’ll just have to wait and see what that means for Susan Collins as she is in a tough reelection and is trying to survive once more and defy political gravity.

12:48.70

Sam Shirazi

Okay, now I wanted to shift to a totally different state, North Carolina. And the reason I picked North Carolina to go with this mayhem in Maine is is North Carolina for the Democrats, at least for the Senate race, has kind of been no drama and has been basically opposite of the the main Senate race. So to set things up.

13:05.74

Sam Shirazi

In North Carolina, the incumbent Republican Senator Thom Tillis is retiring. He had a clashed with President Trump on several occasions, and it was pretty clear he was not going to be able to win a Republican primary. So he decided to retire, which means there was an open seat in North Carolina.

13:22.47

Sam Shirazi

And the senator, along with Maine was probably one of the best pickup opportunities for the Democrats, because even though President Trump has won North Carolina three times in a row, it is always considered basically a swing state. And the races have always been close in North Carolina. And it’s just one of those states that leans towards the Republicans generally. But on a good night, the Democrats certainly have a chance of winning. And I think this is basically the number one pickup opportunity for the Democrats in the Senate because

13:53.84

Sam Shirazi

this is where Chuck Schumer, the Democrats in the state in the the Senate, the so-called establishment did a really good job finding a candidate to run.

14:04.46

Sam Shirazi

And the person that they picked was the former governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, who has generally been popular. He won election twice as governor in North Carolina. Previous to that, he was elected as the attorney general of North Carolina, a long history in North Carolina.

14:18.64

Sam Shirazi

And i think... This was the type of candidate that is just, you know, the the right person at the right time kind of thing where the Democrats just found someone who’s very solid in North Carolina to run. And I think the reason I call it no drama is you don’t really hear a lot about this race because Roy Cooper is a known quantity. He’s not the most flashy guy in the world, but he definitely has appeal across the world.

14:45.51

Sam Shirazi

spectrum from Democrats, independents, and even some Republicans. So I think Democrats feel like they got a very strong candidate in Roy Cooper. The Republicans have nominated former RNC chair Michael Whatley. And, you know, I think he’s going to have to do the best he can in this race to keep up with Cooper, who obviously has a long history in North Carolina. And, you know, it’s kind of funny to think about this. I mean,

15:09.67

Sam Shirazi

President Trump did win North Carolina three times in a row. And so you would think the Republicans would have a fighting shot at keeping this seat. I think, you know, the Democratic feeling is that essentially they almost, you know they don’t I don’t think they want to get complacent, but the Democrats at least feel like this is essentially an automatic flip, that they’re going to gain this one seat in the Senate no matter what. And so I think they’re feeling pretty good, the Democrats, about North Carolina.

15:35.84

Sam Shirazi

The Republicans, I mean, I think they’re they don’t wanna give up on it because I think you don’t wanna ever concede a a seat, especially a seat that your party won at the presidential level. At the same time, I think they have to be realistic that this is going to be a tough race for them. And that the fact that Cooper is probably the most popular Democrat in North Carolina. So it’s just they they got a tough break that that the Republicans did with that they’re running against him in this environment. I think it’s going to be be tough for the the Republicans, not to say it’s impossible. I think if for whatever reason, the the Republicans don’t have as good of a night as that as. They have a better night than people were expecting. I think it’s possible they hold this, but I think both parties, if if they’re being honest, will probably think you know this is more likely than not going to flip. Now, if you’re the Republicans, it’s not necessarily the end of the world because the Senate right now is 53-47. So worst case scenario, if you if if North Carolina flips, but you’re able to hold every other seat, it’s 52-48 in the Senate for the Republicans. And even if you lose another one or even if you lose another two, you’re still going to have

16:39.62

Sam Shirazi

a majority because the vice president breaks the tie. And so I think the Republicans view North Carolina as a tough Senate race, but not a must win. Certainly for the Democrats, it’s a must win, but they’re almost viewing it as kind of a given at this point, which, you know, you never want to get complacent, but I think given the polls and other, you know dynamics, I think there’s a fair chance that that Roy Cooper is going to win that race. So that’s kind of North Carolina at the Senate level, as you can see, kind of the opposite of Maine, where The Democrats are having a lot of problems.

17:09.03

Sam Shirazi

North Carolina seems to be smooth sailing for the Democrats at the Senate level. There’s no governor’s race in North Carolina because North Carolina has its governor’s elections during the same time as presidential elections. In 2024, the Democrats were able to win the North Carolina governor’s race pretty handily because they were running against a very flawed Republican nominee. so before I move on to the house stuff in North Carolina, I did want to talk about North Carolina generally and how this election could be a little bit of a tipping point in that.

17:55.02

Sam Shirazi

And then, you know, it’s kind of sandwiched between these two states that have become more and more blue. So you have Virginia, which used to be a red state, now is a pretty consistently blue state, even if it’s a light blue state. And then we’re going to talk about Georgia at some point.

18:10.50

Sam Shirazi

Georgia has increasingly become a more and more blue. It’s not quite a blue state yet, but it’s certainly a purple state. And you have kind of North Carolina in the middle that each cycle seems to be getting a little bit bluer.

18:21.75

Sam Shirazi

But the Democrats have never really been able to unlock the key of making North Carolina really a blue state. The one time the Democrats won it at the federal level in recent history was in 2008 when Obama won at the presidential level and the Democrats won the Senate seat in 2008. But ever since then, the Democrats have lost North Carolina every single presidential election and every single Senate election. I think this year is a decent shot that that streak is going to end.

18:48.09

Sam Shirazi

So the question becomes, you know, is North Carolina perhaps not the next Virginia, but is North Carolina like the next Georgia, where it’s essentially very solidly a purple state. Every election is going to be competitive, not so much a light red state anymore, which it had been for a good amount of time. I think there’s a good chance that that’s the trajectory North Carolina goes on. The reason for that is North Carolina is similar to these other southern states like Virginia and Georgia, where you have you know a large black population that is pretty consistently voting for the Democrats. So that gives the Democrats a high ceiling in North Carolina in terms of a base of voters that they’re going to be doing well with. Actually, it’s a high floor.

19:31.40

Sam Shirazi

And then you have increasingly more and more college educated white voters in North Carolina moving from the Republicans to the Democrats. We’ve seen similar dynamics in Virginia and and and Georgia. And I think the other thing to keep in mind is, you know, Georgia does have a good amount of white working class voters. And that’s really the base of the Republican Party and and the Republicans certainly do well with those voters.

20:37.70

Sam Shirazi

The one thing I should mention that I haven’t mentioned yet is the House, the House map in North Carolina, because while the Democrats generally are going to have a good year, I think, in North Carolina, the challenge they’re going to face is that they’re the the the House map in North Carolina has been gerrymandered to favor the Republicans. And not just at the beginning of the decade, North Carolina was one of the states to do mid mid-decade redistricting. And so just to give someone give everyone a a little bit of context, At the beginning of the decade, North Carolina was gerrymandered by the Republicans to give them an advantage in the House map. And that advantage has continued because they have won most of the House seats in North Carolina ever since they took control of the North Carolina Supreme Court. And the previous map that was...

21:25.99

Sam Shirazi

ordered to be drawn by the court was no longer upheld by the Supreme Court, basically because Republicans were able to get a majority on the North Carolina Supreme Court. So the Republicans in North Carolina were able to draw the map the way they wanted to. And obviously, they’re going to draw a map that’s going to favor them.

21:42.52

Sam Shirazi

And even with with the map already favoring them, what the North Carolina Republicans did They joined some of the other states that were that was doing mid-decade redistricting, and they redrew a couple of the districts. Didn’t do a completely new map because the map was already basically favoring them, but they did change the first congressional district because that is currently represented by Congressman Don Davis, and they made it even more Republican. it was a seat that...

22:10.38

Sam Shirazi

already voted for President Trump in 2024, but now it’s become even more of a red district. And so I think the North Carolina Republicans feel like they have a good shot of flipping the seat. Having said that, I mean, I think both in the environment and and with Don Davis, I think in 2024, he was able to overperform the top of the ticket a little bit in terms of the numbers he was able to pull. And I think given that you’re going Roy Cooper at the top of the ticket, he’s going to be doing well, given that it’s generally a blue environment, you would have to think at least at least tilting blue, you know there’s a good chance that

22:46.34

Sam Shirazi

while it’s going to be a competitive race. I think at a minimum, you know, Don Davis is going to make it a competitive race. You know, most people think right now that the Republicans, all things being equal, should be able to flip the seat just purely based on the numbers. However, I think if for whatever reason, Don Davis is able to overperform or Roy Cooper just really does really well, or the national environment is just that tough for the Republicans, I do think there’s a chance Don Davis might be able to hold on. And if he holds on, you know that’s always gonna help the Democrats on their path to get a majority in the House. I think the House Democrats don’t feel like this is a must-win seat. I think they feel like they have enough other seats on the board that even if they lose this one, it’s not the end of the world.

23:29.82

Sam Shirazi

Obviously, they’d like to keep it both because it’s an important – every seat is important but also because you have an incumbent so you always want to protect your incumbents. I mean currently the delegation from North Carolina has 10 Republicans and four Democrats and you see the Republicans are trying to squeeze it so that they get you know one more He’s a member of Congress, so they’ll have 11 Republicans and 3 Democrats if Don Davis is defeated. you know well Again, we’ll see if that happens. I think there is a chance he’s going to be able to hold on, which would be pretty remarkable. But you know incumbents generally tend to do better. They tend tend to overperform.

24:05.52

Sam Shirazi

That’s why... Susan Collins still has a chance in Maine, even though it’s a state that voted for Harris and it’s, you know, all things look like it’s going to be a blue environment. I think Susan Collins certainly has a chance in Maine. And I think similar to kind of dynamic with Don Davis, even though, you know, the district was redrawn, given that he’s incumbent, you know, you would think he has at least a shot in this race. So that’s kind of North Carolina. Not a whole lot going on because the Senate race is is, you know, important in that the Democrats need to flip it. But it seems like it’s kind of the no drama race for the Democrats. The House side, there’s only really going to be one competitive House race. But I did want to talk about North Carolina because it’s it’s going to be important. And also just given all the stuff happening in Maine, I did want to compare and contrast.

25:56.63

Sam Shirazi

I guess the last thing I just wanted to leave everyone with is I appreciate the feedback that I’ve gotten about the relaunch of the podcast.

26:11.77

Sam Shirazi

I will try to do my best to do these every week, release them on Saturday. If you’re interested, certainly subscribe, let your friends know, rate the podcast. I think that’s all very helpful. I’m trying to put out nonpartisan, interesting analysis that I think is giving people information that you don’t always get and analysis you don’t always get in the the other other news sources. So I appreciate everyone who’s been listening. I will keep doing this. And this has been Federal Fallout.

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

Hi Everyone, I’m Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the 2026 Midterms. This is the first episode in the relaunched Federal Fallout podcast and I wanted to restart this because after I did the podcast last year about Virginia, I thought it was super interesting to try to see if we might do something a little bit different and look at the midterms this year. And I didn’t really want to focus on Virginia. That’s not to say I might not talk about Virginia, but you know to be perfectly honest,

00:28.79

Sam Shirazi

there’s going to be two very competitive house races that are very important for the House of Representatives, but it’s not enough to do a weekly podcast about necessarily just two house races.

00:39.72

Sam Shirazi

So I thought what might make sense is I would go out nationally, think about the national midterms environment. And there are a lot of ways of doing that. We can kind of do general discussion about the state of the country, presidential approval, congressional ballot, a generic ballot, like all those things. We could just do that nationally.

00:59.33

Sam Shirazi

I find that it’s kind of an abstract way of talking about the midterms. What I like to do is go race by race. And so what I think I’m going to be doing for this podcast is go state by state and go through the critical races that are going to be happening in the midterms. And obviously I’m going to be focusing on the more important states. Some states, there really won’t be any super important races going on. I’m mainly going to be focusing on the federal races, although I might touch upon...

01:25.42

Sam Shirazi

the governor’s races. It’s not really going to be deep dives into like the state legislative stuff in all the states like I did in Virginia, just because I’m not as much of an expert in all the states like I am in Virginia in terms of going you know deep into you know legislative races. But I feel pretty confident that I can talk about the federal races across the country. And I’m not necessarily going to do like a prediction or you know say who’s going to win, particularly this far out. I think what I’m going to be focusing on is more the important races that are going on in these states, give people kind of a sense of what’s going on, the lay of the land, and then talk about perhaps who’s more favored in in these states or why a certain race is really important.

02:06.44

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, I’d like to just focus on the general election in terms of who’s going to be able to win in November? Obviously, a lot of states have had primaries already. Some states will continue to have primaries. I’m not necessarily going to do a weekly you know primary update. I’m really going to be focusing on the lay of the land in each state, more so looking towards the general election.

02:27.78

Sam Shirazi

And you know, in terms of overall control of Congress, obviously right now the Republicans have majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. In the Senate, the Democrats need to flip four seats in order to get a majority because the Republicans currently have a 53-47 majority in the Senate. And the House of Representatives is much closer. Republicans have a narrow majority. And so the Democrats only have to flip a few seats in order to win back the majority in the House of Representatives, that is going to be a little bit more challenging than it then it should be otherwise because of some of the changes that has happened as result of redistricting. And we can talk about that in some of the states.

03:09.75

Sam Shirazi

But overall, I think most people think the Democrats have a better chance of flipping the House and probably right now they’re favored to flip the House. Whereas in the Senate, you know, it’s going to be closer. Republicans probably are going to lose some seats, but have a decent shot of holding the Senate potentially, although the Democrats, I think, have an outside shot of flipping the Senate as well. And increasingly, people think that they might actually have a shot of flipping the Senate, just given some of the races that have come on the board. So that’s kind of overall the lay of land, you know.

03:40.76

Sam Shirazi

Republicans are in control right now. Democrats are trying to win back both chambers, probably have a better shot in the House than the Senate. And so, you know, there’s going to be all these Senate races and then every single House race, House of Representatives seat is up for election. So it really goes state by state, race by race. That’s how you’re going to determine.

03:58.77

Sam Shirazi

who’s gonna win control of Congress during these midterms. And so, you know I wanted to start with a state that I think I know pretty well. I’m not necessarily an expert in the state like I am in Virginia, but I know it pretty well just because my wife grew up in Maine and we spent some time just going back there, visiting families, seeing the beautiful sites that are in Maine, particularly in the summer, it’s a great place to go and visit. So if you’ve never been to Maine, I definitely recommend going and visiting in the summer. And this time it is a really super interesting state politically because there is going to be a very, very important Senate race, which we’ll talk about in Maine.

05:13.32

Sam Shirazi

There is going to be an important House race, an important Governor race, so we’ll talk about all that. But I thought given that I have a little more expertise in Maine than I have in other states, I wanted to start with Maine, and also because it is going to be so critical to the Senate. And potentially whoever wins the Senate seat in Maine could be the party that controls the Senate after the November elections. So I’m just going to talk a little bit about Maine this episode, that’s the state I will be focusing on and each episode I will be focusing on a different state. I probably will also be focusing on Virginia at some point, but not necessarily a Virginia focused podcast this time.

And the other thing I should add is, you know, there’s a lot of things I could talk about nationally. And as I mentioned, should presidential approval and generic ballot and all that stuff. And, and you know, we can talk about all that stuff.

05:24.29

Sam Shirazi

It’s just to me, it’s less interesting than some of the more case state by state and race by race analysis. But I should start off by just saying.

05:34.43

Sam Shirazi

Traditionally, the party out of the White House tends to do well in the midterms, just like we saw in the Virginia elections in 2025, the party out of the White House does well. Traditionally, during the midterms, the party that is out of the White House also does well. That’s just you know part of the nature of politics. People tend to vote for the party that’s out of power to try to get a change. you know we saw that in 2024 when the Republicans got a big win. I think 2022 was a bit of a surprise because I think the Democrats did better than expected and kind of didn’t necessarily lose too many seats because there was perhaps a backlash to the Dobbs decision and the overturning of Roe v. Wade. So it’s not 100% set that the party out of the White House isn’t going to do well in the elections midterm elections. There’s been other examples in history. you know one was in 2002 when right after a year, about a year after 9-11, the Republicans did well in the midterms, even though they were in the White House. So certainly not 100 percent of the time. But traditionally, if you think about some of these years where there’s been big waves, 2006, 2010.

06:38.36

Sam Shirazi

2014, 2018, these have traditionally been when the party that is not in the White House is able to kind of tap into the anger that the opposition has and they’re able to win the midterms. And one of the questions we’ll have to see this year is, does that happen again?

06:54.52

Sam Shirazi

Certainly, I think the Democrats feel like they’re doing well and that momentum’s on their side. However, I think there is the possibility, particularly in the Senate, where the Republicans feel like perhaps they can make this more referendum on the Democrats, particularly some of the more...

07:09.97

Sam Shirazi

left leaning members of the Democratic Party. And we’ll talk about that in Maine, which is going to be an important part of the Senate race. So I think a lot of the dynamics in the midterms are going to come down to is this going to be kind of a traditional midterms where the party out of the White House doesn’t do too well, the party out of the White House does well?

07:24.13

Sam Shirazi

Or can the Republicans successfully make the midterms perhaps a referendum on the Democrats instead of making it a referendum on the Republicans? Because traditionally midterms, if it’s a referendum on the party in the White House, typically the party in the White House doesn’t do too well.

07:39.14

Sam Shirazi

if the Republicans can make this a referendum on the Democrats, then they might be doing well these midterms. If the Democrats can make this a referendum on the Republicans, then they’re probably going to be doing well. That’s kind of traditionally some of the dynamics you see in the midterms, and we’ll just have to see which one plays out in November. And obviously I’ll talk about kind of the state by state dynamics in that regard.

07:57.70

Sam Shirazi

So turning to Maine. So Maine is a very interesting state. In many ways, a mixture of different types of communities. You have you know well-off people, college-educated people, typically by the coast in the Portland area, and then you have you know, very you know white working class voters in the more rural areas. And so you really do see a kind of purple state. I think traditionally Maine has tilted blue, but you do see that it is a it kind of traditionally a competitive state and Republicans certainly have the ability to win in Maine. And and Maine is also a little bit iconoclastic because I think there’s ticket splitting and people may vote one way in one race, but we’ll vote another way in another race. And we’ll talk a little bit about that.

08:42.00

Sam Shirazi

So I think, I think Maine is just one of the reasons I like it is just a really fascinating state. And this year in 2026, I think it’s going to be one of the most important states during these midterms. And really, it comes down to the Senate race. I mean, we’ll talk a little bit about the House race in Maine and the governor’s race, but really the important dynamic, I think, in Maine is the Senate race. I think everyone’s going to be looking at it, not just because it’s super important for control of the Senate, but because you have such interesting candidates running on both sides. So on the Republican side,

09:11.31

Sam Shirazi

You have incumbent Senator Susan Collins. She’s been in the Senate for a long time and she has survived some very difficult political environments for her, most notably in 2020. I think 2020 Democrats thought this was the year we’re gonna defeat Susan Collins.

09:27.14

Sam Shirazi

She’s going to go down. Joe Biden won Maine pretty comfortably in 2020. However, in a shocking result, Susan Collins was able to get a lot of ticket splitting. People who voted for Joe Biden, she was able to get enough of them to vote for her, where she was able to win comfortably re-election in 2020. And I think the Republicans are pinning a lot of their hopes on the fact that that would happen again. They’re essentially hoping once more, Susan Collins is going to be able to defy political gravity and win in Maine. And I think that’s, you know, the a lot of the hopes for the Republicans maintaining control of the Senate comes down to Susan Collins. And I think part of the reason they feel confident that she might be able to do that is because in their minds, the Democrats nominated someone who is too progressive and has too many, you know, skeletons in his closet for a swing state like Maine. And the person the Democrats nominated was Graham Platner. He is very much a progressive Democrat, very much an anti-establishment Democrat, explicitly running against the establishment of the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.

10:29.50

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, I think the interesting dynamic in this race is that Susan Collins really is kind of one of the last few establishment Republicans who, you know, is prominent within the current Republican Party.

10:41.49

Sam Shirazi

And I think she is... by definition, the establishment Republican. And I don’t think she’s necessarily trying to run away from that because she thinks in her mind, she wants to be viewed as a different type of Republican than perhaps a 100 percent mega Republican who supports President Trump. She has in the past notably broken with President Trump on several key votes. However, she has also voted for President Trump’s priorities several times as well. So I think you have this dynamic where Susan Collins, she’s just going to run on her brand. Part of it is being kind of an establishment old school Republican.

11:14.50

Sam Shirazi

But part of her brand is also just old school Maine. People know her. Maine’s not a huge state. a lot of people have probably either indirectly or directly gotten to know Susan Collins. That’s part of the reason she won in 2020. So I think Susan Collins’ brand is just, you know, I’m classic Mainer.

11:30.86

Sam Shirazi

You know who I am. That’s going to be her campaign. I don’t think she’s going to be doing anything too flashy in her campaign. She’s going to run the campaign she basically ran in 2020 and hope that works again. And I think the big question mark is more on the Democratic side, because in 2020, the Democrats ran kind of Generic Democrat with establishment backing. Her name is Sarah Gideon, kind of so safe choice.

11:54.32

Sam Shirazi

Just kind of someone with a D next to her name wasn’t too controversial. And the Democrats thought, well, that’s going to be good enough. Joe Biden is going to win Maine. And then people are not going to split their ticket. And then Sarah Gideon is going to win 2020.

12:05.64

Sam Shirazi

That obviously didn’t happen. And I think part of the reason Graham Platner got in the race is he feels that the Democratic establishment doesn’t know how to win some of these races, doesn’t know how to reach voters who are perhaps skeptical of the both parties, don’t like politics. They are the Democrats aren’t going to be able to win with those you know traditional establishment type candidates. so Graham Platner explicitly running as a different type of Democrat, someone who is trying to perhaps appeal to more white working class voters, Trumpier voters that have gone over to the Republicans. And his pitch is basically, I’m going to be able to win them back.

12:42.19

Sam Shirazi

Now, part of that is he has a lot of you know baggage that he comes with that a perhaps safer choice wouldn’t come with. And certainly the Republicans are going to be using that against him. But frankly, the Democrats tried to use that against him, or at least the establishment Democrats tried to use that against him when the current incumbent governor, Janet Mills, was trying to win the nomination. She really didn’t get any traction.

13:02.80

Sam Shirazi

mean, part of that is just her age. She was an older candidate and you know wasn’t super exciting. And so Graham Platner was able to win the nomination pretty easily for the Democrats in Maine. And, you know, I think he’s just going to be running as kind of an experiment to show Democrats, look, if you nominate people who are, yes, progressive, but really have more of an anti-establishment vibe to them, they are going to be doing well in states like Maine with white working class voters who the Democrats have lost and they haven’t quite figured out.

13:30.87

Sam Shirazi

how to win them back. And Graham Platner’s pitch is like, I’m the type of guy who’s going to win them back. Like, yes, I am not going to make people in DC super comfortable, but that’s the point. Like I am a different type of candidate and you’re not going to win people in, you know, rural Maine if you just run kind of a generic bland Democrat, you need someone different in order to win back those voters. You know, it’s kind of an open question mark if he’s going to be able to do that, but that’s his pitch.

And I think Susan Collins kind of recognizing her, you Brand, I think she’s going to try to win some of those college educated voters in the Portland area that are very turned off currently from the Republican Party. She’s going to say like, look, you may not like President Trump or you may not support him, but you can support me. I’m going to do what’s right for Maine. I’m more independent. And look at this Graham Platner guy. He’s way to the left. I mean, I think that’s essentially going to be Susan Collins’ pitch. And, you know, we’ll see. It’s almost like both of the candidates are trying to win over parts of the other’s base. You know, Platner is very explicitly trying to win white working class Trump voters. And Susan Collins is also very explicitly trying to win college educated Harris voters. And so, you know, which one of them is going to be more successful? And there’s a lot of different ways this could go. I mean, one way it could go down is it’s basically a repeat of 2020 when Susan Collins very clearly was able to win a lot of Biden voters and she defies political gravity again. And that’s certainly the Republican hope. The Republican hope is she’s done it before and she’ll do it again.

15:26.84

Sam Shirazi

I think Graham Platner’s pitch is one I’ll win back the white working class trump voters and you know I think frankly the establishment DC democrats even if they are skeptical that he’s going to be able to do that i think some of them are pinning their hopes on people in Maine are just going to be so upset at the republicans that it doesn’t really matter people are done with Susan Collins they’re done with her brand they’re just going to make this referendum on President Trump, and they’re just not going to vote for Susan Collins this time around, even if they don’t, mean they may not love Graham Platner, he may not be the candidate for them, but, you know, they’re going to vote for him because they they want to send a message.

15:39.48

Sam Shirazi

And so, yeah I mean, we’re just going to have to wait and see which one of those ends up happening. I think one thing to think about is there was a lot of this similar discussion that happened in 2025 in Virginia at the attorney general’s race where, You could see someone like Jason Miyares kind of doing a similar type of pitch as Susan Collins. I mean, certainly he’s probably more you know conservative than Susan Collins, but he was basically trying to pitch himself to the middle of the road voter as the more reasonable choice between him and Jay Jones. And it just didn’t work because I think voters ultimately just wanted to send a message and they wanted to you know vote against the Republicans. And so Jason Miyares wasn’t able to win in 2025. And i think Democrats are hoping a similar thing might happen, even if a lot of people don’t love Graham Platner.

16:23.92

Sam Shirazi

You know, if they’re more moderate Democrats, they’re at the end of the day going to vote for him because they they want to send a message. And, you know, I think there’s certainly a possibility that this just becomes the 2025 Virginia Attorney General race.

16:36.27

Sam Shirazi

However, I think Maine people do have a tendency to be willing to split their tickets a lot more. And I think that’s where it’s going to be more of a wild card. Does Maine’s kind of traditional bucking of expectations, you know, they don’t always do what the pundits expect them to do. Is that going to continue in the Senate race or is it really going to be kind of a different type of race this time. And either Platner wins back the Trump white working class voters, or even if he doesn’t do that, he just does well enough with the Harris voters that he’s able to win in Maine. And so I think it’s going to be a super fascinating race, really hard to predict what’s going to happen. I think the fundamentals, you’d have to say, favor Platner because, you know, it’s a state that voted for Harris.

17:19.88

Sam Shirazi

You know, there’s there’s more people who support Democrats generally than Republicans in Maine. A lot of independents, but a lot of those independents lean towards the Democrats, at least at the federal level. And so, you know, theoretically, all things being equal, Graham Platner should win. I think that was also true in 2020 with Sarah Gideon. Everyone thought Sarah Gideon was going to win just based off the fundamentals, and she didn’t.

17:43.43

Sam Shirazi

And so that’s when some of these... you know, intangibles in Maine come into play. Like, you know, do they split their ticket or do they just like Susan Collins? And Maine’s a very interesting place. If you’ve ever been there, you know, you go into to Portland area and that’s very much, you know, liberal place, you know, feels like you’re kind of in a very left-leaning type environment. And then you could drive you know, 20, 25 miles out and you feel like you’re in a very rural MAGA supporting area very quickly. And, you know, that’s, it’s just a very diverse state politically.

On the coast tends to be more liberal inland tends to be more republican, you know not 100 true, but generally that’s what what it’s like in Maine these days.

18:31.19

Sam Shirazi

You know, it’s going to be a super, super fascinating race. I would say, you know, it’s probably the most interesting or one of the most interesting races this year in the country, just given the the types of candidates that you have. And I guess the last thing I’ll say about the Senate race is it’s kind of funny because the candidates are almost the opposite of what the parties have become in some ways, you know.

If you think about someone like Susan Collins like she is very much the non-maga republican left in the republican party. And that’s really one of her selling points that she often pouts to moderate voters is she tells them that you know she’s not um gonna do it whatever the White House wants her to do or the MAGA wing of the party wants her to do.

And then you have someone like Graham Platner who is kind of saying the same thing, but the opposite way saying, you know I’m not going to do what the establishment wants me to do. I’m not going to do what Chuck Schumer wants me to do. I am going to do what I think makes sense, but kind of in an anti-establishment way. So Susan Collins is almost approaching things from an establishment point of view.

Graham Platner is approaching things from an anti-establishment point of view, but they’re both kind of arguing they’re bucking their parties. I think the race could be decided by those factors or it could just become a generic d versus r and it’s just kind of another race and you know it’s going to come out how it’s going to come out. Really no way of telling uh just flagging kind of the dynamics in this race if you haven’t been following it too close I did want to talk about a few other things in Maine because i just don’t want to focus just on the senate race.

20:00.91

Sam Shirazi

There is also going to be a governor’s race, and that is going to be between Democrat Hannah Pingree versus Republican Bobby Charles. This is an open seat because the incumbent Democratic governor, Janet Mills, cannot run for re-election. And the interesting thing about this race is Hannah Pingree is the daughter of the current representative from the 1st District, Shelley Pingree. So she is more, I would say, establishment-type Democrat, certainly not, you know,

20:30.17

Sam Shirazi

conservative or or moderate necessarily, but, you know, obviously has been around democratic politics a long time in Maine. And so she’s kind of an interesting run ticket made to Graham Platner, who’s very much not that. And so you have this kind of interesting dynamic on the ticket between the Democrats on that side of things.

20:49.26

Sam Shirazi

I think most people think just given the environment, It seems like it’s kind of a generic Dem versus R race because it’s an open seat. I think most people think the Democrats probably have the advantage in the governor’s race, given that Maine tends to tilt a little bit blue.

21:05.24

Sam Shirazi

Also, the national environment, the party of the White House, tends to to be doing well. So I think governor’s race, I don’t think, is on most people’s radar as a super interesting race because I think most people think Democrats have the advantage in the governor’s race in Maine. Not to say that Republicans can’t win in Maine. They certainly have as recently as you know the 2010s, there was Republican victories in the governor’s races in Maine. And we’ll talk about the the last Republican governor of Maine, Paul LePage, in in a second when we talk about the House races. So you know you’ve had eight years of Democratic rule in the governor’s mansion in Maine. So potentially, you know if the Republicans are able to kind of use that against the Democrats, they might be able to to pull up pull out the upset in the governor’s race. However, you know like I said, I think most people expect that the Democrats should be able to win the governor’s race in Maine.

22:35.49

Sam Shirazi

I’ll kind of finish things off by talking about the house of representative races in Maine. So Maine has two congressional districts not a huge state the first congressional district is basically based in southern Maine on the coast mainly around the Portland area and south of that very democratic seat. This is where most of the democrats in Maine are a very blue seat so you know we mentioned that the current representative Shelly Pingree her daughter is running for governor and Shelly Pingree almost certainly is going to be elected as uh in the seat in the first district like she has been for quite a while so not super interesting in the first district.

However, the second district is going to be very, very interesting. I think most people expect the Republicans to have an advantage in this district. So the current Democratic incumbent, Jared Golden, is going to retire. He is certainly coming from a different wing of the Democratic Party. He is somewhat anti-establishment, I would say, but he’s on his policy positions or tries to portray himself as a very moderate Democrat, even though on certain issues he tries to Buck his party. And so he’s more of a, I would say, moderate Democrat, although I think he he may not, he may have some progressive views on different policy issues. But long story short, he’s retiring, partly because he’s just tired of Congress, I think. He’s the type of person who, you know, if you’re more in the middle, I think Congress is going to be very frustrating for you. And so he decided to retire. And so you have this open seat that voted for Trump in 2024. So I think the Republicans feel very good about flipping the seat.

23:32.14

Sam Shirazi

The Republicans nominated the former Republican governor of Maine, Paul LePage. He is an interesting character, definitely a colorful character. He tried to come back in 2022 and but win back the governor’s mansion. That didn’t work.

23:47.02

Sam Shirazi

He is running for Congress now. And most people think that he has the advantage just given... You know, he’s been governor of the state. He would, you know, I would say has perhaps appeal to the second district, more of a Trumpy type appeal to a district that is very white working class. So I think in that sense, Republicans think he’s a pretty good candidate, although he is he’s kind of older, which is interesting. You know, he’s been around for a while. So even though he tends to have kind of an anti-establishment vibe, he’s certainly been around main politics for a while.

24:20.01

Sam Shirazi

And the Democratic nominee is Matthew Dunlap. He has been the main state auditor, and he is known to be a little bit more of a progressive Democrat. I think, you know frankly, both both sides view him as perhaps not the strongest candidates for the Democrats, certainly not as strong as a candidate as Jared Golden. So taking that all into account, you know you have a pretty strong Republican candidate.

24:44.58

Sam Shirazi

running in in terms of having an electoral history in Maine. You have a district that voted for Trump. It’s a pretty white working class district. I think most people think, you know, all things being equal, probably the Republicans have an advantage. I don’t think it’s impossible for the Democrats to win this seat. And it really just depends on, you know, who’s turning out in this type of an election in Maine.

25:07.03

Sam Shirazi

You know, it’s a rural white working class district, but it does have certain parts of it that are more, you know, well off. college-educated. So perhaps if there’s really a surge in the college-educated voters and perhaps some of these white working-class voters don’t show up, it’s not impossible for the Democrats to win this seat because it’s not overwhelmingly a red district. I also think there’s going interesting dynamics where Graham Platner certainly hopes that he’s going to be able to outrun both the governor’s candidate for the Democrats and the House candidate for the Democrats. So his pitch is like, I’m going to be doing the best out of the Democrats in the second district. I’m the type of candidate that can win the second district. And if that’s true, and if he’s doing really well in the second district, better than people are expecting, perhaps his coattails might be able to carry the Democrat and the House race over the line if, you know for whatever reason,

25:55.55

Sam Shirazi

people in the second district like what Graham Platner is selling them. He’s going to be the top of the ticket. He may be able to just you know bring the rest of the ticket with him. However, i could also see a scenario where there’s a lot of ticket splitting. Someone might vote for Graham Platner at the top of the ticket, but then vote for Paul LePage because you know the personalities are very interesting. I’d say in terms of just their like pure personality, Graham Plattner’s kind of similar to Paula LePage. They’re both very combative. They both you know don’t really like the establishment, don’t like the establishment media. So it’s kind of interesting you have these candidates running who you know have similar personalities in some ways. And it just goes to show you Maine’s a very, very interesting place. I think you have a a lot of different groups of voters out there. It’s hard to build a coalition.

26:40.58

Sam Shirazi

Susan Collins has been very good at building that coalition where she’s been able to win the the white working class voters, but then she’s been able to win enough of the college-educated voters around Portland that she’s been able to win. Is this the year where her coalition collapses because the white working class voters go to Graham Platner and then the college-educated voters go to the Democrats because they’re upset at what’s going on in D.C.? Is that kind of the environment or do we just get the typical eight day you know election in Maine that is hard to predict? Yeah.

27:10.54

Sam Shirazi

you know I’m not going to say necessarily who’s going win. going to have to see how the race is going to go. Certainly, certainly a very unpredictable race in Maine in the Senate. I think that’s the real race to watch. you know Governor’s race, second district race is going to be also interesting. you know Stakes are not as quite as high because...

27:28.48

Sam Shirazi

Certainly for the second district, I think the Democrats are just assuming they may not win that and they don’t, you know, they feel like they have enough other seats on the board where they can lose the second district. Governor’s race, obviously Democrats don’t want to lose that. I think they feel pretty confident given the dynamics in Maine that they’ll be able to win the governor’s race. So it really does come down to the Senate race. I think it’s going to be very, very difficult for the Democrats to take back the Senate. Not impossible, but pretty difficult.

27:54.88

Sam Shirazi

if they don’t win the second district excuse me if they don’t win the Senate race, if they win the Senate race doesn’t necessarily mean 100% Democrats are going to take back the the Senate, but it’s going to make their lives that much easier. And it’s really, I would say a must win in that they have to win it. It doesn’t guarantee they’re going to win the Senate, but if they do win it, it gives them a good shot at winning the Senate. So so that’s Maine, really one of my favorite states. I’m sure I’ll talk about it another time. If you get the chance to ever go up to Maine, really beautiful place. I would really recommend it, you know, especially in the summer. Summer is a beautiful, beautiful spot.

28:28.86

Sam Shirazi

And, you we’ll see We’ll see how the race shapes out. So anyways, that is the first episode on Maine. As I said, other episodes will focus on other states. I hope people find this educational. i’m really trying to give people background on these races, why each state matters, why each race matters. Obviously, I’m not going to go over 50 states. A lot of them don’t have super interesting races. I’m going to be focusing on the states with the super interesting races.

28:51.46

Sam Shirazi

you know I’ll be planning on releasing these typically Saturday morning. We’ll plan to do one a week with... the state races I probably won’t be doing interviews or anything like that, just because it’s hard for me to to do that with my schedule. But I do want to cover at least one state a week to keep people updated. And then obviously as the midterms come closer, we’ll we’ll go over that. And yeah, so this has been Federal Fallout, the 2026 midterms. I’m excited to you know cover the midterms with everyone 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

Hi everyone, I’m Sam and this is Federal the Virginia Elections. This episode is the grand finale where we will go over the Virginia Supreme Court ruling that finally came down on the redistricting referendum. And then at the end, I’ll talk a little bit about what what might be next for me. So to begin, I wanted to talk about this Virginia Supreme Court opinion we were all waiting for it. Oral arguments had happened. And really, everyone was on pins and needles waiting for the Virginia Supreme Court to rule. And luckily, they finally gave their order on Friday.

00:34.01

Sam Shirazi

And it was I would say a surprise I think a lot of people even some republicans at the end of the day thought the Virginia supreme court was not going to strike down the redistricting referendum because obviously it had passed and so a lot of people on the democratic side especially but even some republicans had said “As much as we may believe in legal theory, it’s just hard to imagine the Virginia Supreme Court overturning a referendum.” But that’s what the Virginia Supreme Court. In a 4-3 opinion, the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the redistricting referendum was not lawful because the process which the Democrats put it the ballot did not comply with the Virginia Constitution.

01:01.14

Sam Shirazi

And so I’m going to kind of break down the opinion. I don’t want to dwell on the opinion because at the end of the day, you know it is what it is. The Virginia Supreme Court ruled. And, you know we’ll have to see what happens,

01:25.91

Sam Shirazi

You know now that the new redistricting map is not going to happen we’re going to be using the same map in 2026. And actually, it was the Virginia Supreme Court that drew these maps through their special masters that they appointed. So kind of things coming full circle from the beginning of the the decade when the Virginia Supreme Court drew the maps.

01:47.80

Sam Shirazi

but also something also came full circle in terms of the 2025 election so this podcast was started in 2025 for the Virginia elections that that year and this is really the last kind hurrah the 2025 Virginia elections. Why is that? Because the issue in this case was, what is the meaning election? And what it mean the 2025 elections to happen?

02:02.86

Sam Shiraz

02:07.48

Sam Shirazi

And what I mean by that is in order to pass a constitutional referendum in Virginia which the Democrats needed to do in order to redistrict there are a few procedural things that have to happen. The General Assembly, both the Virginia State Senate and the Virginia House of Delegates, has to pass the constitutional amendment once and then the Virginia constitution says it has to be passed again after the next general election.

02:40.65

Sam Shirazi

and so the entire case essentially came down to what does the term after the next general election mean. So the Democrats, what they did about a week before the election last November, they passed the constitutional amendment. The election happened. The Democrats the election. In January, they passed the constitutional amendment again. And then it went to the voters and the voters passed it.

02:57.18

Sam Shirazi

So the Virginia Supreme Court say the maps can’t into effect? Why did hey say essentially the referendum was invalid? What the Virginia supreme court the majority the four four justices who ruled for the republicans in this case what they said was after the next general election means so, again, the entire case is what does election mean?

03:21.71

Sam Shirazi

And what the majority said was, once voting starts, once early voting happened, the election is underway and so you cannot pass this thing when early voting is happening you cannot pass constitutional amendment voting is happening. you have to wait till after the next general election, which in the general election started.

03:48.67

Sam Shirazi

so that was the majority opinion essentially what they were saying is this this two- time requirement thing yeah know there’s a reason it’s a in in the Virginia Constitution. You don’t want to rush these things. you want to give voters an opportunity to vote on it.

04:01.73

Sam Shirazi

And you know that’s what the majority opinion said. The dissent was you know pretty clear that in their minds. Election day means election day, and that’s when you have an election. If you ask someone, when is the next general election, they’re going to say you know November 4 or whatever the date of the election is.

04:18.98

Sam Shirazi

Election has not been thought of as a forty five today early voting period and so I think at the end of the day both of the majority opinion and the dissenting opinion were basically saying, we’re trying to figure out what election means. And the majority opinion says election is the entire voting season when early voting is going on. The dissent was saying election day is literally election day. That’s when there’s an election as opposed to the entire early voting cycle.

04:38.80

Sam Shirazi

And I was surprised it was a 4-3 opinion, to be perfectly honest with I thought they either try to make this unanimous or maybe it’d be 5-2. But I think the fact that it was 4-3 shows that the court was really torn about this issue and it was not an easy issue.

04:51.32

Sam Shirazi

I could tell honestly when right before the referendum the supreme court issued the Virginia supreme court issued an opinion allowing the referendum to go forward you could tell in that opinion that they were not happy with this result. And reading between the lines, you could tell that some of the justices really didn’t want the referendum to happen. I think they felt like they had to let the referendum happen.

05:24.90

Sam Shirazi

and so we’re in this odd situation where Virginians voted for this thing and you had millions of people voting and it passed, and the Virginia Supreme Court at the last second saying it is invalid and it shouldn’t have happened.

05:40.60

Sam Shirazi

But I had flagged in previous podcast, the Virginia Supreme Court very explicitly said they might that. They left that open that possibility. And the Virginia Supreme Court sometimes, I think, feels that it is not necessarily to to the either the voters they left that over that possibility and the Virginia supreme court sometimes I think feels that it is not necessarily going to you know bend to the will of either the voters or The General Assembly if they feel that the law is not being followed and they take the law seriously. And, you know i’m sure a lot of people have different opinions about what the Virginia Supreme Court did. But at at the end of the day, you know they are the highest highest court in Virginia.

06:10.50

Sam Shirazi

and it’s important to respect the legal process and and you know that’s what they said essentially and and you know we we can kind of go on.

06:17.24

Sam Shirazi

Not surprisingly, Republicans were very happy. They felt felt vindicated. They felt that this is what they had been saying all along, that the Virginia Democrats were not following the law, and that once the Virginia Supreme Court finally made the ruling they were going to rule for them, and they were right. It was a 4-3 opinion, so just barely the Republicans were were correct, but obviously republicans were happy about this opinion on the other end this spectrum democrats were not happy about the opinion, some of them were blaming the court. Some them were more to accept the results. But at the end the day, it is what it is. We live in a system where have to abide the rulings that the judges make. And it was a 4-3 decision. And I think that the Democrats were

06:50.52

Sam Shirazi

were frustrated by this. However, I kind of urge both sides not to dwell on the opinion. And I’ll talk a little bit about what’s happen after this. But I really kind of encourage people on both sides. you know the Republicans are going to be wanting to celebrate and say, you know this is the greatest thing ever. The reality is the Virginia Republicans are in pretty difficult political situation

07:21.79

Sam Shirazi

The Democrats have a trifecta. In all likelihood, the Democrats are to keep their trifecta another two years after the elections next year for the State Senate and House Delegates. So they’re not in a great place. And talk about the House Representatives races this year in Virginia. And we’ll talk about the house of house of representative of races this year in Virginia. Republicans don’t have an easy time with those either. So as much as they got that kind of a temporary reprieve from all the bad news that Virginia Republicans have had, you know last year, this isn’t necessarily going to help their

07:53.42

Sam Shirazi

prospects other than you know I’m sure they’re grateful they don’t have to deal with this gerrymandered map in 2026 but it’s not like things are are going great for them otherwise. Virginia democrats you know it’s easy to kind of get bitter and blame the courts and you know there’s a lot of things they that when something like this happens, there’s a lot finger pointing, there’s a lot being upset. And that’s, it makes sense. I mean, that’s a human reaction to something like this if the Democratic side. However, it’s also important not to this because the reality is it happened and got to and got to figure out, what’s plan B, because this was plan A and it didn’t out. And so to have to figure out what are to after this? And so I want to talk about what this means for Virginia and the midterms.

08:20.72

Sam Shirazi

Before I do, I did want to note, I mean, we’ll see what the Virginia Democrats end up doing but it’s not impossible that this comes back again. And how can it come back again?

08:50.29

Sam Shirazi

so what the Virginia democrats can do if they win next year in the general assembly for the state senate and the house delegates which at this point it looks like they’re going to do they can pass this again in January of 2028 and then in 2027 they can pass this thing you know much more before the election so that this whole issue doesn’t come up again. So in other words, we could have another referendum in April 2028, I wouldn’t necessarily put that past the Democrats given what happened so

09:22.36

Sam Shirazi

we may be back here again in 2028 doing this all over again and you know we already know what the democratic map would look like perhaps they would change it but long way of saying: This may not be the end of the map. It’s the end of the map in 2026, but I don’t know if it’s going to be the end of the map forever, and we’re just have to find out if the Virginia Democrats decide to do that again.

09:41.66

Sam Shirazi

Having said all that it sounds like you know the map is set 2026. We are to use the map. This is the map that was used in the elections this decade in Virginia. The Virginia Supreme Court, through its special masters, drew this map in 2021. So I really want to just spend some time thinking about, okay, what is going to happen now that the old map is be used. And I think the first thing to note just straight up from the beginning is Democrats still have an opportunity to flip seats in Virginia and particularly they have a good opportunity to flip at least two seats. So

10:14.88

Sam Shirazi

as much as this was a blow to Virginia democrats I think they also need to not dwell on it forever and think about okay: We still have elections coming this November. Things are still us generally in the national environment looking good for us so don’t want to dwell on this opinion. Similarly for the Virginia Republicans, they will not want to dwell on this forever and say, oh you know everything’s great because they may still lose seats in Virginia this year and they’re gonna have to think about that so I guess what I’ll do quickly is just give you a rundown of each of the current seats based on the current map in Virginia. and just see where we are.

Okay, so I will start off with the first congressional district. This is currently represented by Republican Rob Wittman, and all indications now are that he is going to run for re-election.

10:59.35

Sam Shirazi

In 2024 this was a Trump seat it voted for Trump by about five points however Abigail Spanberger in 2025 did win this district. And this is going to be one of the top two races in Virginia this year. For the Democrats, it’s one of the more seats. So we’ll talk about the second district. That’s be the top priority. But I think after the second district for the Democrats,

11:21.86

Sam Shirazi

the first district is going top be number two in terms of the seats they’re going to try to flip. And I’ll talk a little bit about both the general and the primary. In terms of the primary, I think realistically, there are a few people running, but I think the Democrats and and the national Democrats are supporting Henrico prosecutor Shannon Taylor.

11:39.35

Sam Shirazi

She ran for a attorney general in 2025 and came up short in the primary and the Democrats recruited her to run in the first district. And I think she’s a strong candidate for the Democrats because she comes from Henrico, which is the most populous part of this district.

11:53.69

Sam Shirazi

And she’s also a prosecutor which you know gives her some credentials in terms of trying to win over swing voters. However Rob Wittman he is a longtime incumbent and is known to perhaps have some crossover appeal. Like in 2024, he did better than President Trump. So Wittman but won by about points in a district that Trump only won by about five points. So you can see how Wittman has overperformed Trump in the past.

12:21.40

Sam Shirazi

and I think it’s going to be a really interesting race and given some of the other redistricting developments that have happened across the country, this seat is going to become even more important because I think if the Democrats are trying to get a majority, they will need to win seats like Virginia’s first district.

12:37.44

Sam Shirazi

And to me, it’s it’s a little bit like the 7th District in 2018. So 2018, Abigail Spanberger flipped the 7th District. I think at the beginning of the cycle, it didn’t seem very likely that Democrats would be able to flip that seat.

12:49.02

Sam Shirazi

However by the end they were able to do it and I think similar type seat Henrico suburbs that are kind of matched up with some you know so rural areas. I think Shannon Taylor she’s go to be doing well in the Henrico suburbs which is her base and she’ll be doing well in the Chesterfield suburbs. Wittman, he’s going to do well in the northern neck part Virginia, the rural parts Virginia along the Chesapeake. That’s his base. Perhaps the battleground region be closer to Hampton Roads where the district kind ends in areas like Williamsburg. And so see if that’s here the race is ultimately decided.

13:13.21

Sam Shirazi

And yeah, I mean, this is going to be a big big matchup. I think as much as the district has not really been super competitive in the past, this is the election that the Democrats are going to throw a lot at it. And I think, you know at the end of the day,

13:39.94

Sam Shirazi

this will be the race along with the second district to watch in Virginia in 2026 to see if the democrats can win a majority because if the democrats are able to win the first district I think there’s a very good chance they’re going to get a majority in the house of representatives. If they can’t win the first district doesn’t mean it’s impossible for them to get a majority, but it does make their life that much more difficult. So in some ways as much as I get the Democrats wanted this referendum to happen and the new maps to happen, Virginia is to be even more important in the general election now at least these two battlegrounds. Because if the gerrymander had gone through, there be that much attention paid to Virginia in the general election because at the end the day, the point the gerrymander was to elect Democrats.

14:09.56

Sam Shirazi

Now these seats are going to be very competitive. And so we’re to see a lot attention focused on Virginia like there was in 2018. So 2018, Democrats, similar situation. got Trump in the White House. Democrats were trying to flip the House. And they needed to win seats in Virginia. And they flipped three seats in Virginia. So Virginia in 2018 was one the top battleground states in terms the House. I think the same thing is to happen this time. Virginia is to be one the top battlegrounds.

14:33.35

Sam Shirazi

And the first district is really a ripe pickup opportunity for the Democrats. It’s, I think, still a traditionally Republican seat.

14:52.31

Sam Shirazi

I would you know say the republicans right now have an advantage But if the Democrats are able to really focus on this district, the national environment keeps getting worse for the Republicans. I think it’s definitely the type of seat that can flip So first district one to watch here in Virginia.

15:42.46

Sam Shirazi

All right, now let’s go down to the Second district. This in the Hampton Roads area, primarily in Virginia Beach, going into Chesapeake and Suffolk, and then going into the Eastern Shore. The current representative is Republican Jen Kiggans. She is being challenged by someone she defeated in 2022, and that is former Congresswoman Elaine Luria. And so I think there might be a primary for Luria, I think realistically we are looking at a Jen Kiggans, Elaine Luria matchup.

in 2024, President Trump very narrowly won district by you know less than a point. However, I do think this is the type of seat that sees a lot of swings and Spanberger won it by a healthy margin in 2025. And the second district is just the perennial battleground district. Every single competitive election nationally for the house the second district is going be a target. And I think you know the first, I think, is a little bit of a reach district for the for the Democrats. The second is a must win for them. I think if the Democrats can’t win the second district in they’re not going to a House majority.

16:14.47

Sam Shirazi

It’s just as simple as that. So I think if the democrats want a majority in the house of representatives they have to win the second district there’s really no way around it. And the thing is, I think the Democrats currently have an advantage in the second district for a couple reasons. One, it’s just such a swingy district. Every time it swings against the party in the White House, we saw it happen in 2022 we saw it happen in 2018. We saw it happen in 2010. It just swings against the party in the White House.

16:40.50

Sam Shirazi

So i think there’s a good chance just based off that the democrats have have a chance of winning the seat. And then if you think about some of the federal impacts do just cuts the federal government I think Hampton Roads has felt that. So again, one of those districts that is going to be feeling the federal fallout. So I think those two things, most people think Luria has an advantage right now not saying it’s impossible for Republicans to win it,

17:02.22

Sam Shirazi

and they’re probably going to throw a lot more at it now that it’s not going to be the gerrymandered version of the second. But also have to kind of be realistic about how much this this district swings. And Luria has previously represented the district. So I think she’s a good candidate for the democrats and again the first and the second are going to be the top two battles this year in Virginia All right, so we knocked out the big battleground districts at the beginning. The next few districts over more quickly. Third district that is in Hampton Roads, current incumbent is Democrat Bobby Scott. I don’t think he’s have an issue in the primary or general election, so

17:38.26

Sam Shirazi

expect a pretty easy race for Bobby Scott this year. We’ll talk about the fourth district this is in the Richmond area going down to southside current incumbent is Jennifer Mcclellan. Again, I don’t see she’s Democrat. I don’t think she is going to have a problem in the general election or the primary.

17:57.93

Sam Shirazi

Okay, now let’s talk about the fifth district. This one’s a little bit more interesting. The current incumbent is Republican John McGuire. And there are a few people running here, but I think the person who may end being the democratic nominee it sounds like he’s going to stay in the race and i think he’s going to run in the fifth is former congressman Tom Perriello who used to represent the fifth. Now on paper President Trump won this district by about twelve points in 2024. Which is you know not out of the realm of possibility. I think the challenge for the Democrats here is that even Spanberber in was not able to win the fifth.

18:31.49

Sam Shirazi

I think part of the the challenge here is this is a very polarized district. So The Democrats in this district tend to be concentrated in the Charlottesville area, so Charlottesville City and Albemarle County.

18:45.25

Sam Shirazi

That’s where a lot of the democratic bases and the the district also has a decent African American population so the democratic base is kind of the people in Charlottesville and the suburbs and then the African-American voters. And the Republican base here is really, rural working class white voters. And there’s a amount evangelical voters in this district because it is where Lynchburg is located and Liberty University. So i think there is a lot of things going on in this district in terms things that in theory make it competitive the Democrats, but also make it difficult. And I think this is just a district that is difficult to move for the Democrats. And it’s pretty inelastic. And what I mean that is it’s pretty easy the Democrats to get 40% in this district. And I think on a good night, it’s to be pretty easy Tom Perriello to get to 45% in this district. I think the question becomes can Perriello get up to 50%.

19:23.70

Sam Shirazi

It’s just one of those districts at some point you’re going hit a ceiling and Perriello in 2008, he was able to win during the blue tsunami, partly because he did okay with some of the rural white white voters. 2008, economy was doing a really badly. War in Iraq wasn’t going great. So I think was able to make some inroads with white working class voters. Can he do that again? I think much more difficult in this environment

20:06.39

Sam Shirazi

with with you know polarization that’s caught up to the democrats. It’s a long way of saying, I don’t think it’s impossible to win this district, but it it would really require a good night,

20:17.32

Sam Shirazi

possibly getting a type of swing that like we saw in 2008 where there was a blue tsunami, not just a blue wave. I think a blue wave democrats could probably flip the first and the second district. It would really require a blue tsunami for the Democrats to flip the fifth. And so I don’t want to say it’s outside the realm of possibility but i would not also be counting on the democrats flipping this district. However it does appear that Tom Perriello is gonna keep keep and keep trying to win this seat.

20:43.13

Sam Shirazi

Okay now let’s move over to the sixth congressional district that is represented by republican ben Cline. This is a pretty deep red district. I think Ben Cline was in a lot of danger with the with the gerrymander the new 6th District. However, the old 6th District is very red and i don’t think then Cline’s going have any issues in the primary or general election.

Okay, let’s over to the 7th Congressional District. The current incumbent is Democrat Eugene Vindman, and this district was a three-point Harris district in 2024. However, Spanberger did do better than that in 2025.

21:20.26

Sam Shirazi

In terms of the Republican primary, I think Vindman is going to be facing most likely State Senator Tara Durant. You know I think on paper this could be competitive I think the challenge over republicans are going to have again goes back to the federal fallout this is the type of district that you know It’s not really built for the Republicans to win in a Trump midterm. If you saw both in November 2025 and during the redistricting referendum, Democrats were able to do well in Northern Virginia, do well in Prince William County. So I just think it’s be hard to beat Vindman.

The Republicans might try to give it a shot. I don’t anticipate them spending a lot of money here because realistically they have a lot of incumbents they want to protect so I don’t think they’re gonna really try to go after a Vindman. But of the currently democratically held seats in Virginia, this one’s probably be the closest. So just something to keep in mind. oOkay now let’s move over to the eighth congressional district And that is represented currently Democrat Don Beyer. This is the bluest district in Virginia. And so I think any action here be in the primary. Beyer already has a couple primary challengers. The question is, do some the people are planning in the new seventh, remember the new seventh was supposed to be the lobster district.

22:26.00

Sam Shirazi

I think some the in that district are just to out drop out. They’re not to anything else. But I see some those people in the eighth. For example, does JP Cooney end up running? or anyone who’s in the seventh, they end in the eighth? I think it’s to be hard to beat Bayer in a primary, if being honest, just because he’s been preparing the primary a while. I think he knew he’d probably have a more competitive primary this year.

22:52.39

Sam Shirazi

So if I had to guess, I think Don Beyer is probably to be able to come back to Congress, even if he faces a serious primary challenger.

23:02.13

Sam Shirazi

All right, now we’re gonna to Southwest Virginia in the ninth congressional district. The current incumbent is Republican Morgan Griffith. This is the reddest district in Virginia.

23:20.82

Sam Shirazi

and this was going to going to be the only red district left in Virginia. However, that’s probably not going to happen anymore because of the redistricting. The thing is, I think Morgan Griffith is happy because there was a risk he could face a primary challenger from one of the other Republican congressmen in Virginia if the new map went into effect. That’s not going to happen. So i think he’s going to be safe both in the primary and general election.

Okay now let’s go up to Northern Virginia to the 10th congressional district. This is currently represented by Suhas Subramanyam. Now in 2024, this was actually kind of a close seat.

23:57.05

Sam Shirazi

And Harris only won the district by about seven and a half points. Subramanyam who’s a democrat you know he faced even a closer race he only won by less than five points. So in theory this could be a competitive seat i think again the problem the republicans are going to have Federal fallout, Northern Virginia, you know they’re just not this is not the type of environment that the Republicans are be able to flip a seat like this district. So I think both for the primary in general, the Republicans should be pretty

24:28.33

Sam Shirazi

unlikely i think republicans are unlikely to give this a serious effort and so i think Subramanyam both in the primary in general should be pretty safe All right. One last district in Virginia, and that is the 11th congressional district that is currently represented by Democrat James Walkinshaw. Again, a very blue seat, I think Walkinshaw will get a serious challenger in the primary or the general either. So I think that’s kind the lay the land in Virginia.

24:44.54

Sam Shirazi

Most the incumbents are to be safe. I think the incumbents that are in most danger are

24:52.44

Sam Shirazi

Number one is Jen Kiggans in the second because it’s just a perennial battleground district and it tends to swing against the party in the White House. And then the Number two most endangered incumbent is Wittman. If the Democrats get a night, if there’s a blue wave, they might be able to knock him even though he’s a longtime incumbent.

25:14.90

Sam Shirazi

And he’s had over-performances in the past. I do think in these wave elections, things can catch to And so I think that’s one thing Wittman has to be the especially because I think politics can swing back and forth. So we talked about the redistricting referendum. Republicans got upset. They were fired They got their voters out. They weren’t able to win the referendum, but it was much closer than I think a lot us expected.

25:36.46

Sam Shirazi

Now that the Virginia Supreme Court has ruled for the Republicans, I think a lot of Democrats are very upset and they are trying to channel their anger. And you know logically, if you’re in Virginia and you’re a Democrat, what you’re going to want to do is try to flip the seats you have a chance of flipping And so I think while, yes Kiggans is going to face a serious challenge i do think after Kiggans a lot of democrats are going to look to rob Wittman.

26:09.78

Sam Shirazi

as a potential incumbent that could be knocked off. And so I think in some ways, obviously, he’s happy that he doesn’t have to run in the gerrymandered district, or he doesn’t have to retire, but he’s not out of the woods. And I think And, it’s interesting the thing with elections is they can back and forth. I think in November 2025, Democrats were feeling pretty good and they got a big victory. And then we are in May 2026 and the Republicans feel pretty They won at the Supreme Court, Virginia Supreme Court. But.

26:29.61

Sam Shirazi

It’s less than six months away until November, and we’ll see how they both the Democrats and Republicans feel in November after we get the results and the voters make their final say for the midterms. okay so now i’m going talk about the future of the podcast you know i had been debating this for a long time

27:02.41

Sam Shirazi

And I think right now with the Virginia Supreme Court ruling it’s time for me to end the podcast. As sad as that is, I think the reality is this was really about the 2025 Virginia elections. I wanted to stick through to see the referendum. And now we have the Supreme Court decision that really is about the 2025 Virginia elections. This is kind of the book end of those elections. And This year in Virginia, the rest the year is to be interesting. Realistically, I don’t think the primaries are to be that much. There’s not going to be a lot. We basically the nominees are to be the major districts the primary. So I don’t think there’s a lot to talk there.

27:37.06

Sam Shirazi

Certainly the general election is going to be interesting. I just don’t know if there’s enough material for basically two congressional seats to do an entire podcast every week about you know those races. i’m sure they’ll be interesting to follow but I don’t really know if it justifies continuing the podcast. And you know I think for me personally, like podcasting, posting on social media you know it takes a lot of time and I want to be mindful of you know my priorities and and wanting to focus on things that you know matter to me, like my family. And so as much as I love doing this and I’ve really enjoyed it and I hope people have found it very useful, there’s also a time for everything and a time to move on And so I think as much as I want to,

28:18.34

Sam Shirazi

I think it’s time for me to hang it up with the Federal All Out podcast. It’s been an incredible I’ve appreciated everyone who’s come as a guest and who’s listened. And, I hope to perhaps it one day again. But I think the 2026 Virginia elections are to be as interesting as the 2025 Virginia elections. However,

28:38.34

Sam Shirazi

I hope that I was able to share some of my interest and passion in Virginia elections matter what, and show everyone how interesting they can be and how there’s always so much going on in Virginia. I really love Virigina. And you know no matter Where you fall in the political spectrum, you’re Republican, or Democrat, you’re independent. I hope you were able to listen to this podcast and get something out of it. And I hope we can all kind of come together after a very long referendum process to maybe, you know focus more important things in Virginia and and try to move on after the Virginia supreme court ruling so

29:14.22

Sam Shirazi

I think that’s going to be it for me with federal fallout. I’ve enjoyed it and I appreciate everyone who’s been listening and this has been federal fallout.

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

Hi, everyone. I’m Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fall Out of Virginia Elections. This episode, we will look at what’s next with Virginia redistricting, specifically what’s going to be going on at the Virginia Supreme Court now that the redistricting referendum has passed.

00:13.62

Sam Shirazi

So last episode, we kind of broke down the results of the redistricting referendum. I may talk about that some more down the line. However, I did want to talk about basically the next step in the redistricting referendum.

00:25.34

Sam Shirazi

saga that has gone on in Virginia. And that is the Virginia Supreme court, because while the Republicans put up a good fight, they weren’t able to defeat the referendum at the ballot box. And so before the referendum, they had brought a lot of legal challenges and now they are renewing those legal challenges specifically because the Virginia Supreme court has kicked the can down the road. The Virginia Supreme court said that they were not going to rule before the redistricting referendum, perhaps in their mind, they were,

00:52.00

Sam Shirazi

wondering if this thing won’t pass. And if it didn’t pass, that would bail them out essentially, and they wouldn’t have to rule on the redistricting referendum. However, it did pass. And now the Virginia Supreme Court is in the position where they said that they would rule if it passed and it passed. So now they have to rule.

01:09.15

Sam Shirazi

And I’ll kind of walk you through what happened in the last few days in terms of the legal process and what’s going to be happening going forward. So after the redistricting referendum passed, the Virginia Republicans went back to the judge that had previously ruled for them in Tazewell County. This is a deep red county in Southwest Virginia.

01:29.58

Sam Shirazi

Before the referendum, that had caused a lot of legal questions, which the Virginia Supreme Court eventually just said, we’re going to have the referendum and then we’re gonna figure everything out after the referendum. So long story short, Virginia Republicans go back to the judge in Tazewell County. The judge in Tazewell County, not surprisingly,

01:47.57

Sam Shirazi

ruled completely for the Republicans and basically said the redistricting referendum was not valid and interestingly prevented has placed the injunction telling the Virginia Department of Elections that they essentially cannot certify you a district referendum because it is not a valid referendum.

02:07.11

Sam Shirazi

And obviously, this is going to be appealed. Both the Democrats and Attorney General Jay Jones have said that they are going to fight this and take it to the Virginia Supreme Court. And we all know that the Virginia Supreme Court is ultimately going to make the final call. So none of that was really surprising. You saw some reporting saying, well,

02:24.18

Sam Shirazi

The redistricting referendum has been held to be invalid. We basically knew that judge was going to rule that way. He ruled that way before the referendum. It’s not a huge surprise. And we all knew that essentially the Virginia Supreme Court is going to be the one that is going to make the call because they are the highest court in Virginia. This is a complex issue of Virginia state constitutional law.

02:44.83

Sam Shirazi

And and The next few days are going to be important because on Monday, there will actually be oral arguments on this case. Now, it’s not exactly on the judge’s order that he issued right after redistricting referendum. it’s It’s basically a preexisting case. But I can’t imagine the Virginia Supreme Court is not going to be talking about the merits of the case.

03:03.04

Sam Shirazi

And ultimately, I expect them to just issue a ruling one way or another deciding this case. So there’s a lot of procedural stuff I don’t want to get bogged down in because ultimately, what’s going to happen is the Virginia Supreme court is just going to rule and they’re going say either. Yes. The referendum was valid or no, it wasn’t valid. And they can’t kick the can down in the road anymore. The reason they can’t kick kick the can down anymore is because,

03:25.22

Sam Shirazi

The filing deadline in Virginia for the congressional seats is May 26th. So if you’re a congressional candidate, you have to know which district am I running in because the districts look pretty different. That was the point of redistricting.

03:37.22

Sam Shirazi

So maybe under the old maps, you might run in district A, but under the new maps, you might run in district B. So, you know realistically, the Virginia Supreme Court does not have a whole lot of time. They have to rule by May 26th. And I anticipate that they will rule before that.

03:51.24

Sam Shirazi

And the thing is, I don’t think they were just sitting around while the redistricting campaign was going on. I think they needed more time to really understand this issue and to be able to come up with a decision that makes sense. However, they didn’t have that right before the redistricting referendum. They felt like they were being kind of rushed into it. So I think now they took this time during the redistricting referendum to try to figure out, okay, what are we going to do with this case? So I don’t think they were just sitting around doing nothing. And I do think this oral argument is going to be important because it kind of shows you know what are they... It could potentially show what they’re thinking, and and they’re going to be asking specific questions to the lawyers.

04:45.04

Sam Shirazi

So we’re going to have the oral arguments in the redistricting case on Monday in the Virginia virginia Supreme Court. I’m sure we’ll get you know some insights into what’s going to happen. And then i expect in May at some point they’re going to issue their final ruling and make a decision one way or another. – so I have had previous episodes where I kind of went really into the weeds about the legal issues. I don’t want to do that this episode because I think there’s a lot and you know I previously talked about it. What I wanted to talk about in this episode was something a little bit different and it’s really the framing of legal issues because I think that’s really important and it’s something that is not often talked about you know even among lawyers. I think it’s really important but lawyers don’t even think about this stuff sometimes.

05:28.52

Sam Shirazi

And what I mean by it is, how do you present an issue? Do you present it big picture or do you present it really into the weeds details? And I think lawyers are known for being sometimes very technical, very in the weeds, you know, quibbling over very minor things. And I think there is obviously that’s important in the law and you want to get the details right.

05:49.60

Sam Shirazi

However, I think some of the best lawyers, the real ability is to make very complicated things actually rather simple and not to overcomplicate things. So what I wanna do with this podcast is to actually make things relatively simple and kind of explain in more layman’s terms,

06:04.98

Sam Shirazi

what are the Democrats’ strongest arguments and what are the Republicans’ strongest arguments and kind of why they might win on either side. And I do think a lot of this comes down to framing and how does the Virginia Supreme Court look at this? Do they look at this more big picture, which is what the Democrats, I think, want them to do, is to look big picture?

06:23.06

Sam Shirazi

Or do they want it, or do the Virginia Supreme Court look at these things more in the weeds, details, which I think is more what the Republicans want to do? And I think this question of framing is really important because when it comes to a legal issue, it’s not just about, the way you approach the facts and the law. It’s really about how you’re thinking about the issue. And, you know, I had mentioned this before. So, uh, I am an attorney and sometimes when I’m grappling with legal issues,

06:49.60

Sam Shirazi

you get kind of bogged down in something, but then you kind of reframe it and you think about the big picture and it kind of changes the way you’re looking at the legal issue. And so I will kind of do that with the redistricting refer referendum. And I’ll start kind of with the democratic case or what the Democrats are essentially trying to tell the Virginia Supreme Court.

07:07.62

Sam Shirazi

And I think it’s really just big picture. Majorities of both the General Assembly and of the Virginia voters passed this thing. So if you think about what happened right before the election, the General Assembly, the Virginia House Delegates, the State Senate, majorities of those bodies passed this redistricting referendum. There was an election.

07:26.98

Sam Shirazi

The Democrats won that election. And then in January, the Democrats once again passed this thing with majorities in the Virginia House of Delegates in the Virginia State Senate. So twice in two different sessions of the Virginia General Assembly, this thing was passed with majorities. And then it was put on the ballot and a majority of Virginians, over 1.5 million Virginians, passed this thing and and voted for this thing. So essentially what the Democrats are arguing is the constitutional requirements have all been met big picture. If you look at the big picture, was passed in one session of the General Assembly. it was passed in another session of the General Assembly. A majority of the voters in Virginia passed this thing. So Virginia Supreme Court, do you really want to come in?

08:05.94

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, from the, from the Virginia Democrats perspective on some, you know, supposed that technicalities throw out this entire process because of, you know, these in the weeds things that the Republicans are raising, is that really what you want to do? And do you think that’s really the best use of the the court’s resources? And do you think that’s makes sense in terms of separations of power? Because in the Virginia constitution, the primary power to pass, uh,

08:32.32

Sam Shirazi

These referendums to change the Virginia Constitution lie with the General Assembly and lie with the people of Virginia. The executive essentially has very little, if basically no power, other than trying to put the referendum on the ballot through so to funding the ballot initiative.

08:48.20

Sam Shirazi

And the judiciary does have a role in reviewing the referendum, but there is no... David Pérez, Explicit role for the judiciary in the redistricting referendum process in Virginia. So essentially it’s kind of an argument about this thing was passed you as the court should not come in and overturn the will of the people, the will of the General Assembly. the Virginia Constitution gives these powers to the General Assembly, to the people of Virginia.

09:13.77

Sam Shirazi

these these The body of the Virginia General Assembly passed this thing, the people in Virginia passed this thing. So you as a court, it would essentially be anti-democratic or you’d be an activist court if you came in and essentially on some legal technicalities overturned this thing.

09:28.96

Sam Shirazi

That would be kind of the democratic argument. And again, they’re kind of framing this big picture. If you look at the whole process, It worked. You know, you could quibble here and there. The Democrats should have done this. the Democrats should have done that.

09:51.73

Sam Shirazi

and you will quibble with everything the Democrats did. And if you look at the lower court’s opinion, they kind of have a list of like 10 things the Democrats did wrong. It’s like, you should have done this, you should have done that, you should have done this, you should have done that. So that’s kind of what the lower court is saying. The lower court is saying you messed up a bunch of things in the process. And so, yes, in theory, General Assembly passed this, the voters approved it, but it doesn’t really matter because you didn’t do all the procedural steps you needed to do in order to get this thing passed. And again, I won’t go into the nitty gritty details because there’s a lot of them, but I’ll flag kind of the two big picture issues that I think are the most serious for the Democrats in terms of this redistricting referendum. One of them is that they were passed the the first time the redistricting referendum was passed through the General Assembly. It was right before the election.

10:38.88

Sam Shirazi

I think traditionally in Virginia, these referendums are passed months before the election. And, you know, I’ve talked about in my previous podcast. There is a question about, do you have to post these notices for 90 days before the election?

10:52.38

Sam Shirazi

And I think that’s one of the, essentially the argument that Republicans are making is that this was the first time this was passed, it was too close to the election and there wasn’t an an intervening election in between, or there wasn’t enough notice given give given in in terms of the election happening. And there was already a lot of early voting going on and all these things. So that’s essentially the Republican argument on that point. And I think the other thing that potentially the Republicans could make a point on is the ballot language. There was a lot of you know noise made by the Republicans about the ballot language being unfair. And specifically, it talked about restoring fairness. And I think from the Republicans’ perspective, this is the opposite of restoring fairness. It’s it’s making the maps unfair. From the Democratic perspective, obviously they’re saying it’s not fair that Virginia has to have nonpartisan redistricting while all the Republican states get to have partisan redistricting. So anyways, so essentially what the Virginia Republicans are trying to argue is the process was flawed. The voters weren’t given enough notice before the.

11:52.49

Sam Shirazi

David Baird, Jr.: 2025 Virginia elections and even in the referendum itself, the voters were not given the fair language. And so while yes, this thing was passed with majorities. Baird, It was not done in a clean way. It wasn’t done in a way that was legally sound. And so you should look at the specific things that happened along the way and focus on that. And if you focus on that, you’ll see that the process and the law wasn’t followed.

12:15.52

Sam Shirazi

And so don’t look at the big picture, look at the kind of nitty gritty details. And you know that’s kind of where I think this case is going to go. i expect the Virginia Supreme Court is going to be focusing on the details because they’re a pretty technical court. I think they’re pretty, you know they’re not going to just ignore some of these issues that Republicans are raising.

12:33.63

Sam Shirazi

Having said that, the fact that they’re exploring them or looking at them or thinking about them doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to strike down the referendum. And I do think, you know, we just have to wait and see what, how they’re going to approach this. And I could really see them going either way. a lot of people have said, you know, there’s no way the Virginia Supreme Court is going to overturn the will of the people, they’re not going to overturn a referendum where one point over 1.5 million people voted yes. I think that’s certainly possible. And as I mentioned before, these judges are human beings. so they are thinking about how is this going to look? They’re also thinking about, do I really as a judge want to overturn the will of the people?

13:16.28

Sam Shirazi

So I think there is a that is a legitimate argument that just from a practical standpoint, it is going to be very difficult for the Virginia Supreme Court to overturn this thing However, i do think the Virginia Supreme Court is the type of court where if they truly thought that there was a problem with the process and there’s legal issues with what happened, I don’t think that they would just let it go. i think they are you know a court that takes the law seriously, takes the Virginia Constitution seriously. And if they genuinely think there was a problem in the process, they are going to perhaps at at a minimum note that and

13:50.46

Sam Shirazi

you know they They might find a procedural way to get out of it, but I do think they are not the type of court that’s just going to ignore something or roll over and play dead because it’s politically convenient. I do think they’re willing to make difficult decisions. They’ve done it in the past.

14:04.44

Sam Shirazi

One example was in when Governor McAuliffe was governor, he started restoring voting rights to people who were convicted of felonies, and he wanted to kind of do that through a mass process where everyone would get their voting rights back at once. And the Virginia Supreme Court said, you can’t do that. It has to be an and individualized process. And I think that was an indication from the court that they’re not just gonna roll over and let the other branches of government do whatever they want. I mean, they are an,

14:33.18

Sam Shirazi

Jonathan Haidt, independent branch the Virginia government and their job is to put checks and balances on the General Assembly and the executive branch. And so I think Jonathan Haidt, if they’ve truly feel that the process was violated, think they would be willing to strike down the redistricting referendum.

14:49.66

Sam Shirazi

And you know there’s really no way for me to tell you what’s going to happen. I think we just have to wait and see. Unlike elections where I can look at data and I look in my you know try to look in my crystal ball, you know courts are much more unpredictable. And I think it’s really, really hard for me to give you any sort of sense of what’s going to happen. I think we’re just going to have to wait and see. And it’s kind of funny. I think the Democrats are just kind of moving ahead, saying we won, the redistricting referendum is happening, the new maps are happening. And the Virginia Republicans are kind of the opposite. They’re like, no, there’s major legal issues. We think we’re going to win the legal case. we won at the lower court. And they’re kind of operating the assumption that the old maps are going to be in going to be in operation. And, you know, it’s funny, I think they’re asking the members of Congress, what are you going to do? And members of Congress for the Republican side are still saying, essentially, they’re running in their old districts. So one way or another, someone is going to be wrong, either the Democrats

15:44.26

Sam Shirazi

overestimated how strong their legal position is. And that would be a pretty dramatic result if the Virginia Supreme Court strikes down the referendum and says, actually, this whole thing is not going to happen. The other alternative is that the Virginia Supreme Court upholds the new maps, and then the Republicans are in a very difficult spot because They didn’t win at the ballot box. They didn’t win in the courts.

16:04.04

Sam Shirazi

And they’re going to have to deal with these new maps. And I think it’s going to be interesting to see what the incumbent Republican members of Congress do in that situation. So I think we’re just going to have to see what ends up happening. There’s a lot to unpack, no matter what the Virginia Supreme Court ends up ruling. I think the next thing after the Virginia Supreme Court will be the actual primary on August 4th.

16:25.27

Sam Shirazi

And you know we’ll have to see, is it going to be the old maps, it going to be the new maps? I think there’s some interesting dynamics in those primaries if they end up going forward under the new maps. And we’ll talk about that once we get a little bit more clarity, but there’s a lot to kind of still unpack with the redistricting referendum. We got done with the vote, but in some ways that was the most straightforward part because we knew it was either going to pass or it’s not going to pass. Now we’re in this phase where we have to wait on the Virginia Supreme Court and then we’re going to see how did the primary shape up and

16:55.80

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, so lot to still cover in Virginia, even though the redistricting referendum is over and it was super interesting. And I appreciate everyone who’s been giving me some good feedback on some of the comments I made. And and I tried my best with the redistricting referendum to keep people educated.

17:11.95

Sam Shirazi

That’s really my goal. I’m going to try to keep people educated as this process goes through the courts. And then as we go through the primary, still a lot to cover in Virginia. I’ll be there with you as we go through the wild ride that is the Virginia election. So i appreciate everyone who’s been listening. 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

Hi everyone, I’m Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Will Fall Out of Virginia Elections. This episode we will go over the results of the redistricting referendum after the results came in on Tuesday night and it looks like yes is going to win by probably around 4% when all the votes are in.

00:15.61

Sam Shirazi

And yeah, really interesting results. Honestly, kind of what we expected based off the vibes, based off the polls. So what I wanted to do is kind of break down the results, talk about them a little bit. I will do further analysis in other episodes.

00:29.63

Sam Shirazi

But I think the the thing that I wanted to note at the beginning is this podcast is called Federal Fallout. And people who have asked me, you going to change the name? And I thought about it. But, you know,

00:39.74

Sam Shirazi

There is still a lot of federal fallout going on in Virginia. i think this redistricting referendum is another federal fallout, not simply because President Trump started kind of asking Republican states to redistrict, which led to a response in Democratic states such as Virginia.

00:55.88

Sam Shirazi

But really, if you look at the results, the reason why YES won this campaign was in Northern Virginia. In all of Northern Virginia, YES did much better than the Harris margin 2024.

01:07.67

Sam Shirazi

And given that this was a relatively close result, I think the reason you can say it passed was the federal fallout in Northern Virginia. Other parts of Virginia, like Southwest Virginia, no did better than even President Trump did in 2024. So there were parts of Virginia that were really upset at this redistricting referendum where the Republicans did well.

01:27.58

Sam Shirazi

But in Northern Virginia, a lot of votes, they just didn’t do that well. And I think the logical explanation is it’s federal fallout. People are still upset at what happened in D.C. last year and continuing into this year. Specifically, people are upset at Doge.

01:42.68

Sam Shirazi

I think you know it was really toxic for the Republicans. That’s why they lost in 2025. And I think this redistricting referendum, while it was closer, certainly the Republicans ran a better campaign. I think they made they they did their best to try to make this a referendum really on the maps and gerrymandering. But at the end of the day, in Northern Virginia, a lot of those voters are just single issue voters and they’re gonna vote against the Republicans because they’re just upset at what’s going on. So I’ll kind of break all that down. I wanted is to talk about a few things before doing more of a deep dive into the federal fallout.

02:17.20

Sam Shirazi

you know Long story short, I think the early vote, the vibes and the polls were all on the money you know in terms of the early vote There was an indication that the more rural parts of Virginia were upset and they were turning out a higher number. I think the results here show that.

03:05.07

Sam Shirazi

with this result. And then finally, wanted to talk about the vibes. I think the vibes were very clear that yes had an advantage, but it was not overwhelming. We all had a sense that this was going to be closer than 25. had said in my last podcast that I thought the most likely outcome was a single digit yes win, and we ended up getting a single digit yes win. So not a lot surprising other than I would say the regional dynamics in Virginia in this election. And what I mean by that is really the blue parts of Virginia in Northern Virginia got bluer as compared to 2024. Most of the rest of Virginia got a little bit redder compared to 2024. And some parts of Virginia, like Southwest Virginia, got much redder. And I think, you know, there’s clearly an indication there was people upset in Southwest Virginia at the at this map.

03:54.40

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, I think while The Democrats got a win and I don’t want to take anything away from them. A win’s a win. I do think it has hurt their brand in parts of Virginia.

04:04.26

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, this kind of increasing polarization we’ve seen between rural and suburban areas has continued and this referendum has made it even worse. So I do think... you know not to rain on the Democrats parade, but they do get a temporary victory for this decade with these new maps. But I think going forward, it’ll be even harder to sell the Democratic brand in Southwest Virginia, other parts of rural Virginia, because I think a lot of those voters were clearly upset. And you could see that in the results and the turnout. So I don’t want to pretend like this is 100% great news for the Democrats. They didn’t get an overwhelming victory. And it looks like it’s going to be less of a victory than the attorney general race

04:41.73

Sam Shirazi

in 2025, which was kind of my benchmark. I had said that if the Democrats got a bigger victory than the attorney general race, that’s a good night for them. I’d say, yeah i don’t want to say it’s a good night for the Virginia Republicans because they still lost, but I do think they did better than expected. I think at the beginning of this referendum campaign when really, you know, it looked like they had basically no shot and they made it competitive and they had a shot But look, in politics, coming up short is not good enough. Being close is not good enough. You have to win. And the Virginia Democrats won. And, you know, I don’t want to take anything away from them either.

05:16.14

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, kind of going back to the the beginning of what I was talking about at the beginning of the podcast, you know, people that talk to me are going to change the name of the podcast. You’re continuing it. But, you know, it’s obviously things are different in 2025.

05:29.01

Sam Shirazi

And I thought about it. One of the things I wanted to I was thinking about changing my podcast name to is one election after another, because i will talk about it probably in my next episode. But we will have a primary on August 4th in Virginia. So there’s going to be another election coming up.

05:44.38

Sam Shirazi

But I think the federal fallout concept is still valid in Virginia. And I do think, you know, we’ve gotten to this point where. The Virginia Republicans, you know, they are going to be very upset at Northern Virginia and they’re going to blame everything on Northern Virginia. And I get that. And I get that a lot of rural voters are upset at Northern Virginia. But I do think there should also be a little bit of self-reflection about why some of these counties voted so heavily against the Republicans again. And this is you know the second election and in a row where they very clearly sent a message that they were upset with the Republican Party.

06:18.68

Sam Shirazi

you know As I was looking, as the results were coming in, i had flagged Loudoun as really important. you know they get They report really quickly. And I was looking at the results in Loudoun and the final result seems to be about 61-39.

06:32.68

Sam Shirazi

And as soon as I saw that Loudoun was going to be 61-39, I basically knew it was over because there’s no way the Virginia Republicans can win in Virginia if they lose Loudoun by 20 points. like Loudoun being 60-40 Democratic is not sustainable for the Virginia virginia Republicans. like They need to get that margin into the... you know they need to be in the 40s to be competitive in in Virginia. and And they just weren’t able to do it tonight. Even though in some parts of rural Virginia, they made up a lot of votes. They did better than I think people were expecting in parts of Virginia, but there just aren’t a lot of votes in these rural counties.

07:08.76

Sam Shirazi

And so you can improve by 5%, 10% in some of these rural counties. But if if you’re not doing well enough in Northern Virginia, it’s not going to matter. Other parts of Northern Virginia, Fairfax County, biggest county, most populated in in Virginia,

07:55.21

Sam Shirazi

In 2021, Glenn Youngkin was able to keep these margins closer. For example, Loudon was about 55-45 in 2021. He did not write off Northern Virginia. That’s one of the reasons he won. He kept the margins close enough. He got the rural turnout.

08:09.32

Sam Shirazi

I think the problem the Virginia Republicans have right now is they basically just written off Northern Virginia and they don’t even try to compete there anymore. and you’re just not gonna win in Virginia anymore if you do that. And you you know they could say, well, that’s not fair or whatever. I mean, at the end of the day, you know politics is about winning.

08:25.85

Sam Shirazi

And you know unless the Virginia Republicans are willing to just completely write off Virginia, they have to figure out a way to compete in Northern Virginia. And you know things can change. I’m not saying it’s going to be like this for the rest of time, but I think during the Trump 2.0 era for the rest of his administration,

08:44.76

Sam Shirazi

I think the Virginia Republicans are just in a really bad spot. And there was a lot of noise about Spanberger disapproval and Spanberger’s unpopular and all this stuff. And, you know, I think there that is true in certain parts of Virginia. Certainly in Southwest Virginia, there was anger in Shenandoah Valley. People are upset. There’s no doubt that There are parts of Virginia that are upset with the Democrats and they’re upset with Governor Spanberger.

09:09.81

Sam Shirazi

But I think the thing the Virginia Republicans don’t quite get is that there are other parts of Virginia, certainly very populated parts of Virginia, that are very upset at what’s going on in D.C. and President Trump. And they’re essentially single issue voters. Like they they will not listen to any arguments the Virginia Republicans make, similar to how maybe in southwest Virginia, the Virginia that the voters down there might not listen to the Virginia Democrats. We’ve just gotten very polarized.

09:35.24

Sam Shirazi

And, you know you know, I don’t think it’s great for our country. I don’t think it’s great for the democracy and for Virginia, but that’s where we are. And and that’s what the results show. And I think one thing both sides really need to reflect on is how do they win in the other side’s territory? Because I think Spanberger did make some inroads in more in some rural areas, certainly in exurban areas. She made some inroads.

09:56.72

Sam Shirazi

But I think some of those areas are upset right now. And I think the Democratic brand has has taken a hit. So certainly the Democrats have gotten something out of this in terms of a win.

10:08.21

Sam Shirazi

from their perspective, hopefully they’ll get a 10-1 map. We’ll talk about the Virginia Supreme Court at another time, but hopefully they’ll get a 10-1 map for at least three three election cycles, 2026, 2028, and 2030. However, it it it comes with a cost. and in In politics, everything comes with a cost. And, you you know, I think at the end of the day,

10:28.04

Sam Shirazi

They have hurt their brand in rural Virginia. And so they’re going to also have to reflect on that. But again, Virginia Republicans, not in a good spot right now. i think they they put up a good fight. It was closer than I expected. i think they they certainly you know did a good job getting out their voters and spreading the message they wanted to spread. But as as I mentioned, I think a good chunk of voters, especially in Northern Virginia, are just unwilling to basically listen to anything the Virginia Republicans say because they’re so upset at what’s going on in D.C. And so that’s never a good sign if if a if a chunk of voters are are not open to your message.

11:05.77

Sam Shirazi

Anyway, so a lot to unpack there. And I wanted to kind of give you my thoughts and and why I thought yes had passed. You know, it’s funny because people were asking me, you know, it’s looking like no’s ahead. are you sure that yes is going to pass? And I told them, like, look, you just got to wait for Northern Virginia. You got to wait for Fairfax.

11:24.04

Sam Shirazi

You know, once I saw Loudoun early in the night, you know, I knew it was over. And, you know, yes, it was closer than I expected. But I think...

11:33.20

Sam Shirazi

it’s just one of those things like the numbers are the numbers and the votes are the votes. And if the Democrats in Northern Virginia are getting, you know, 70, 30 margins, and then in outer Northern Virginia are getting 60, 40 margins, combining that with the Richmond area and Hampton Roads, it’s just, there’s really no way for the Virginia Republicans to win. And, and you know, we saw that again in this election. And I had mentioned this in my podcast a a few nights ago. You know, I talked about how,

12:02.53

Sam Shirazi

Virginia Republicans have the ceiling around 45, 46 percent. I think they they got higher than their ceiling. They may hit 48 percent this time. So in some ways, that’s an accomplishment. But, you know, they’re just the geography and politics of Virginia is such that it is so hard for the Virginia Republicans to get to 50 percent.

12:20.18

Sam Shirazi

I think it’s going to continue to be hard for them. And it’s pretty amazing if you go back. really all the way to 2009. So, you know, over 15 years, the Virginia Republicans have only been able to win one stateide statewide election since 2010.

12:47.16

Sam Shirazi

Interesting election for sure. I don’t want to kind of talk about next steps or what happens next in this podcast because, you know, I wanted to kind of just mainly talk about the election results. There’s a lot to unpack.

13:00.89

Sam Shirazi

A major, major caveat to this election result is the Virginia Supreme Court. Perhaps after the Republicans, some of the most unhappy people in Virginia are on the Virginia Supreme Court because they are gonna be forced to rule on this issue.

13:14.95

Sam Shirazi

They clearly wanted it, not from a political standpoint, but but they were hoping, I think, from a legal standpoint that they wouldn’t have to reach the merits because if if no had won, they would just dismiss the case and say, there’s nothing for us to rule on. Now there will be something for them to rule on. They do have to reach the merits.

13:33.19

Sam Shirazi

You know, we’ll see how that plays out. I think there’s going to be oral arguments. We’ll have to see what the Virginia Supreme Court does. I think they’re truly nonpartisan, so I don’t think they’re going to be putting on their partisan hat, but they’re also human beings. And I think it is going to be a tough sell to the Virginia Supreme Court to tell right now there’s over one and a half million people who voted yes in this referendum to tell the you know Virginia Supreme Court to ignore those one and a half million people.

14:00.89

Sam Shirazi

on on very kind of technical legal grounds. i mean I do think there are some valid technical legal arguments that Republicans can make, but conceptually in 2025, the Virginia General Assembly, both the Virginia House of Delegates and the Virginia State Senate passed this thing with majorities.

14:17.94

Sam Shirazi

The Democrats won in 2025. The Virginia House of Delegates and the Virginia State Senate again passed this thing with with majorities. It got put on the ballot, a majority of Virginians voted for it. I mean, is the Virginia Supreme Court really going to say, actually, you know, we brushed off the Virginia constitution and this, you know, something in in there actually prevents this from going into effect? Maybe.

14:40.50

Sam Shirazi

i don’t i don’t want to discount that possibility, but I do think these people are human beings and we just have to see what they’re they’re willing to do. And I think the oral argument is going to be really interesting. I’ll follow the legal stuff because I find it super interesting and I’ll keep you updated, but not a whole lot I can say now other than we’re just kind have to wait and see how that shakes out. August 4th will be a primary in Virginia.

15:41.94

Sam Shirazi

really just a polarized election where, you know, the hardcore ne D’s voted yes, the hardcore no’s, hardcore Republicans voted no. You know, the independents probably slightly voted no, if I had to guess, but not overwhelmingly. And that’s why yes was able to get the win. You know, I’ll continue to unpack all this stuff up in my next episode and i will continue the podcast focusing on Virginia. As I mentioned, it’s going to be one election after another in Virginia.

16:09.19

Sam Shirazi

I think, frankly, the primaries, if the new maps go into effect, I think the primary is going to be more interesting than general election. So that’ll be something to keep an eye on. But anyways, always fun times in Virginia elections. I appreciate everyone who’s been listening. I get good feedback on the podcast, get good feedback on my social media posts. I really appreciate everyone.

16:30.71

Sam Shirazi

You know, my goal is to try to inform people. I try to be as objective as possible. Sometimes I give you my hot takes, but, you know, I’m not... My main goal really is education and to give people a sense of what’s going on without too much spin. And I hope people you know feel that’s what I’m doing because I don’t really want to you know increase the partisanship because there’s so much partisanship as as there already is in in this country and and in Virginia. My goal is everyone can listen and get get something out of these podcasts.

16:56.98

Sam Shirazi

So again, thanks everyone who’s been listening. i will continue doing it. 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

Hi, everyone. i’m Sam Shirazi, and this is Feroa Fall Out the Virginia Elections. This episode, we will go over the election day here in the Commonwealth of Virginia as voters go to the polls to cast their ballots in this redistricting referendum.

00:13.62

Sam Shirazi

And then at seven o’clock, we will start to see the results. So certainly an exciting day and the culmination of a... an Interesting campaign that is something that was unique in Virginia history, a redistricting referendum in the spring. And first I want to go over the vibes, see where we are, and then I’ll talk about what to expect as the results start to come in this evening. Adam So to begin with the vibes, I think this has certainly been a vibes election. And what I mean by that is we haven’t gotten that many polls.

00:40.70

Sam Shirazi

Honestly, in terms of the high quality polls that I trust, we only got two of them really with the ballot language. One of them was from the Washington Post-Shar school. The other one was from State Navigate. And they both roughly show the same thing about a five point lead for the Yes campaign in a likely motor likely voter model.

00:59.86

Sam Shirazi

And I think that is kind of where the vibes are. The vibes are there’s a single digit lead for the Yes campaign. This isn’t overwhelmingly a slam dunk for Yes. I think it’s certainly closer than 2025 in terms of the governor’s race.

01:15.45

Sam Shirazi

And so... I think the thing that’s been a little bit challenging as a political analyst is we don’t have a lot of data. I’m going to talk about the early vote a little bit, but obviously you like to get polls. You like to get multiple polls from multiple different sources to get a little bit of a range. And we haven’t gotten that. We’ve essentially got these two polls.

01:33.71

Sam Shirazi

I think both of them are solid polls. We had Chaz Naticom on talking about State Navigate. State Navigate was obviously very accurate in 2025. And so I trust they navigate Washington post. Sure also has a solid track record in Virginia. There’s been other polls and I haven’t really mentioned them. a lot of them have kind of been, you know, partisan junk that’s been put out there. And so I don’t want to spend too much time on it because I don’t think they’re super trustworthy.

01:58.90

Sam Shirazi

But there are not a lot of polls to go off of. So that’s challenging. I think the other set of data that we have to go off of are is the early vote. And, you know, I certainly like looking at early vote in Virginia. But I think there’s a lot, as I said, often an over extrapolation about early vote. And the really the thing we don’t know about early vote is how is how is it breaking down? We have a sense of, OK, these people probably are Democrats. These people are are probably Republicans, but we don’t know, are they voting yes or no? They could be voting more for yes than we’re expecting. They could be voting...

02:33.03

Sam Shirazi

for no more than we’re expecting. And there’s no way of knowing that until the results start coming in. So while I will talk about early vote a little bit, I am always hesitant basically every election to overanalyze early vote. So for example, in 2025, if I saw the early vote, I’d say, yeah that’s pretty good for the Democrats, but it didn’t look like a landslide purely off the early vote.

02:54.82

Sam Shirazi

And so If you showed me the early vote and then you showed me the final results in 2025, I wouldn’t be able to predict that just off the early vote because it showed the Democrats were doing well, but not that they were going to get a 15 point win in the governor’s race. There’s really no way of extrapolating that from the early vote.

03:10.95

Sam Shirazi

And again, there’s no way of really extrapolating what’s going to happen in this election off the early vote. I can give you some initial thoughts based on some modeling that State Navigate has done and that L2 has done in terms of the early vote.

03:26.34

Sam Shirazi

And most people are comparing the early vote to 2025. And I think that’s a fair comparison. And I think there are some things you can learn from the 2025 comparison. However, I’m also a little bit hesitant because I think it is a little bit of apples and oranges. So i I don’t want to go too crazy with the early vote analysis. What most of the modeling has shown is that the early vote compared to 2025 is a little bit redder, maybe two to three points redder, at least if you’re just kind of purely modeling party ID.

03:55.51

Sam Shirazi

you know I think there’s a few reasons for that. i I do think the Republicans are more energized this year than they were in 2025. You can see that in some of these counties, like rural red counties in southwest Virginia, where there hasn’t been any change to satellite voting locations. And the early vote is up in those counties. So I think i the early vote, you can say there’s a little bit more enthusiasm on the Republican side compared to 2025.

04:34.73

Sam Shirazi

And I think if you look at the turnout in some of the blue areas in Virginia, I think it’s pretty much matching 2025 with some minor exceptions. And I think those minor exceptions, for the most part, you can explain by changes in satellite voting locations. And you hear me talk a lot about the satellite voting locations issue because in some localities, it can make a big deal. So I’m going flag Chesapeake.

04:56.74

Sam Shirazi

Chesapeake is a locality in Hampton Roads, pretty big actually, even though you don’t always hear about it. Tends to be a swing county. Democrats did well there in 2025. There were a bunch of satellite voting locations in Chesapeake in 2025.

05:10.71

Sam Shirazi

There were zero satellite voting locations. There was only one early voting site in Chesapeake, which is a big county population-wise, big county geographically. And so naturally, we’ve seen a big fall in the early vote in Chesapeake this election.

05:24.89

Sam Shirazi

That doesn’t mean those people aren’t going to vote. It just tells me Because there were no satellite voting locations, those people are probably going to vote on election day. And so I think that’s where you start getting this apples to oranges type comparison where you can’t just purely compare 100% to 2025 because there will be in some places more election day turnout than there was 2025. So the fact that the early vote is a little bit redder than 2025. While I do think part of that is the Republican enthusiasm, I think part of that is also the reduced satellite voting locations. And another indication that might be the case is on Saturday was the last day of early voting. We got a lot of early voting, over 99,000 early votes Saturday didn’t quite hit the number of early votes we got in 2025 on the final day, again, because of the satellite voting location issue. But in a couple localities, I’m thinking about Arlington and Loudoun.

06:17.68

Sam Shirazi

Those two locations, which are generally, Arlington is very blue and Loudoun leans blue. Those two locations had the biggest day of early voting ever. So that includes presidential elections. So Loudoun and Arlington had more early votes on a single day on Saturday than they’ve ever had before. And that is telling me there’s something going on with the satellite voting locations. And I think that is part of the story. And so long story short, I do think there is a possibility on election day, we see more more votes coming out of blue localities that didn’t have as much satellite early voting as they did in 2025.

06:54.02

Sam Shirazi

I think when you when you take that all into account, I think the early vote is perhaps a little bit redder when you’re looking at some of these counties. There’s a little bit more enthusiasm for the Republicans. so But it’s not to the point where I can tell you who’s going to win or I can give you a confident number based on the early vote. I think we can say... It’s going to be closer than 2025 governor’s race. I can say that pretty confidently based on the polls, based on the early vote. It is going to be closer than 15 points, which is not a super surprise. and i And I think this is where the vibes analysis comes in.

07:49.25

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, why do I say that? I will say this just kind of honestly. i think the Republicans are more fired up than they were in 2025. yeah you know For most of that year in 2025, the Republicans were in pretty bad shape. I think at the end with the Jay Jones story about his text, there was a little bit more enthusiasm, something a little bit more to wake up Republicans. But even then, i think it was it was not...

08:12.45

Sam Shirazi

that great. And you could just tell the the Democrats in 2025 were much more energized, much more before i fired up. I think this time, the Republicans have more energy. think There’s more grassro grassroots kind of activism to try to push the no vote. so And you see that a little bit in some of these early vote in some of these rural counties being a little bit higher than 2025. So I do think in terms of pure vibes, the Republicans are doing a little bit better I think Democrats certainly have energy as well. The question becomes, you know besides the hardcore partisans, how excited are kind of the soft Democrats for this? and I think the Democrats have had to do a lot more persuasion. They’ve had to spend a lot more money. I think in 2025, Spanberger as a governor’s candidate was a pretty easy sell. I think she appealed to soft Democrats. She appealed to independents. I think it was just easy for someone to spamberger for someone like Spanberger to get a 15 point win in Virginia in 2025. I don’t want to say easy, but I could see how it happened because of her candidacy and the energy that was on the Democratic side. I think this time it’s a little bit of a harder sell to say we’re going to gerrymander Virginia.

09:18.66

Sam Shirazi

i think it was an easier sell for the Republicans to say don’t gerrymander Virginia. So I want to say that in terms of the vibes. I think that’s why we’re seeing a closer election than 2025.

09:29.49

Sam Shirazi

And the question really becomes, how close is it going to be? Is this going to be five-point race? Is it going to be a one-point race? It seems like this is kind of a default election in Virginia. And what I mean by that is 2025 was a little bit of the anomaly where It was a blowout. And, you know, if you look at most Virginia elections, they tend to be relatively close.

09:52.80

Sam Shirazi

The last time it was not super close was in 2020 when President Biden got about a 10 point win in Virginia. And so even on a good night for the Virginia Democrats in 2020, it was a 10 point win. So if you think this is kind of a competitive election, maybe not, you the most competitive election ever in Virginia, but certainly a competitive election, it’s going to be less than 10 points just by default. Like Virginia is just not the type of state where you’re going to see these huge blowouts very frequently. I think that’s why 2025 was such a big deal because we did see a blowout and it’s pretty rare. Like if you think about 2021,

10:29.02

Sam Shirazi

twenty twenty one Glenn Youngkin won in Virginia. He only won by two points. 2017, there was a bit of a blue wave, but even at that blue wave, it was a nine-point win for Ralph Northam. 2023, it was a close win for McAuliffe.

10:43.97

Sam Shirazi

And really the last time the Republicans got a landslide in Virginia was in 2009. So you see that in in Virginia... It tends to be a middle of a road type state. And I think something like partisan gerrymandering is not going to have the landslide type of victory you saw in California. And the other thing I should say is Virginia is a pretty polarized state. There are a lot of rural areas, a lot of white working class voters. i think Chaz and Natico mentioned this. Parts of Virginia have voting patterns like the South that is very racialized voting. And so all that’s to say is like, it’s just hard for the Democrats to get these big wins in Virginia. And, you know, 2025 was a little bit of a perfect storm.

11:37.75

Sam Shirazi

And so all that’s to say is I think the vibes most people’s gut is telling them it’s going to be a single digit victory for yes. You know, I think that is probably the most likely outcome based on the polls, based off the early vote, based off the vibes. So, you know, if I was betting, I would say that it’s going to be a single digit victory for yes. However, I think there is a universe where no could win.

12:01.04

Sam Shirazi

I think what would have to happen would be really good election day turnout in rural areas and really bad election day turnout in more blue Democratic areas.

12:11.79

Sam Shirazi

And then we would, on top of that, need to see a lot of persuasion, a lot of independence, and even some soft Democrats moving over to no. And essentially, it would be kind of a redo of what Glenn Youngkin was able to do in 2021, where he juiced up turnout in rural areas, and he kept the margin in suburban areas close, and he was able to get a two-point win.

12:31.22

Sam Shirazi

I think it’s not out of the question we see that. I don’t think it’s the most probable outcome, but I do think there’s a path for no. Conversely, I do think there’s a path for yes, maybe not to get to 15 points, but maybe to get to 10 point win where we do break double digits. I think what you’d see is a lot of turnout on election day in more democratic areas, perhaps just kind of okay turnout in rural areas.

12:54.76

Sam Shirazi

And then the final late deciders who are kind of the soft Democrats, they go towards yes. And so we see kind of a bigger than expected win for yes. I think that is also on the table. So so we’re seeing that range. And, you know, I don’t, there’s really no way of me telling you what’s going to happen. I think we’re just going to have to wait for the results. So I think, well, it’s interesting to look at the polls, look at look at look at at the early vote, look at at at the vibes.

13:19.65

Sam Shirazi

I think at this point, you know, we’re going find out soon enough. So, you know, just wait and we’ll see what the results are on election night. Okay, so on that note, let’s turn over to what to expect on election night. You know, essentially...

13:32.72

Sam Shirazi

In my opinion, the nice thing about Virginia is that they report results relatively quickly. So I think we’re not going to be waiting around for weeks trying to figure out what happened unless it’s super, super close. I think we should have a good sense fairly early on what is going to happen. So polls will close at 7 o’clock.

13:50.67

Sam Shirazi

That first hour, we will start seeing results. Typically in Virginia, more rural counties, rural areas report first. So you may see some... David Buhlman- Lead initially for the no campaign and then later on, the more urban and suburban county counties start reporting. David Buhlman- want to give a shout out to Chaz Netticombe State Navigate and his team for their what’s called nav casts, so I would recommend looking at that i’m going to be looking at that on election night and what nav cast is essentially a program where.

14:20.05

Sam Shirazi

they are inputting the data as it’s coming in, in terms of the results. And then based on their model, going to see which side is more likely to win. So, you know, even if, if, if no is winning a rural County, let’s say 60, 40, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good thing because perhaps the model had expected the rural County to be 60, 40. And so it’ll show, okay, yes, still has a 75% chance of winning or or whatever. So I’m just kind of making up numbers, but you see what I’m saying? It’s, It’s less anecdotal based on you know random reports and more based on a systematic analysis of all the reports coming into Virginia. So definitely give a shout out to NAVCAST.

14:57.80

Sam Shirazi

im getting I typically like to look at the official results through the Virginia Department of Elections website because you can see where are the votes coming in, which counties are they coming in.

15:08.70

Sam Shirazi

And then within the counties, you can see, okay, the votes are – early votes versus election day votes versus mail votes. and And all those are slightly different. And so it’s important in a county to realize where the votes are coming from.

15:22.79

Sam Shirazi

So you may have, and even within a county, there are some parts of the county that are red, some part county that are blue. So even if you see, for example, a county where no is up or yes is up, you have to kind of figure out where are the votes coming from. Is it election day? Is it early vote?

15:39.36

Sam Shirazi

I will say, here are my expectations. I expect the in-person early vote to be slightly for the yes campaign. I expect the mail votes to be for the yes campaign very strongly.

15:51.81

Sam Shirazi

And then I expect the election day to be slightly for the no campaign. and then So those are the things we will get on election night. And unless it’s super, super close, we should get a sense of who’s who’s won on election night. I expect we’ll get a good a batch of votes by eight o’clock. And then usually by 9, 10, I don’t know if officially it’ll be called by the AP, but it’ll be basically we all kind of sense of what’s going to be going on.

16:15.51

Sam Shirazi

And then in terms of when are the final, final votes going to be counted, there are two batches of votes that get counted after the election, after election night. Those are the provisional ballots, which are typically same day registrations.

16:39.41

Sam Shirazi

at the local election offices until Friday at noon, if they’ve been postmarked by election date. So you have those final batches of votes. Typically, they’re not massive amounts of votes, maybe in the tens of thousands, which obviously in a close election are going be really important.

16:53.77

Sam Shirazi

But if it’s not super close, we don’t necessarily have to wait for those votes to make the final call. And typically, those last batches of votes tend to be Democratic. So if it is super close, then we’ll have to keep a close eye on it. But my guess is that on election night, we should know And I’m guessing we should know hopefully by between 10 and 11, unless it’s super close. And if it’s super close, you know, it’ll really come down to some of those final votes.

17:19.33

Sam Shirazi

I don’t anticipate it being that close of an election. And even in... 2021, which is an election that was within 2%, we were able to call that on election night. And even before the formal call, I think most people get a sense of, okay, we we kind of know where this thing is going. and And, you know, the nice thing about Virginia reporting so quickly is pretty quickly you have a sense of the night. And and I’ll talk about the infamous Loudoun moment in 2024, which was a bad news for the Democrats. And then in 2025, Loudoun’s results were good news for the Democrats. So in 2024, Virginia is one of the first states in the country to close its polls.

17:58.00

Sam Shirazi

And there were some results that came in from Loudoun County that showed it, which showed President Trump doing better than expected. And I think Loudoun is usually pretty good for a big county and and somewhat of a swing county or at least a a somewhat competitive county. It usually reports pretty quickly.

18:14.24

Sam Shirazi

And so I think once we get the Loudoun results, we’ll have a good sense. In 2024, we got the Loudoun results in. It showed that Harris was gonna win Virginia, but it was closer than I think a lot of people expected.

18:26.09

Sam Shirazi

And I think that was an indication of how the night was going to go for the Democrats. Conversely, in 2025, we got Loudoun in relatively quickly and it was looked very good for the Democrats. Spanberger got a huge win and Jay Jones was getting a bigger margin than Harris got in 2024. And I think once Loudoun came in in 2025 for Jay Jones, I think we had a sense of he was going to win. And I could see something similar this time with Loudon, depending on how the number comes in for Loudon. And my benchmark for Loudon is about 60-40. I think if Loudon comes in sixty forty for the Yes campaign, that’s a good sign for them.

19:02.44

Sam Shirazi

Probably that means they’re going a single-digit win. So if it’s 60-40, once the mail is in, once the early vote is in, once the election day vote is in in Loudoun County, I think I would be pretty confident in saying that yes is going to win.

19:16.79

Sam Shirazi

If it’s even bigger than 60-40, if we’re seeing 65-35 in Loudoun, that means it’s a very good night for yes and that it could be a double digit win for the yes campaign. Conversely, if it’s very relatively close in Loudoun, if we’re seeing fifty five forty five for the Yes campaign in Loudoun, I think that’s going to be a good night for the No campaign. And obviously, if if No even gets close to winning Loudoun, I think that’s a very good night for No and a very bad night for Yes. So keep an eye out on Loudoun. I think it’s an important county.

19:45.95

Sam Shirazi

Everyone always looks for it. It reports pretty quickly. So keep an eye out for Loudoun. The other thing I’ll say is some of these big Democratic counties, Fairfax, Prince William, they take a while to report because they got a lot of precincts. They have a lot of voters.

20:01.02

Sam Shirazi

It’s different than a rural county that has, you know, a few thousand votes. Fairfax County is going to have tens of thousands of votes. And so it’s just going to take a while to process and and they’ll post later. And so I wouldn’t necessarily, you know, go crazy if the early votes are showing no up because,

20:20.18

Sam Shirazi

That is traditionally the trend in Virginia is the Republicans tend to do well at the beginning of the night and then slowly as the night progresses, the Democrats do better. And then by the end of the night, usually the Democrats end up winning Virginia. So I think as much as we all like looking at the results coming in, it is a little bit of a scattered results and they’re not really uniform. And so I wouldn’t go too crazy as the results coming in. Look at the Navcast, i kind of have some common sense. Okay, there’s no votes from Fairfax or, you know, just just kind of understand how votes are coming in. And I think one thing to keep in mind, like the New York Times, I often look at their elections webpage, and I think they do a good job for the most part, but they don’t always tell you, is it early vote that’s coming in? is it

21:06.56

Sam Shirazi

election day. So for example, in a county, yes or no might be up, but that’s because, you know, maybe it’s only the mail vote or maybe it’s only election day. So I think you just really have to be careful.

21:18.08

Sam Shirazi

Again, I’m not going to dwell on it. I think pretty quickly we’re going to get a sense of how things are going. And, you know, every you see all sorts of stuff being posted and anecdotal stuff. And some of it drives me crazy and I can’t comment on everything on election night. So that’s why I’m kind of giving you this preview and and just you know I’ll give you some accounts to follow on election night to maybe not drive yourself crazy. i Definitely recommend my account. So I’m on the you know social media. So look look me up. Chaz Netticombe and his team at State Navigate have put a lot of thought and effort and work into the election. So definitely would would follow Chaz and his team at State Navigate. And there’s definitely other people who do really good job.

22:02.97

Sam Shirazi

Don’t want to list them all because I’m going to leave someone out and I’ll feel bad about it. But definitely, you know, keep keep in mind when you’re seeing things online. some Some of it might be good. Some of it might be bad.

22:13.65

Sam Shirazi

And yeah, I’ll i’ll do some bad podcasts to unpack the results. I think no matter what happens, it’s going to be a really interesting night. This has been a unique election. All eyes are going to be on Virginia.

22:25.29

Sam Shirazi

i think we haven’t had a competitive election in a while. yeah And so everyone’s excited about this one, even if you know No matter which which side you are on, I think if you’re truly just a interested in elections and people going to the polls and democracy in action, this is a really great election to watch. And yeah, so I’ve appreciated everyone who’s... Rouxet- Gone on this ride with me, which is a redistricting referendum.

23:03.49

Sam Shirazi

you know It never ends in Virginia. The elections go on and on. and yeah i mean it’s It’s always interesting following Virginia elections. I appreciate everyone who’s been listening. I will catch you on the other side of the redistricting refer referendum. 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

Hi everyone, I’m Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout the Virginia Elections. This episode we will go over the final days of the redistricting campaign and some of the dynamics we might see as the results start coming in on Tuesday.

00:12.44

Sam Shirazi

But before I get to that, I did want to talk about something a lot more tragic and that is the news that I’m sure many of you have heard about former Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax.

00:23.51

Sam Shirazi

and his wife. For those of you who are not aware, the former lieutenant governor shot and killed his wife, and then he took his own life. Obviously, a very tragic situation.

00:34.68

Sam Shirazi

My heart goes out to their children and the Extend family, and just a really, really awful news that came out this week. I did want to talk about it because, obviously, it’s an important event.

00:47.21

Sam Shirazi

I’m not going to give you my commentary. There’s really nothing more for me to say other than It’s just a huge tragedy and I’m sorry that it happened and I wish everyone involved who knew them the best as they continue to process this this horrible event.

01:02.68

Sam Shirazi

So anyways, I will turn over to the redistricting referendum because it is coming up. It is going to be on Tuesday. All eyes will be on Virginia as the results start coming in. So on this Saturday, April 18th, this is the last day of early voting. Early voting will be going on across Virginia.

01:19.54

Sam Shirazi

The satellite voting locations are open. So we’re going to probably see the biggest day of early voting definitely so far. for this election and then possibly could be the biggest day of early voting for a Virginia state election in Virginia history. We’ll just have to wait and see on the final numbers.

01:34.42

Sam Shirazi

I think, honestly, the early voting is pretty much what we expect or what it typically is in these elections where on paper, the Democrats have an advantage, roughly 60-40 advantage. That’s traditionally what happens in Virginia.

01:46.84

Sam Shirazi

I think The caveat to that is the Democrats could be not doing as well as they did last year. And we’ll talk about some of those dynamics. But I think at the end of the day, I don’t think the early vote going to tell us a whole lot other than turnout probably going to be pretty high. I think we’re going to be approaching the turnout of 2025 and potentially we can get more turnout to hit 3.5 million voters, which is very high for a state election, also very high for an election that is not a general election. It’s a special election in the spring.

02:15.58

Sam Shirazi

So not going to turn talk about turn early vote so far until we get the final numbers. And then, you know, probably I’ll do one last podcast before the election and I’ll give you kind of my final hot take on Virginia early vote.

02:27.38

Sam Shirazi

This episode, I wanted to talk about a different dynamic, which is what I call the dynamic between the shy yes voters. versus the no skeptical independent voters. and what And I’ll unpack what all that means, but I think sometimes in elections, there’s just a complete focus on turnout.

02:45.66

Sam Shirazi

And you know from what I’m seeing, I think turnout is gonna be high on both sides. I think Democrats are getting out their voters, Republicans are getting out their voters. That’s why it’s gonna be a high turnout election.

02:55.88

Sam Shirazi

I think honestly, the Republicans are doing a better job than they did in 2025 in certain parts of Virginia. But that doesn’t mean they’re going win just off, you know, slightly better turnout because 2025 was a really bad year for them.

03:08.36

Sam Shirazi

And while the turnout is up, unless something really, really crazy happens on a election day, it is not astronomical Republican turnout. And certainly compared to the Democrats, the Democrats are keeping up with the Republican turnout.

03:19.14

Sam Shirazi

So if we’re comparing this election to maybe the 2025 Virginia governor’s election, i Democrats won by 15 points. Perhaps Republicans will get some better turnout than they did last year. That’s really only going to give them a point or two. I can’t imagine that they’re going to overcome 15-point deficit purely on turnout. There just aren’t enough Republicans in Virginia to do that. So I think while the turnout dynamic is important, it’s part of the equation for the Republicans, I just don’t think turnout is is necessarily going to win it for them. And I think for Republicans, the turnout is sufficient, but not necessary. In other words, they need to get turnout, but just having good turnout not going to win it for them. And frankly, I think the Democrats have more upside in terms of turnout. Why? Because remember we talked about the satellite early voting locations.

04:04.58

Sam Shirazi

A lot of places like in Northern Virginia, Richmond area, Hampton Roads, there were reduced satellite early voting locations. And so I think in theory, there could be a lot more Democrats coming out on Election Day, just purely based on that dynamic where there was less early voting this time. And I also think some of the voters, the Democrats...

04:24.24

Sam Shirazi

potentially could get out or or some of the lowest propensity voters like young voters who typically don’t show up for an election like this. You know, it’s possible the Democrats get them out on Election Day. So I think in some ways, the Democrats have more of an upside in terms of the early vote, excuse me, in terms of getting out more turnout.

04:40.32

Sam Shirazi

However, the Republicans certainly could drive up their rural turnout. And, you know, the thing with rural voters, a lot of them The counties are big geographically. There’s only one early voting location.

04:50.49

Sam Shirazi

And for a lot of these people, it’s a lot easier to go five minutes down to your local polling place than it is to go all the way to the early voting location that could be 30 minutes away. So I think there’s a lot of unknown with election day turnout dynamics. I think the Republicans could have a surge. Democrats could have a surge. Both sides could be surging.

05:07.10

Sam Shirazi

But kind of bottom line with turnout, I just don’t think that the Republicans can win purely on turnout alone. They’re going to need persuasion. I think the good news for the Republicans is that they are getting persuasion more so than they got in 2025, which is again, not super surprising because 2025 was such a low bar.

05:23.96

Sam Shirazi

But what I mean by they’re getting persuasion is that the Republicans are winning more people over to the no side than I think perhaps people had predicted, at least according to some of these polls. We had Chaz Nadiqom on last time. He talked about how true independence, people who don’t lean one way or another, are breaking towards the no side. i think that’s good news for no.

05:46.54

Sam Shirazi

So I do think that no people are getting these persuasion dynamic on their side. And I think at the end of the day I talked about what I describe as kind of skeptical independents who are under leaning no. and And those are the true independents that Chaz Natikom talked about.

06:02.70

Sam Shirazi

And i think that’s good a good thing for the Republicans and the no campaign. However, you have to keep all of that in context, because if you think about the no campaign, they’re winning over some of the independents. But the people who are probably less least likely to come out,

06:18.70

Sam Shirazi

you know, in terms of Democrat, Republican, true independent, I think are the true independents, because this really just seems like more of a partisan fight. fight. And so a lot of independents may just think like, and i don’t have a dog in this fight. I don’t really care.

06:31.49

Sam Shirazi

I don’t like gerrymandering, but I’m not going to bother go vote because I don’t like Trump or I don’t like the Republicans, whatever reason. So I think that’s kind of the challenge the No Campaign faces is that they have this pool of voters who are true independents who probably don’t like this idea of gerrymandering. But unless they’re very high propensity voters to begin with, they may not really love the idea of coming out and voting for this.

06:54.95

Sam Shirazi

And I think the true independents fall into kind of two categories. One is the high propensity true independents, people like older people, wealthier people. I think those people are coming out and that’s helping the no campaign. i think the problem for the no campaign is that there are another group of people who are kind of low propensity, true independent voters. Those are typically more working class people, typically younger people. And those people, I just don’t think are going to show up for an election like this because they just don’t really care. They don’t care one way or another. This isn’t like the most important thing in their lives. And so I think that’s going to be the challenge the no campaign is going to have is they’re doing well on

07:30.07

Sam Shirazi

persuasion, but can they turn out those true independent voters who aren’t kind of hardcore Republicans? And I think that’s where kind of turnout and persuasion intersect, where you have this dynamic of people who are probably going vote no, but they just don’t have a reason to show up because it’s just not a top priority for them.

07:48.35

Sam Shirazi

And I think that’s going to be one of the dynamics to look for. And on the other side, in terms of the yes campaign, I think you may see a dynamic which I call in the shy yes voter. So what does a shy voter mean? A shy voter means someone who doesn’t love their voting for something, doesn’t they don’t want to advertise it to the world, they don’t want to tell pollsters, but at the end of the day, when they get in the voting booth, they’re going to vote yes. And I think we talked about this last year with the shy Jay Jones voter.

08:12.93

Sam Shirazi

Someone who doesn’t want to admit they’re voting for Jay Jones for whatever reason, but they end up voting for him. And I do think there was some of that going on in the attorney general race. And that’s why Jay Jones got a bigger win than almost all the polls were showing was because people ended up going to vote and they voted for Jay Jones, even though they weren’t telling the pollsters or they may have been an undecided, but they got into the booth and they just voted straight ticket D and I think that some of that could be happening because I think there are a group of people who

08:42.39

Sam Shirazi

Again, they’re kind of high propensity voters. They’re going to vote no matter what. They don’t like Trump. They don’t like Republicans. And when they get in the booth, they’re just going to say, you know, I don’t love either option. I don’t like gerrymandering, but I really think it’s important to perhaps send a message or perhaps to even the playing field nationally. So I’m going to vote yes. They may not you know be putting a sign out on their lawn. They may not be screaming it from the top of their lungs. They may not be telling pollsters, but when they get into voting, both they’re going vote yes.

09:09.56

Sam Shirazi

But again, there’s that turnout dynamic. So you’re going to see those shy yes voters, the high propensity ones, older, wealthier, those people are going to show up. But then you may, and I think this is the problem the yes campaign may have is you have the The low propensity shy yes voters. So these are people like I would say probably young people, people in college don’t really care too much about this either way. They’re just kind of out of it and they’re not going to vote because this isn’t the top priority in their lives. And again, they’re not you know living and breathing politics. So I think on both sides, you have the persuasion and turnout dynamics intersecting.

09:43.55

Sam Shirazi

I think the question becomes, you know, who does a better job? Do the shy yes voters turn up? Do the skeptical, independent, no voters show up? Does all that happen all at once?

09:55.04

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, Chaz Natico mentioned this. I mean, I think there is a possibility where Democrats just kind of plow through, they get the turnout they need, and they get to like 51 or 52%.

10:06.33

Sam Shirazi

And it’s just, it’s not pretty, but at the end of the day, they get it to pass. I think that’s one dynamic. And most people seem to think that’s where things are leaning towards at this point. think the other dynamic is If things break one way or another, if there’s a lot more shy yes voters than we think, I mean, I think this could be close, not not that close at the end of the day and could be maybe a fifty five forty five result where you you even hit double digits.

10:29.95

Sam Shirazi

I think if there are more us kind of skeptical no independents who turn up, this could be close. And I think in an ideal universe for the Republicans, I think there is a a way they they have a path to get to know. The path would be that Democratic turnout is down among low propensity voters, young voters.

10:47.83

Sam Shirazi

Republican turnout is high among the you know hardcore base, including their low propensity like rural voters. And then they’re getting a lot of persuasion on the no independence. And they’re also getting a lot of no independence to go vote because they you know, are able to to motivate those people to go vote because, you know, those people may not like gerrymandering. So I think a lot of things have to go right for the Republicans. Basically, all the Democrats need to do to go right for them is they just need to get out their base. And that probably gets them to 50%. I think a lot needs to go right for the Republicans to get to 50%. And I think there’s a common problem that we see in Virginia where

11:25.39

Sam Shirazi

the Virginia Republicans, like it’s pretty easy for them to get into the 40s. It’s pretty easy for them to get up to 45%. We saw that with Miárez, but they just can’t overcome that hump of 45% for whatever reason, probably because, you know, the combination of suburban votes and African American votes, it’s it’s easy for the Democrats to get 50%.

11:44.38

Sam Shirazi

Just the Republicans, they have that ceiling around 45, 46% in Virginia. And i think you know We’ll see if they’re able to cross it. The the one you know time they did cross it was in 2021 when Glenn Youngkin won, and he was able to get up to pretty much 51%. I don’t think that’s impossible here, but I also think it is a different environment than 2021. It’s a different environment than 2025. So 2021, we obviously had a Democratic president. It was right after the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

12:16.72

Sam Shirazi

President Biden’s approval rating was going down. So I think it was just a good national environment for the Republicans and Glenn Youngkin and the Republicans in 2021 kind of seized the opportunity and won. Same thing 2025, Democrats, good national environment for them. They had a strong Democratic candidate with now Governor Spanberger. You had a relatively less strong candidate with Lieutenant Governor Winston-Marcel Sears. So Democrats were able to seize the moment, get a big win, a landslide. I think I mentioned this before, politics is about being president and 2026 is different than 2025. It’s different than 2021.

12:52.55

Sam Shirazi

How are things even between 2025 and 2026 different? i mean I would say the natural environment is actually worse for the Republicans right now than 2025 because you know oil prices have gone up, gas prices are up. you know There may be some news in the next few days about potential deal with Iran. But, you know, regardless, the prices are elevated and people are not feeling that great about the economy. The cost of living crisis has continued. So I think the national environment is certainly not great for the Democrats. But you have to kind of look at some space state specific dynamics here in Virginia. Specifically, Democrats now have a trifecta. They are in complete control of Virginia state government. You know, we’ve talked about Spanberger’s approval. There’s a lot of, you know,

13:35.87

Sam Shirazi

talking points about Spanberger going left and the Democrats are you know passing all these taxes, which you know almost none of them actually passed, but that’s what’s getting into the media ecosystem. So I think At the end of the day, the democratic environment is not as great in Virginia compared to 2025, the state environment.

13:53.92

Sam Shirazi

And I also think we’ve talked about this. I mean, the idea of gerrymandering is not as popular as Spanberger. So like in 2025, the person who was on the ticket for the Democrats was Spanberger. In 2026, what is essentially a proxy for the Democrats is let’s gerrymander Virginia.

14:09.53

Sam Shirazi

Certainly some hardcore Democrats, they’re very happy with that and they want to gerrymander Virginia. A lot of other people, including a lot of the true independents we talked about, they don’t want to gerrymander Virginia. So I think 2026 is going to be its own thing. It’s not this kind of, you know, we do have 2025, have 2021.

14:27.20

Sam Shirazi

lot of people have mentioned that the closest election this is probably similar to is 2025 attorney general race. A lot of the same dynamics we talked about shy Jay Jones voters, skeptical independents.

14:51.22

Sam Shirazi

Yes campaign is able to do that this year, or if the no campaign is able to keep those skeptical independence as skeptical independence and they don’t go over into becoming shy yes voters. I think there’s a lot going on. This election, I think, is a lot harder to read than 2025. The vibes are different. There’s a lot fewer polls.

15:08.74

Sam Shirazi

so i could i could see like a huge range of possibilities everything from a close night where no just pulls it out to a 10 point yes win and that really depends on how the turnout is looking even more so than turnout dynamics i think it’s really going to depend on the final persuasion you know people getting to the booth sides are making a push i’ll say that the democrats are you know doing their best to convince people that this is really a way to send a message on President Trump. And they brought in former President Obama, who’s done videos, and he’s trying to kind of persuade Democrats. On the Republican side, you have people trying to make this all about, you know, the unfairness of the maps, and then also similarly kind of attacking Spanberger and kind of using this election as a way to attack Spanberger.

15:57.35

Sam Shirazi

And I think the one thing i’ll I’ll kind of end on is I don’t know if the Republicans’ strategy of making this a referendum on Spanberger necessarily is going to work because I think while there are people who are kind of upset at Spanberger, if you look at approval ratings, there are more people upset at President Trump than Governor Spanberger. And so the question becomes, does this become a referendum on Trump? Does become a referendum?

16:18.81

Sam Shirazi

On Spanberger, you know, we’ll see. It could be a referendum on both. I think if it if it’s referendum on Trump, I think the Democrats clearly they’re going are going to win that.

16:29.66

Sam Shirazi

I think it’s a referendum on Spanberger. It’s going to be close. And so I think if we we see a close result at the end of the day, I think that’s an indication this became a referendum on Spanberger. I think if we don’t see a close election and the Democrats and yes, win by a fair margin, I think we can say that this has become a referendum on Trump. And it’s really kind of a crazy experiment. We don’t know what’s going to happen. There haven’t been a lot of polls. you know Everyone’s gut is like, yes, has a single digit lead.

16:56.86

Sam Shirazi

But, you know, we don’t know until the votes start coming in. So I think it’s going to be really interesting. I will probably do one last podcast before the election once we get the final early voting numbers, once we get any final polls.

17:08.86

Sam Shirazi

But really, this is the dynamic that’s going on. And I think, you know, just keep an eye out on the fact that people are not as vocal, I’d say,

17:19.30

Sam Shirazi

about this when you’re in the middle or you’re kind of an undecided voter. I mean, you you hear the people, on the Republican side, who are very loud and they are upset by this. And then you see people on the Democratic side who are excited about this. They want to send a message. They want to view this as a way to, you know, push back on D.C. and what President Trump’s doing. And you know those people are both loud. I think the people in the middle who don’t really talk about this, they don’t really want to, you know,

17:45.95

Sam Shirazi

advertise what their views are, I think those people going to really important. And it’s it’s hard to get a read on that because unlike a presidential election where you know a lot of those people may have opinions, something like this, that they’re going to be convinced probably in the last few days. And that’s why you’re seeing a lot of advertisements. I know there’s kind of jokes about all the TV ads and all the mailers. I’ve i’ve gotten a lot of mailers. I’ve seen a lot of TV ads.

18:08.23

Sam Shirazi

Certainly a lot of money being is being spent on both sides, even though I’d say the Yes campaign had a slight advantage. Not a slight advantage. They they had more money. But the the no campaign got a kind of a late injection of money as well. So end of the day, we’ll have to wait and see. I think that’s what’s exciting about this election. We don’t know. I will certainly be here to cover it all. Obviously, once we get the results, I’ll kind of do the post analysis of all that. And then once the referendum is done, we’re going to have to think about legal challenges at the Virginia Supreme Court that still exist. We have to think about the primary that’s going to be coming up for the congressional seat. So a lot to still cover in the

18:42.97

Sam Shirazi

Virginia elections, never a dull moment. And I appreciate everyone who’s been listening. And this has been Federal Fall Out. And I’ll join you next time.

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

Hi, everyone. I’m Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout the Virginia Elections. This episode, we will have Chaz Netticombe back on, and it’s the perfect time because State Navigate has put out a new poll, and I really want to go over all the details with Chaz. So thanks for coming back on.

00:16.60

Chaz Nuttycombe

Hey, Sam, thanks for having me. Thanks for having me on. You know, I think last time it came on, I was there’s less data to work with. And now there’s a little more data to work with now that I’m happy to talk about that our poll has fetched.

00:27.94

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, definitely. So your poll got a lot of attention. In 2025, you were, i would say, among the pollsters that polled every race in Virginia, you were the most accurate pollster. So I think definitely when you drop a poll, I’m going to be paying attention. And this one, i think, in some ways what was what we were expected expecting, but I think had some surprises in there, too. So do you want to kind of big picture go over the poll to begin with?

00:52.51

Chaz Nuttycombe

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, like what I will preface with is I have a saying, which is I don’t care who wins. I care about being right.

01:01.97

Chaz Nuttycombe

Right. It doesn’t matter. The candidate it doesn’t matter. This is the first poll we’ve done for like a issue. Right. For the constitutional referendum or referendum, whatever. So, you know, i care about being right. That is my job as a forecaster and as the executive director of State Navigate. and And, you know, also my co-forecaster’s job, right, Jack Kersting, is...

01:24.99

Chaz Nuttycombe

You know, we and and a polling team committee, their job, you know, all our job is to just look, this is let’s let’s cut through the noise and and look at the signals. Right. and And let’s try and do the best work we can to let people know where things are heading.

01:41.20

Chaz Nuttycombe

you know what i will say is i i you know i guess kind of gut feeling is i’m not as confident in getting this one right right whether it be the poll or you know i i do think that the yes referendum probably has uh maybe like an 80 chance of winning thereabouts And that’s just because it’s been 100 years since 1928, not 100 years, but pretty 100 years since there’s been true blue constitutional referendum around this Right? Yeah.

02:11.30

Chaz Nuttycombe

since you know there’s been a true blue you know a constitutional referendum had held around this time So this is a whole different beast and I’m kind of going off of what worked for us in that second survey. Right. Technically, the first survey was, you know, a little bit more accurate than that second survey. However, you know, i think we kind of got lucky in that when it comes to like who when it comes to like the raw responses we got in there. and We were very aggressive in this poll with trying to get a raw response electorate, you know, that was close to the target weights we have.

02:53.18

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, you know, like we did a great job with these raw responses. But yeah, so, you know, we there’s a whole bunch of interesting things in this poll. You know, it’s it’s maybe exciting, maybe not exciting. Right. If you saw all the GMU Sharpsville WAPO poll, maybe it’s not as exciting to you. You’re like, oh, OK, well, they’re in the same boat this time. Right. we, we were, first place last year, in Virginia, I think, uh, Sharskul Wapo was in third or at at least fourth. so they did pretty good. you know, I think they had Spanberger plus 12. We had Spanberger 13, but, you know, I think the big difference there was the attorney general race.

03:31.45

Chaz Nuttycombe

so, you know, it, it, Like I was i was texting you know David Ramadan, you know professor at GMU, and you got to work a little bit on the pole that GMU, sharp school did.

03:44.10

Chaz Nuttycombe

And i said a I said something to the the tune of, you know we we win together, we lose together this time, right? i think I think nobody can ever accuse me of of hurting, right?

03:57.23

Chaz Nuttycombe

If I were ever the one to hurt, that would have been like last year or something. You know, it’s like, I had what weights, you know, i had in mind looking at the 2025 election and 2021 and everything, you know, this electorate is a little bit different than 2025.

04:21.56

Chaz Nuttycombe

You know, if you were to look at like, I don’t know, the, you know, like CNN exit poll or whatever, or just the exit poll.

04:30.76

Chaz Nuttycombe

It’s not like C it’s, I think CNN is just one that pays for it. it’s, it’s similar to 2025, but little bit, a little bit little bit different. so, you know, and it, it, a big part is the partisan waiting here is, I think it was plus eight in, that survey, the late October survey, it’s plus 11 here.

04:48.92

Chaz Nuttycombe

Why is that? Well, if you were to look at the second survey methodology stuff, I put a section of, look, this is the process is how we went with the partisan weighting, which is the most important part of your poll.

05:01.19

Chaz Nuttycombe

And the big part in short is the Gallup quarterly national party ID. And so,

05:10.74

Chaz Nuttycombe

You know, the the in Q3 2025, it was plus seven Dem national. Well, it’s plus 10 now as of Q1. And I was really happy to where, you know, the that that I had this data available before we were I knew we had to go in the field.

05:27.77

Chaz Nuttycombe

I messaged the the wonderful people at Gallup like, hey, is this gonna drop? And then they responded as soon as it dropped. It was like maybe April 1st or 2nd or whatever. I was like, thank God, you know. So, you know, we’re using pretty much the same methodology that we did in that second survey.

05:43.75

Chaz Nuttycombe

And, you know, in, so getting to the results, let’s get to results here. Yes, it’s up five, right? That was what the likely voter model and the WAPO Schar School had, if I recall correctly.

05:57.62

Chaz Nuttycombe

And then it is for the governor’s approval, even. what’s What’s pretty interesting here before we get into like the the sexy parts, right, which are those two things, Trump’s approval is actually a point net approval and actually just approval rating is a point better than compared to that second survey.

06:18.65

Chaz Nuttycombe

which is really interesting because his national approval is five points worse. So there’s three potential things here. Either one, we’re going to be wrong and underestimate the Democrats again, maybe slightly, or maybe by a lot, who knows? Or the national polls are wrong.

06:36.04

Chaz Nuttycombe

Or, and I think three is the most likely culprit. There is a floor for Donald Trump and Republicans in Virginia, right? You know, especially with how I think Virginia is not as racially polarized as say Alabama, right? But we still have a level of racial polarization. And I, and I think that’s the thing. We are a Southern state, no matter how much people from further down the Mason Dixon line want to say we’re Yankee land, we still are a Southern state in so many cultural and demographic ways, right?

07:09.72

Chaz Nuttycombe

So I think that is really the thing here is that there is a floor and it looks like, you know, maybe the low 40s is Donald Trump’s floor. So you’re not going to see like, well, it should be five points worse because that’s what the national point. of That’s what the national, you know, poll show. Well, it’s going to be a little bit different compared to like maybe like the Midwest where you have.

07:30.26

Chaz Nuttycombe

you know, a little more elasticity in the electorate, right? I mean, Corey Stewart still quote unquote only lost by 16, right? And the same thing with Winsome Sears winning by, or sorry, losing by 15, what, 15.3%, 15.4, whatever decimal was. I think the likely culprit here.

07:46.67

Chaz Nuttycombe

point four whatever the tenth decimal so i think that’s the likely culprit here but yeah. I just wanted to kind of talk about that cause I thought that was really interesting.

07:58.15

Chaz Nuttycombe

the other, you know, getting into the top lines, yes, campaign, should be favored in this look. There’s financial advantage. Donald Trump is still in the white house and he is nationally increasingly unpopular. The black vote in the early vote has been very strong.

08:13.34

Chaz Nuttycombe

That is somewhat offsetting, but not entirely offsetting. Very strong Republican turnout in rural areas and exurbs that were asleep at the wheel in 2025. But, you know, look, I mean, the elect the electorate is, or the early early vote is, what, maybe two or three points better than at this point 2025.

08:36.61

Chaz Nuttycombe

probably three points actually now, if not four, because as we’re recording, there’s this you know big thing on the reduction in satellite access being shown on our interactive, right? Because it updates every day.

08:49.46

Chaz Nuttycombe

So I think the early vote is like at least three points redder than the overall early vote as we are recording, maybe four.

09:01.12

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, and that’s sort of an interesting thing in our poll where, you know, the people who say that they are going to vote early in person and, or vote by mail, are bluer compared to what we had in our late, that that question is pretty much a bluer result compared to the October survey.

09:22.36

Chaz Nuttycombe

So in the in the October survey, people who said they were going to vote early in person, they have not voted yet, but they plan to, you know, they were breaking for Jones by three points. This time.

09:36.87

Chaz Nuttycombe

it is 10 points for vote early in person. And then it is five point swing when we talk about, you know, comparing like Jones and yes and all that sort of thing for for people who say they’re still going to vote by mail.

09:52.20

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, you know, and I think the reason why this is is because of the reduction in satellite access. I think this is this is probably of a good theory as why this is. so You know, a good signal, right, to watch for every day or the next few are over through, what, Sunday, Monday, when we get the final votes.

10:16.49

Chaz Nuttycombe

Let’s really say, or final early votes, I mean, you could really say Tuesday, I guess, because people are still counting mail maybe on Monday, or almost assuredly they are.

10:26.35

Chaz Nuttycombe

is to watch our interactive and look at the model, which is not trying to figure out, it it’s not saying that yes is winning by almost 20 points, right? Dems are, it’ it’s using Lieutenant Governor results from last year and acts as a sort of partisan model because the Lieutenant Governor result was the closest to what we call in political science like a normal vote, right? Meaning like people how they normally vote for you know their party preference, whereas like a What is it? I’m trying to remember the of the opposite. I think it’s called an earned vote.

10:58.91

Chaz Nuttycombe

It’s from a policy paper I read back in college, but just pretty much, you know, like an earned vote is is kind of like someone who’s getting something on persuasion, especially if they’re incumbent.

11:08.95

Chaz Nuttycombe

But so we use that. So just check the interactive every day, especially after, so you know, the big super light saddle, sorry, satellite Saturday, super Saturday. Right.

11:22.61

Chaz Nuttycombe

And, you know, if the early vote is getting at least two points bluer, I think that is a good sign for our poll. And you can check the, you know, state navigate Twitter account for, you know, those updates starting, starting tomorrow.

11:40.53

Chaz Nuttycombe

But yeah, so that’ll be a big thing to watch for. So, yeah, I mean, the early vote expected to be closer than compared to the early vote numbers in 2025. Yeah.

11:58.23

Chaz Nuttycombe

Yeah,

11:59.82

Sam Shirazi

Well, could I ask you a question about the poll?

12:01.86

Chaz Nuttycombe

yeah shoot.

12:02.97

Sam Shirazi

So, you know, top line number, up five, kind of yes, up five makes sense. You know, that that’s kind of what where the vibes are.

12:11.38

Chaz Nuttycombe

Yeah, everyone’s talking J.

12:11.66

Sam Shirazi

i did want

12:13.34

Chaz Nuttycombe

Jones margin, J. Jones margin, right?

12:15.28

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, exactly. But I did want to note, you know, a tidbit in the poll where you had. 10% of the poll, 9% essentially of the poll being what I call like true independence and Noah’s winning them by 24 points, even though in your last poll in 2025, Jones was winning those by nine points.

12:31.10

Chaz Nuttycombe

Exactly.

12:36.29

Sam Shirazi

So I guess the other question I had is, In exit polls, typically in Virginia, you see about 30 something percent of people describing themselves as independents.

12:44.93

Sam Shirazi

It seems like here you have a more strict definition of what independents are. So can you just explain how what independents are in your poll and why they’re breaking for no, in your opinion?

12:49.58

Chaz Nuttycombe

exactly

12:55.69

Chaz Nuttycombe

Right. So this is the thing when we talk about party ID and and the way that pollsters do it. And this is also how Gallup does it. So, I mean, they do both. Gallup has both. And, you know, and we also show both. But we wait to the push.

13:12.35

Chaz Nuttycombe

Wait to the push. What does that mean? Well, so when we ask, what party do you identify with? Yeah, there’s a lot of people who say they’re an independent. Okay. Well, you know, Americans are very independent minded and they don’t like the two party system.

13:24.46

Chaz Nuttycombe

Big whoop. Well, you still have a lot of those independents, you know, two thirds of those who say that they lean toward one party or another and they pretty much, you know, maybe 75 to 90% of the time, something like that. i don’t know. Depending on the state and the election and your electorate.

13:42.54

Chaz Nuttycombe

will vote for their party preference, even though they say that they do not identify with that party, right? So about one in 10 Virginians are actually truly independent.

13:51.99

Chaz Nuttycombe

You know, we follow up with people who say the first time we ask what party you identify with, they say neither. We follow up with, okay, we understand you’re an independent. Which one do you say you lean more toward? And then, you know, you get like,

14:06.19

Chaz Nuttycombe

You know, typically the Dems have a advantage with that. The one exception is 2021. If I recall correctly, I don’t have those, you know, it’s it’s in the second poll from October, the late October survey, which is our final one.

14:22.08

Chaz Nuttycombe

But I believe actually in that election, there were more people in Virginia who say they identified as a Republican than as a Democrat. And that’s because nationally, more people started to move toward identifying as a Republican than a Democrat when they voted in 2021. But either way, typically in each election, there’s about 10% of voters who say that they do not lean toward either side. These are true, actual, very persuadable voters who swing violently between, you know, probably every four years when there’s a Virginia governor election, right? 10% of the voters who actually pretty much matter when it decides to who rules Virginia.

15:06.53

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, yes, in our late October survey, we had independents going to Jones by nine. Now, what I will say is... You know, that also includes probably some of those independents who voted for Jones before they knew about the stories.

15:24.32

Chaz Nuttycombe

So I think if anything, that number is a little bit inflated. But if you were to take the Jay Jones number of nine points in 2025, you and then you, you know, looked at the no margin here, where no has a 24 point advantage.

15:43.100

Chaz Nuttycombe

And you take the margin and everything. That is a 33 point swing toward now. Now, in the CNN, or not CNN, they they sponsored it, but in the exit poll last year, right, which, you know, is pretty reflective after they weighed it after the election results of the 2025 electorate.

16:01.26

Chaz Nuttycombe

you would have, and you know, it’s it’s not perfect because it’s an exit poll. and There’s better ways to do this, but still, it’s pretty close, I think. You had Jason Mieris winning independents by 8%, right? So either way,

16:15.42

Chaz Nuttycombe

right so either way twenty 20, 33 point swing or anywhere in between or whatever. i mean, that’s enormous. That is enormous ground that the Republicans campaigning as the no campaign have made since November.

16:33.48

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, uh, that’s, that, that is a huge thing here. And the thing that is keeping yes up is because, you know, if you look at the quarterly party ID, is now D plus 10 rather than D plus seven, in Q3, right. When we were making our waiting decisions, you can read more in the article on that.

16:55.93

Chaz Nuttycombe

the The thing that’s keeping yes winning is because, you know, their base is showing up, especially black voters. They’ve been targeting black voters a lot. And I said this during the, you know, the early voting process as we were looking at what areas were turning out more relative to the same day equivalent in 2025. Right.

17:13.85

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, and and why are they targeting black voters? Well, pretty much black voters in this election are going vote pretty much partisan baseline. They’re not, can they’re not moving at all.

17:23.55

Chaz Nuttycombe

Right. Do it a little bit better. The no campaign is doing a little, a little bit better with black voters compared to like win some Sears, but win some Sears lost by 15 points.

17:34.31

Chaz Nuttycombe

You know, the no black voters only 10% say they’re voting. No. you know, no campaign unless they have, you know, a strong election day turnout, which I think they are banking on.

17:45.87

Chaz Nuttycombe

And, you know, independents making up a larger share of the electorate and maybe probably also their Republican base coming out on election day, making up a little bit larger share of the electorate than compared to, you know, if you were to treat this as a gubernatorial election because of the turnout, what it would be. That’s something they’re also counting on, right?

18:04.54

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, you know, if they weren’t counting on all that, then they would need to have like 20% of the black vote, which they’re just, they’re just not getting, point blank period. So, uh, we’ll see how well that ages. Maybe it’s, maybe it’s not, but like, you know,

18:18.43

Chaz Nuttycombe

They try, you know, there’s all these stories about them, you know, sending black voters mailers and trying to, you know, I guess get them to think it’s a Republican a thing if you vote yes or whatever. Right.

18:32.57

Chaz Nuttycombe

Doesn’t seem to have paid off. Excuse me. Paid off. Has not really been effective. Uh, so, you know, like that, that is a big thing. but again, you know, like, so the, the, the yes campaign is mainly targeting hardcore guns and they have been doing a good job at getting them out.

18:53.85

Chaz Nuttycombe

Now, that being said, i mean, I’m not saying this is 2021, but I feel like that was also, the the Terry McAuliffe strategy would suggest this is a base election. Let’s get out our base.

19:07.19

Chaz Nuttycombe

don’t care about persuasion because they’re not winning on the yes campaign is not winning on persuasion in They know that people are upset with president Trump. And if they can get all these hardcore Dems and they’re, you know, sort of, let’s say a support score for Democrats of like a six to eight or six, seven, right.

19:30.11

Chaz Nuttycombe

To come out and vote. Yes. Then they win. Right. I mean, it’s just this is a thing in Virginia elections. You know, this is a special election, whatnot, but probably at the end of the day, a majority of Virginians or sorry, a majority of registered voters in Virginia are going to be voting in this thing.

19:48.27

Chaz Nuttycombe

You know, and i don’t think that all of a sudden we’re going to see an electorate that looks like 2021 where, you know, the party ID is going to be like R plus three to five. Right.

20:01.33

Chaz Nuttycombe

This is still going to be a Dem leaning election. So, yeah, that’s just couple of things there.

20:08.15

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, yeah

20:09.63

Chaz Nuttycombe

Yeah, I just want to talk about the income thing if you wanted to talk about that.

20:13.68

Sam Shirazi

yeah yeah, go ahead.

20:15.71

Chaz Nuttycombe

so, you know, and we’ll, we’ll talk about this in Spanburn approval, when we get to that, but you know, the, the areas when we talk about like what this coalition is going to look like, it’s, it’s, I think it’s good to look at the attorney general race, maybe a mix between baseline attorney general race and governor, uh, in terms of like what the, uh, not, not like, oh yes, it’s going to win by 15 points. But in terms of like, if you’re going to model this out,

20:41.50

Chaz Nuttycombe

you know, like the areas that had the biggest amount of Spanberger-Mieris voters were wealthy voters, right? Wealthy areas, Western Chesterfield, Western Henrico, you know, Cape Henry and Virginia Beach, around there in Jason Mieris’ old territory, right? Kind of wealthier part of Virginia Beach.

21:01.24

Chaz Nuttycombe

Northern Arlington, you know, these wealthy areas in Virginia, right? are swinging heavily from the governor election to the, you know, the the no campaign.

21:30.97

Chaz Nuttycombe

Yeah.

21:32.67

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, you know, let me let me pull out this graph here in the poll. So amongst income, people who make $150,000 more a year, and that’s what, this is self-reported, by the way.

21:46.34

Chaz Nuttycombe

So sometimes people lie on these things. But still, people who make $150,000 and we’re using this recall, we asked about that in the poll they’re swinging People who make to a year,

22:04.31

Chaz Nuttycombe

ten point five percent the lowest income voters not moving so much moving to no by seven percent so I think it’s very similar to what we’re going to be seeing in the attorney general race versus governor race and and whatnot, in this election.

22:20.65

Chaz Nuttycombe

so yeah, and, and there’s stuff to talk about with the the approval there, but we’ll get to that when we, whenever you want to move into it.

22:27.56

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I did want to ask about that. But let me just ask one more question about the referendum, because I think, you know, it’s it’s essentially a state election because it’s a change of state constitution. And so we think about 2021 or we think about 2025.

22:41.17

Sam Shirazi

However, i mean, I think there’s an argument that it’s essentially a proxy for a federal election. and is it you know Your number is basically similar to the 2024 number.

22:50.93

Sam Shirazi

like Is this basically a rerun of 2024 or maybe like a rerun of 2024 combined with 2020? Is it maybe more of a federal or presidential type electorate in terms of partisanship?

23:26.54

Chaz Nuttycombe

If anything, I think we are the catalyst of it. Right. so, and then it’s like, no, I mean, the, the electoral coalition is going to be different. you know, look, uh, my, my, we’ll see what happens. I feel good about our poll.

23:42.58

Chaz Nuttycombe

I don’t feel as good about this poll compared to 2025. And again, like it’s a special election. We haven’t had something like this in a hundred years, you know,

24:15.10

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, Yeah, that’s that’s all I want to say on that. Yeah, we can talk about margin.

24:18.94

Sam Shirazi

Yeah.

24:32.32

Chaz Nuttycombe

By top line margin, yeah, that’s what our poll shows. But, you know, like kind of what was getting at is my gut feels like this is going to be closer. I don’t know, man.

24:52.66

Chaz Nuttycombe

A lot of unknowns, especially election day, right? It was 55%, uh, sorry, 57% of 2025 overall Our poll would insinuate that that would be probably 47 or 48% of the overall vote if you were to account for normal response error that we had in that second poll in October. So,

25:13.34

Chaz Nuttycombe

so You know, but, you know, we aren the team has worked very hard on this. I think we did an excellent job, especially with the raw responses.

25:23.02

Chaz Nuttycombe

So we’ll see if it is closer. Or maybe we underestimate the Dems again, like I said, toward the beginning of the podcast. Got no idea. All I know is GMU, Shard School, WAPO, you know, them, we are both in the same boat.

25:37.48

Chaz Nuttycombe

So we we we go down together or we win together. So...

25:42.92

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, well, I mean, that’s all really helpful in terms of the referendum itself. And I think we covered a lot. I mean, I wanted to just talk about the specific number with Spanberger because there’s just been a million hot takes about Spanberger and her approval.

25:56.93

Sam Shirazi

And your poll found that Spanberger’s approval was even, even after she won by 15 points in 2025. You know, what is your hot take on the Spanberger approval? And like, why do you think it is even in this poll?

26:10.66

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, you know, i think Dwayne Yancey had a really good article on this. I think part of it is they’re, you know, Republicans have done a good job at getting Republicans angry and maybe some right leaning independents angry with the governor who voted for her.

26:25.30

Chaz Nuttycombe

I think they did a good job on that. you know We can quibble about like, oh, well, it’s all over. you know Mostly bills or only some part of bills that she hasn’t signed or haven’t gone into law.

26:36.10

Chaz Nuttycombe

You could also make the argument is like, well, you know she’s gonna sign that gun bill. So in Republicans care about guns, this is a natural phenomenon in polling. I only know like half of of the saying, but pretty much Republicans boo louder when it’s someone or something that they do not like. You will see that in a survey. They will boo louder. And you can actually really see it, I think, in the questions where we show people the maps and we ask about, you know, you know, just individual questions related to, you know, the message testing that both campaigns have used. And I threw a little fun one in there about the college districts. They boo louder than Democrats who are much more ambivalent. Right.

27:14.60

Chaz Nuttycombe

There’s a lot more soft approval of the governor than soft disapproval, right? Democrats are like, i don’t know, I kind of approve of the governor. So I think that’s a big part of this.

27:26.42

Chaz Nuttycombe

other Other kind of things that, you know, are in in that Dwayne Yancey piece, which you again, I recommend are, I do think the redistricting thing has hurt the governor.

27:36.19

Chaz Nuttycombe

When we look at that swing with, you know the, the higher income voters. We also see higher income voters and, and the swing for like the referendum what I’m talking about.

27:48.90

Chaz Nuttycombe

We also see like a big swing with a higher income voters with, how they voted, uh, in, uh, 2025, you know, in looking at our second poll, uh, they,

28:04.23

Chaz Nuttycombe

you know, are, are approving of the governor now. Right. It’s like, it’s, it’s double digit swings, but it’s not as big as the lower income one, which have larger swings,

28:16.15

Chaz Nuttycombe

And, you know, I think I think Spanberger became the face of affordability. Right. you know, she’s very much that campaign, the catalyst of what is probably the number one ad or number one word you’ll hear in Democratic ads, you know, now through November or but before then through November this year.

28:35.17

Chaz Nuttycombe

And this is this is just kind of like my pet theory. But look, man, I live in Churchill. And, you know, I get to see like some local TV stories and all that.

28:46.47

Chaz Nuttycombe

And, you know, i think that she got in the office, you know, what, you know, like people are getting the power bills in February for the January when that big snowstorm came through.

28:59.03

Chaz Nuttycombe

And everybody had a huge increase in and their energy bills compared to like, well, anytime ever. Now that being said, you know like like Dominion said, you know I think they had that one of their folks said this in a press release. you know they They truly, like like they pointed out like, you know this is the biggest or lowest temperatures since you know the 1950s for this point.

29:23.85

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, you know, the governor can’t control the weather, right? So that’s that’s why people had high energy bills. Because you got to, you know, you got to keep up with the the demand to keep people warm in in very freezing temperatures. My my pipes froze. That was new to me.

29:40.29

Chaz Nuttycombe

That was that was the by fault. But anyway, it’s freezing cold and everybody got these high power bills. And it’s if you are kind of lower income and you voted for the governor and maybe you’re a swing voter who, you know, was like, oh, she’s talking about affordability. She’s going to get in there and fix it.

29:57.71

Chaz Nuttycombe

Well, shoot, you just saw your power bill go up and, you know, it’s so you’re maybe you’re blaming the governor, I think. That’s my pet theory.

30:07.85

Chaz Nuttycombe

So, but you know, there we we don’t know, right? that like I’m speculating you here. Dwayne Yancey is speculating here.

30:17.01

Chaz Nuttycombe

there’s There’s maybe some evidence that we all have our thoughts, but no single poll has actually asked people who disapprove of the governor, approved by the governor with a follow-up question, and maybe we should have done this, but you know i i just wanted... you know when I try and keep polls as short as possible, so that was really why.

30:39.27

Chaz Nuttycombe

But nobody has asked the approvers and disapprovers, why do you approve? Why do you disapprove? And what’s especially going to be happen when you do that is, you know, people, you’re going to have a hard time getting those people who are like, maybe were Spanberger voters and are and are disapproving of her now.

30:57.63

Chaz Nuttycombe

Right. That’s a that’s a small, you know, section of your survey that’s much more independent minded and is not really as high propensity, maybe in terms of their voting behavior and just wants to be left alone and finish a survey as quickly as possible.

31:12.84

Chaz Nuttycombe

Right. so it’s difficult. so look, this is, this is all speculation. I mean, we can throw a whole bunch of stuff at the wall. Maybe it’s a gun bill, right? that’s the big thing. Like I, I haven’t even seen people talk about the gun bill, you know, on Twitter. It’s like, I was looking at, you know, looking at my website traffic today and all, all red is post amount is, is guns and, and like our slash Virginia.

31:33.15

Chaz Nuttycombe

So it’s like, you know, I i think maybe media, like like people on Twitter, like you and me and like other you know journalists kind of have a thing of Twitter brain going on. I don’t know. But...

31:45.05

Chaz Nuttycombe

you know, so, so all this is speculation, but we don’t have any actual poll or survey research or anything for why people are, you know, disapproving, of the governor this much. Now, again, she’s even, uh, you can say, well, she’s not underwater. being said,

32:01.88

Chaz Nuttycombe

She’s even in a likely voter survey that voted for her by 14 points. She is absolutely bet on it underwater with the overall adult population of Virginia and registered voters in Virginia, right? This is a blue electorate.

32:18.89

Chaz Nuttycombe

You have a whole bunch of people who came out in 2024 who lean more Republican and are, you know, pretty much asleep because President Trump is in the White House and they’re going to come back in 2028. so, and, and even then, like if she has even approval, she’s definitely one of the most unpopular governors in the nation.

32:36.45

Chaz Nuttycombe

uh, you know, like if you look at, but if there, we don’t have like a, a average of all governors approvals and everything using all the polls. Unfortunately, 538 is no longer a thing. and although I don’t even think they did it, that’s something we can do actually. I don’t know.

32:52.45

Chaz Nuttycombe

maybe that’s something I should consider at state nav. but you know, Morning Consult, they do accordingly polling. i do think, you know, maybe the favorables are, you know, little bullish on the incumbents and everything.

33:04.97

Chaz Nuttycombe

So i I noted that in the piece, you know, the the poll release. But she could be as high as the third most unpopular governor, or maybe she’s just in the top 10.

33:14.96

Chaz Nuttycombe

But either way, she’s in the top 10, you know, least popular governors in the country. so, you know, people can quibble about, well, is it her fault? Is it not her fault?

33:26.52

Chaz Nuttycombe

Leave me out of this. Don’t shoot the messenger. Right. so, you know, I just like the data, want to present the data, let people know what we’re seeing.

33:35.40

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, well, definitely the poll was interesting. And i think both for the Spanberger approval and and referendum results, really useful to have as we we go into the closing day. So I’ll ask you one last question, because obviously we’ll have to see how early vote pans out.

33:49.41

Sam Shirazi

In terms of the no campaign, if, for example, we see a a rural surge on Tuesday on election day, or we see an our urban surge, I mean, do you think it’s within the margin where kind of those turnout dynamics on election day could matter? And I i wanted to see, are you going to be calling up all the registrars and seeing what the turnout is on election day?

34:08.100

Chaz Nuttycombe

Yeah, absolutely. Look, the NAVCAST is back and back and better than ever. You know, nobody beat the NAVCAST last year. Goal is for nobody to beat it again. so the NAVCAST is going to be polling from the wonderful honor wonderful people at the Virginia Department of Elections who rely on the registrars to report their results.

34:26.56

Chaz Nuttycombe

And it will poll live and calculate the odds of margin of victory and overall odds of winning for yes and no throughout the night starting 7 Yes, we’re going to be calling up the registrars, myself, our elections coordinator, Michael Foley, and our data science chair in our political and data science committee, Charlie Kramer, who, you know, I meet with every week, you know.

34:51.50

Chaz Nuttycombe

And, you know, this so we were the three people calling up all the registrars. I will be doing a YouTube live stream. The only people who be able to get access to the sheet are the tier three subscribers for State Navigate. I’ll be talking a little bit and kind of posting on the Navcast in a chat on just a little bit of some of the numbers.

35:13.79

Chaz Nuttycombe

But if you know you want the actual raw data and get to look at the spreadsheet and everything, you’ll need to become a tier three subscriber. But yeah, going to be live streaming. i’m i would guess... I don’t know. Maybe I am interested in if there will be more views on this thing than not. Especially if it’s close. So I would think there would be more views on the pre-poll closed live stream and everything compared to last year because this one is actually expected to be close. But although you know I think most...

35:43.04

Chaz Nuttycombe

I think most people outside of Virginia thought, or shoot, even people in Virginia thought the attorney general race is going close, and it wasn’t. Yeah, it’s close-ish, but not really, right? Especially compared to polls. So, but yeah, absolutely. You know, subscribe to your newsletter, go to satenavigate.org, go to Virginia, and go to our NAVCAST. And actually, in that poll release article, you have the NAVCAST link handy right there at the top.

36:10.96

Chaz Nuttycombe

Make sure you have that in front of you by you know, like 645 or 7, whatever you want to do And I will be, you know, posting or I’ll be talking on YouTube live, live stream about, you know, the what what we get as I dial up the red stars.

36:29.41

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I mean, I definitely encourage people to follow State Navigate, follow Chaz. I will be doing that on Election Day and definitely as a result start coming in. I’m going to be taking a look at that too. So I don’t have much more to add other than on Election Day and and through the Election Day, State Navigate, Chaz are going to be really great resources to see what’s going to happen. And yeah, Chaz, thanks for coming back on. And yeah, we’ll see what what happens in the end.

36:52.48

Chaz Nuttycombe

Awesome. Thank you for having me on, Sam.

36:54.30

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, so 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

Hi, everyone. I’m Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout, the Virginia Elections. This episode, we will first go over Super Saturday and the expansion of early voting that is happening today in Virginia. And then I wanted to also talk about Spanberger, Governor Spanberger’s approval rating and some commentary around that, and just wanted to share my thoughts because I’ve seen lot of hot takes about it, and I thought I would give you mine.

00:24.22

Sam Shirazi

But before we get to that, obviously redistricting referendums coming up. It’s not that far away. We are just around the corner in terms of election day. Election day is April 21st.

00:35.64

Sam Shirazi

However, before that, there will be a lot of early voting. There has already been a lot of early voting. And there will be even more early voting in the final days. That’s typically when you see the most early voting is the last days of the early voting cycle.

00:48.98

Sam Shirazi

And I really wanted to emphasize April 11th, which is today, Super Saturday. The reason I call it Super Saturday is because... It is the first day of early voting on a Saturday across Virginia. So everywhere across Virginia, there will be early voting.

01:03.52

Sam Shirazi

But then on top of that, it’s the first day that many satellite voting locations will be opening this cycle for early voting. I’ll kind of go through where they’re opening, where they’ve already been open, So let me break down early voting a little bit. So early voting, typically the way it works in Virginia is every city or county has to have at least one early voting location.

01:23.60

Sam Shirazi

And that’s typically the registrar’s office, usually in the a government center where the the county has the rest of the government facilities. You can go there and do some early voting.

01:35.18

Sam Shirazi

But in some of the bigger locations across Virginia, big counties, big cities, they will have what are called satellite voting locations. These are secondary or other locations where people can go and early vote.

01:46.02

Sam Shirazi

There’s really no law that governs that in Virginia. You have pretty big counties in Virginia that only have one like early voting location. And then you have other relatively smaller counties that might have two.

01:58.04

Sam Shirazi

so there’s really no law in terms of how many early voting locations a city or county has, other than obviously they have to have one. And then the other rule that governs early voting is that the last two Saturdays before the election, there needs to be Saturday early voting. Otherwise, there’s no real law. Some places have more weekend weekend early voting. Some places have less, but you have to have at least two weekends.

02:21.19

Sam Shirazi

two Saturdays before the election, you have to have early voting. And so typically what we see in Virginia, especially for general elections, is the satellite early voting locations tend to open up earlier in the cycle, probably a week or two before they have opened up right now.

02:36.61

Sam Shirazi

However, because this is, I would say, a not a general election, it’s a special election, essentially, I think we’re seeing satellite early voting locations opening up later this cycle.

02:47.56

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, I I think maybe part of that was just the fact that there was less time to get prepared for this special election. And frankly, I think the but local county election officials might not have thought we were going to get it this much early voting. We have gotten a lot of early voting. They probably thought it wouldn’t be this busy.

03:05.70

Sam Shirazi

And so they scheduled it for later in the cycle. But, you know, we are seeing a lot of early voting. So, you know, right now, going into Super Saturday, we are seeing – early voting that is almost matching how much early voting we had in 2025, which is really crazy to think about. And keep in mind in 2025, there are more satellite early voting locations open at this point.

03:27.73

Sam Shirazi

So going into Super Saturday, we are you know well over 850,000 early votes, which is just a lot of early voting in Virginia for an election that is not a general election. It’s in the spring.

03:40.96

Sam Shirazi

We typically don’t have elections in spring. So lot of early voting. And that is also telling me that we are going to see a lot of early voting on Super Saturday because we’ve already seen a lot of early voting. The other reason we’re going to see a lot of early voting on Super Saturday is because typically on weekends, there is more early voting because people a lot of people don’t have to work. And it’s just more convenient for them to early vote on the weekend.

04:01.98

Sam Shirazi

And then finally, the final reason we’re going to see a lot of early voting, I think, on this Super Saturday is because so many places are opening up their early voting locations. And I’ll kind of go through the list of places that are opening up their early voting locations today.

04:28.90

Sam Shirazi

Currently, there are three early voting locations open in Fairfax County. And on Super Saturday, there will be 13 additional early voting locations opening up for a total of 16 early voting locations in Fairfax County. And a lot of people know that the early voting locations going to be opening up. So you may live on the other side of the county. You may be waiting for your early voting location to open up. So that’s why I think Super Saturday is going to see a lot of early voting because there’s a lot of pent up demand in terms of people who know that they were going to early vote. It’s just they were waiting for the early voting location to open up. So that’s in Fairfax County, big county, a lot of early voting locations opening up. So definitely one to watch on this Super Saturday.

05:09.11

Sam Shirazi

Okay, the next county that’s going to have early voting is Prince William County. And as you can see, early voting on the Super Saturday is going be really important in Northern Virginia, because a lot of the satellite early voting locations are opening up in Northern Virginia.

05:22.82

Sam Shirazi

On Super Saturday, there will be six additional locations that are going to be opening up in Fairfax County, excuse me, in in Prince William County. So you’re going have seven total early voting locations in Prince William County.

05:35.68

Sam Shirazi

And these seven locations are going to be open all the way through the end of early voting on Saturday. And that includes on Sunday. So Sunday, April 12th, Prince William County will also have early voting. And so we’re seeing a lot of early voting that’s going to be happening in Prince William County.

05:50.69

Sam Shirazi

This always happens. There’s a lot of pent-up demand for early voting and in Prince William County because the early voting location is around Manassas area. A lot of the population in Prince William County lives along the I-95 corridor, so they’re waiting for the early voting locations. I expect a lot of early voting in Prince William County.

06:07.64

Sam Shirazi

Okay, another location that’s going see satellite voting locations are opening up. That will be in Loudoun. Loudoun’s a big county, typically leans towards the Democrats, but is somewhat competitive sometimes in these elections. So Loudoun always gets a lot of attention, important county.

06:24.99

Sam Shirazi

On Super Saturday, they will open up four more early voting locations. So Loudoun’s another really important area where we’re just going to keep an eye out to see how much early voting there’s going on.

06:34.55

Sam Shirazi

And I’ll round up the satellite early voting locations that will be opening up in Northern Virginia in Arlington. Arlington currently has one early voting location and there will be two additional locations opening up on Super Saturday. So Arlington will have a total of three early voting locations.

06:49.88

Sam Shirazi

But that’s not all on the Super Saturday. There is also going to be more early voting locations opening up in Hampton Roads. The first place that will be opening it up is Virginia Beach. Virginia Beach is a big area.

07:01.63

Sam Shirazi

On Super Saturday, they they will open two additional locations. Now, I did want to note, this is less than they had last year for the governor’s election. Typically, they have more early voting locations. They only got to have three for Super Saturday, but still important given that you know that’s going to essentially double or triple the amount of early voting locations that are going to be available in Virginia Beach.

07:23.71

Sam Shirazi

And I’ll talk about one other location in Hampton Roads, and that’s Norfolk. Norfolk has has had one early voting location open this time.

07:34.56

Sam Shirazi

But on Super Saturday, it is going to be opening up additional early voting locations. There will be four more early voting locations opening up in Norfolk on Super Saturday, and those will also be open generally until the end of early voting. So that’s the thing with this first Super Saturday of early voting. It’s not that these satellite early voting early voting locations are going to be open just on Saturday. They’re going to be open on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. And in some locations, specifically Prince William County, they’ll also be open on tomorrow, Sunday, April 12th. And in other places, for example, Alexandria will have Sunday early voting.

08:14.94

Sam Shirazi

Richmond will have some Sunday early voting. So we’re seeing that the early voting is not necessarily uniform in terms of the hours and the locations across Virginia. And I should also not forget to mention, there are a lot of early voting locations opening up on Super Saturday, but there have been early voting satellite locations open up opening up this past week as well in places like Richmond, Henrico, Chesterfield,

08:43.00

Sam Shirazi

Newport News has been relatively less attention because there haven’t been as many of those opening up, but they have also been opening up. So as we can see, the end of early voting always sees a lot more locations opening up.

08:56.39

Sam Shirazi

People obviously are going to be paying more attention to the election because it’s getting closer. And so more people vote at the end of early voting, especially with the they take advantage of the Saturday early voting.

09:07.91

Sam Shirazi

And the other thing to keep in mind is typically the people who vote at the very beginning of the early voting period are the most highly engaged, most partisan people who pretty much know how they’re going to vote. So if you’re voting on the first day of early voting, you are probably not an undecided voter. You’re probably committed to one side or the other.

09:26.89

Sam Shirazi

I think the thing that’s interesting is... Towards the end of the early voting period and up through election day, the people who vote at the end typically are either the people who are undecided, who don’t know how to vote, and so they’ve been waiting on it, thinking about it, or also people who are just kind of lower propensity voters who may be not that engaged.

09:45.46

Sam Shirazi

independents who you know just wait till the end to to hear all the arguments or people who just are not super engaged, they hear there’s an election, they go vote in it. And so the importance of that is those people can be really swing one way or another towards a towards a party or in this case,

10:04.53

Sam Shirazi

Yes or no at the end. And I think that’s really important. Sometimes we see in these elections, sort for example, in 2025, clearly a lot of the late deciders seem to have moved towards the Democrats. Democrats had momentum in the end.

10:16.08

Sam Shirazi

They got a big win in 2025 in Virginia. And the question becomes, you know, who has the momentum here in the closing days of the campaign? I think the Yes campaign is putting a lot of efforts to get out the vote in these two weekends of early voting. Typically, Democrats do well in early voting on the weekends in Virginia.

10:36.12

Sam Shirazi

Why is that? You know, you have younger people who tend to vote more on the weekends. You have people who are working during the week. So they they like to vote on the weekends. So we’ll just have to wait and see how much early vote the Democrats are able to get out this Saturday and then also next Saturday during the last day of early voting.

10:52.88

Sam Shirazi

And we’ll have to kind of see is there kind of late momentum towards yes or no. You know, it’s it’s hard to tell. I think there’s a lot of different factors you have to look into. i think we’ll get some final polls that’ll be helpful to get a sense of where things are going. But anyways, I wanted to just kind of highlight Super Saturday. I’ve been pretty excited about it. I think it’s unique because most Virginia elections, a lot of these satellite early voting locations open up at different times. The counties don’t have this kind of uniform opening of early voting locations. I think this election is pretty unique. You’re going to have a lot of them opening up on Saturday.

11:24.62

Sam Shirazi

So I just wanted to flag that for everyone. Keep an eye out on it. Keep an eye out for the numbers. I think this Saturday, next week, and then the final Saturday of early voting is going to be really big. And I think the question is going to become how much early voting do we see?

11:39.14

Sam Shirazi

Currently, we by the end of this weekend, we will probably be close to a million votes. In 2025, we had just under 1.5 million early votes total.

11:49.24

Sam Shirazi

I’m curious to see, do we hit 1.5 million early votes this time? And if we do hit that number or get close to it, does that mean that a lot of people have just kind of shifted their voting patterns from Election Day to early vote?

12:01.03

Sam Shirazi

Or are we going to still see a lot of Election Day early vote? I think we’re going to see a lot of Election Day early vote. And the question becomes, do we get more turnout in this election than the governor’s election, which if you told me at the beginning that would happen, I would have really so doubted that. But it’s it’s plausible that we end up getting more total votes this election for the redistricting referendum than we got in the governor’s election, which is really kind of crazy to think about. And I think the reason for that is, I you know frankly, I think both sides are really...

12:29.80

Sam Shirazi

engage Both sides are really trying to get out their voters. I think in 2025, certainly Democrats had some momentum. I think the Republicans weren’t as excited about their candidates, so they didn’t get as as many of their voters out. I think they’re going to do a better job getting their voters out this time.

12:46.01

Sam Shirazi

We had about little over 3.4 million votes in 2025. I wonder, are we going to hit 3.5 million votes in this referendum? So lot of stuff to look up for. I think early vote, I flagged this before, is typically not great at predicting elections because you don’t know who are the independents voting for. you know, you there’s a lot of trying to read the tea leaves. And I think that stuff’s a little bit over overdrawn, but what I think early vote is really good at telling you is turnout.

13:11.90

Sam Shirazi

So if you were heading towards around 1.5 million total early votes, that is telling me this is going to be a high turnout election. I think we’re going to get at least 3 million total votes and we can get close to 3.5 million early votes, which, you know, is really high for a non-general election in Virginia.

13:29.60

Sam Shirazi

And anyway, so, Super interesting stuff. I won’t dwell too much more on Super Saturday, but did want to mention it. But now I will move on to a different topic, which is more so about Governor Spanberger’s approval. But I should talk about this poll that was put out by The Washington Post.

13:45.08

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, last time I put I put my podcast out, I had recorded it. And then the next morning, Washington Post had put out this poll, so I didn’t get a chance to talk about it in the last podcast. I do want to talk about it this podcast. this post This poll from Washington Post came from the Schar School at George Mason University.

14:04.17

Sam Shirazi

They’re one of the pollsters that do polls in Virginia. I typically look for the GMU Schar School polls because I think they have a pretty solid track record. They were pretty on the money in 2025 in terms of predicting the winners in the election. And so I like the GMU-Schar school polls. I trust them.

14:24.46

Sam Shirazi

Obviously, there are other pollsters in Virginia. I think State Navigate’s working on the poll. That’s going to be super interesting. But I’ll go over the Schar school poll. And then I’ll talk a little bit about the Spanberger approval, because I think that’s what honestly got a lot of attention from this poll.

14:40.56

Sam Shirazi

So to begin with, in terms of the redistricting referendum, The Washington Post GMU-Schar school poll found that and in terms of likely voters, they are 52% yes, 47% no.

14:53.42

Sam Shirazi

And if you look at registered voters, they are 53% yes, 44% no. And they also had the Trump approval at 57% disapprove and 40% approve.

15:05.12

Sam Shirazi

So I first want to talk about that number. I think pretty much that’s in line with the vibes. And what I mean by that is I think the vibes have been that the yes campaign has a slight advantage or an advantage in Virginia, but it’s not overwhelming. It’s not something where you can kind of a hundred percent be certain that the yes campaign is going to be winning. These aren’t the numbers we saw, for example, with Spanberger in, in polls around this time when she was winning by about 10% and everyone was pretty confident that Spanberger was going to win.

15:34.88

Sam Shirazi

I think, uh, you know a five point lead among likely voters is not insignificant, but it’s also not that the kind of margin where you can be certain about the outcome. And I also think it’s interesting that there are people who disapprove of President Trump who are going to be voting no on the referendum, at least according to this poll. And I think certainly that’s going to most likely be independents, people who may not like some of the president’s policies, but they also don’t like what the Democrats are trying to do with this gerrymander. so long story short, I would actually say that GMU-Schar school poll was not super interesting in terms of the referendum results because it was kind of like what we were thinking about. It it was you know not super super surprising. When I saw that poll, I said, yeah, that that makes sense to me.

16:20.46

Sam Shirazi

I think the thing that got a lot more attention in the Washington Post-Schar school poll was the Spanberger approval numbers. And I’ll just go over the approval first, and then I’ll talk about it. So Governor Spanberger’s approval, according to this poll, was 47% approve, 46% disapprove. And I think that was surprising because obviously Governor Spanberger got a big win, 15% last year. And so now, according to this poll, she’s only at 1% net approval.

16:46.21

Sam Shirazi

Typically, we see in Virginia, at least at the beginning of their terms, Virginia governors have pretty positive approval ratings because you know state governors are usually less partisan. And I think people who may be more polarized with national politics aren’t as polarized with state politics. However, the Washington Post poll has found that Spanberger’s approval is lower than other governors at this point in their administration. And I think there’s a lot going on. There’s a lot of commentary, a lot of reasons why people think this is what’s going on. The first thing I wanted to say, like right off the bat is it’s one poll. So as much as I think this GMU Schar is, is a good pollster, like you never want to base your entire worldview on one poll because for whatever reason, things could be off. And so I just put that caveat out there because think there’s a lot of commentary based on one poll.

17:54.23

Sam Shirazi

Spanberger doesn’t have overwhelmingly positive approval. like If this was 20% positive approval, even if the poll was a little bit off, you could say, okay, she’s still pretty pretty popular. I think there’s a lot of things in terms of why Spanberger’s approval may not be as high as previous governors at this point.

18:11.89

Sam Shirazi

Realistically, I think polarization has caught up to every politician. And I think we’re at a point where If you’re a Republican, it’s very hard for you to give a Democratic governor a positive approval and vice versa. I’m not saying that’s 100% true. We have seen more, you know, blue state governors. Sorry, we we’ve seen governors in Republican governors in blue states who have pretty decent approval. For example, Vermont’s a famous example where they have a Republican governor, but he has a strong approval rating because he’s...

18:41.84

Sam Shirazi

Viewed as not the typical Republican in Kentucky, we have a red state, but the Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, typically has a pretty positive approval. So I’m not saying it’s impossible, but I do think po polarization has caught up.

18:55.03

Sam Shirazi

And I think specifically with Spanberger, the issue she’s having is she’s kind of becoming the face of the redistricting campaign, whether she likes it or not, because she is the most prominent Virginia Democrat now. Obviously, the gerrymandering that is going to be happening is being done by the Democrats.

19:09.78

Sam Shirazi

I think the Republicans have done a successful job at kind of pushing that image that this is a very extreme gerrymander. And so I think they’re their voters, the Republican base, is very upset. And so they’re you’re seeing that being translated over into Governor Spanberger, where you know perhaps in the past you might have had some Republicans who who may have had positive approvals of a Democratic governor. I think that’s going to be very difficult in this environment.

19:34.54

Sam Shirazi

when the Democrats in Virginia are pushing a pretty partisan gerrymander and Spanberger, while she doesn’t seem to be the person who is most behind this, wasn’t the person necessarily who who’s been driving this the most, I think she certainly has come out in favor of it. And as the most prominent Democrat in Virginia is going to be part of the the face of the campaign.

19:54.89

Sam Shirazi

However, I don’t think it’s just a redistricting referendum because, frankly, according to this poll, the redistricting referendum is polling higher than Spanberger, or least there’s more people who are going to vote yes on the redistricting referendum than Spanberger. I think the Republicans have also done a good job of kind of weaponizing some of the bills that Democrats ended up proposing, but not passing.

20:17.51

Sam Shirazi

And so there’s been a lot of commentary about all these bills and tax rises, and frankly, most of them didn’t pass. And so the Republicans made a lot of noise, but most of the things that they said are going to happen didn’t end up happening.

20:31.35

Sam Shirazi

But a lot of, you know, less engaged voters, they might have seen something online. They may not have realized it never got passed. So I think there’s been a lot of a sense that the Republicans are certainly trying to paint it as the Democrats are going far left. They, you know, Spanberger campaigned as a moderate. Now she’s super left.

20:46.72

Sam Shirazi

And I think, you know, Spanberger is going to have to deal with that narrative that is being pushed by the Republicans. And frankly, I think you know maybe the next legislative session, I think the Democrats have to think about some of these bills they’re proposing. like If there’s really no way a bill is going to be passed, you know do you really need to propose it? like you know I get sometimes legislatures put in bills because they know it’s not going to pass, but they’re trying to get the idea out there. So maybe down the line it might pass. I get that. But at the same time,

21:14.44

Sam Shirazi

You have to think, how are the Republicans going to weaponize this bill? Is this the kind of best bill that we need right now in terms of getting our message out there? So, you know, I think i think there’s some some learning that Spanberger and the Democrats in the General Assembly can can do from this last session. I also think, you know, right now there’s a a really... Andy Combin feeling across the world, frankly, and it it goes all the way down to the state level. And I think that helps man burger a lot in 2025. You know, the Republicans were in charge of DC, they were in charge of Virginia. And so was easy for her to get up there, say, I’m change.

21:47.35

Sam Shirazi

I’m running against DC, I’m running against Richmond, I’m going to bring something different to Virginia. And the voters like that because they want to change and there’s a strong anti-incumbency feeling and that’s why Samanberger got such a big win.

21:58.70

Sam Shirazi

However, that’s a two-way street. And so once you’re in office, you are the incumbent, you are people are expecting you to make their lives better, or fix their problems. And you know realistically, a lot of what’s going on is being set in DC by policy in DC, but you as a governor are also accountable for people’s lives and they may feel that things are getting better, gas prices are high,

22:21.23

Sam Shirazi

You can say, you know, that’s because of the war with Iran, and that had nothing to do with Spanberger, and that’s almost certainly true, but at the end of the day, people are not feeling their lives getting better, and I think this is part of the challenge when, especially when you run on affordability, you have to end up delivering, and some of the changes you can make as governor are important, but they also might take time to implement. They may not, people might not feel them directly, so I think Spanberger is kind of dealing with that issue where once you’re in power, I think it’s easy for the other side to attack you and say, oh, things aren’t getting better. and And maybe, you know, the Democrat strategy is to just blame everything on Trump. And, and you know, that makes sense from their perspective, but it doesn’t. It also means that the Republicans are going to start blaming you because you’re in charge in Richmond.

23:05.59

Sam Shirazi

So I think I think there’s a lot going on with the Spanberger approval. I kind of caution everyone that it’s very early. There’s a lot that can still happen. It’s one poll. So I, you know, people need to talk about something. So there’s been a lot of commentary about it. i think, you know, Spanberger’s got a long time in office. She’ll be in office for you know almost four years left in her term. She’ll almost certainly have a trifecta for all four years. There’s a lot of things she can do that might boost her approval. There are lot of things that might she might do that might hurt her approval. Like, it’ll go up and down. We’ll just have to keep an eye on it. And I do think the last thing I’ll leave you a bit with is kind of tying this all back to the redistricting referendum.

23:42.05

Sam Shirazi

I think the reason why the redistricting referendum is so important is it’s going to be viewed in a way as in some ways as a referendum, both on Trump and now I think on Spanberger. And I think winning can fix a lot of problems. Like there are, you see this a lot when a politician has a problems, but you win an election, you know, people will forget about it. They’ll move on.

24:02.79

Sam Shirazi

You might say president Trump is in that camp. He obviously had legal issues after he left office. He won the election and, you know, a lot of people have kind of moved on from that. And, and so winning can fix a lot of problems for politicians, no matter which side of the aisle they’re on.

24:18.55

Sam Shirazi

And I do think if the redistricting referendum passes by healthy margin, I do think that will fix a lot of problems for Spanberger. She’ll be back in the news and she’ll kind of be the face of this redistricting referendum passing in Virginia.

25:09.68

Sam Shirazi

People have asked me like, you know, what is your sense of the referendum? And I often point people back to the governor, so excuse me, the attorney general’s race in 2025, because it’s kind of the same dynamic. People thought it was going to be close. The Republicans seem more energized by the attorney general race.

25:23.99

Sam Shirazi

And at the end of the day, Jay Jones almost won by 7% because I think people were just, you know, upset at what was going on in DC and wanted to send a message. Probably also benefited obviously from Governor Spanberger’s coattails, but long story short, it was a,

25:37.79

Sam Shirazi

thought to be a close election, one that even the Republicans might win in 2025, but Jay Jones won by 7%. So I think one scenario is like, this is kind of the we redo of the Virginia Attorney General race. It kind of looks close, or it looks like maybe the Republicans have a chance, but at the end of the day, it might not be close at all.

25:55.20

Sam Shirazi

And the yes campaign passes easily. i think the other alternative is that, you know, this kind of becomes like 2021 all over again where you know The Democrats feel confident. They think Virginia is a blue state, but the Republicans are just able to mobilize, able to get their grassroots upset, able to win over independence and kind of at the end get a so a kind of a surprise victory or come from behind victory where they’re able to pull it off and win in Virginia, which is a difficult state for them to win in. So I think there’s also that possibility.

26:26.02

Sam Shirazi

I’m kind of looking at the Jay Jones margin around six and a half to 7% as kind of the over under. I think if Democrats do better than the Jay Jones margin from 2025, I think that’s generally a good night for them.

26:39.50

Sam Shirazi

i mean, obviously, if it passes, a win’s a win, they’ll take it. But if it’s less than the Jay Jones margin in terms of the election being you know less than 6.5%, I think that’s a decent night for the Republicans. Obviously, if it doesn’t pass, that’s a very good night for the Republicans.

26:54.53

Sam Shirazi

But I think that’s kind of what I’m looking for in terms of the Virginia elections. And it’s kind of an interesting test because the national environment looks really bad for the Republicans right now. I don’t want to go into the ins and outs of the Wisconsin Supreme Court race.

27:13.08

Sam Shirazi

and that was a race that in twenty twenty five was at least somewhat competitive even though it was a ten point win and in the past certainly has been very competitive so we’re seeing in a swing the kind of classic swing state of Wisconsin democrats or the liberal candidate is winning by twenty points even in Georgia there was a special election for a congressional seat the. The Republicans still won that seat, and that was Marjorie Taylor Greene’s former seat, but there was about a 25% swing in terms of the overperformance by Democrats in Georgia. And so we’re seeing these like crazy overperformances by Democrats.

27:46.66

Sam Shirazi

And yet, you know, Virginia doesn’t seem like a done deal. And I think there’s the possibility that there are more state local dynamics. The independents are not loving this idea of gerrymandering, perhaps.

27:58.70

Sam Shirazi

The debate is more about the nuances of the districts as opposed to is this a referendum on Trump. And so I think there is a possibility that this is going to be close and closer than people expect. There’s also the possibility that I think we’re all kind of underestimating how much of a anti-Trump and anti-Republican feeling there is in the country. And if people just view this as a straight referendum, the ability to send a message on President Trump,

28:21.86

Sam Shirazi

and push back, then I think there is a possibility that this could pass by a pretty healthy margin. So we’ll just have to wait and see. I think it’s going to be super interesting. Keep an eye out for some of the numbers on Super Saturday. And then I’ll probably be doing a few more podcasts next week before the referendum as we’re starting to wrap things up. And I appreciate everyone who’s been listening.

28:42.58

Sam Shirazi

And I will join you next time on Federal Fallout.

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

Hi everyone, I’m Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fallout, the Virginia elections. This episode we will go over a vibe shift that has seemed to have happened with the redistricting referendum here in Virginia. And then I also wanted to talk a little bit about the potential areas to look for in terms of, you know, the important swing counties in this election. So the first thing I want to talk about is really just this vibe shift that has seemed to have happened in the past week or two weeks.

00:26.90

Sam Shirazi

I think at the beginning, there was a sense that on the no campaign, there was some momentum. The initial early vote numbers look pretty good in terms of more red parts of Virginia coming out.

00:39.13

Sam Shirazi

And I think there was a sense that, you know, and I had talked about this, that this referendum was not necessarily a a slam dunk. Virginia was not California. There were a lot of independents. So I think, you know, there was a sense that this was not necessarily a done deal in Virginia.

00:56.34

Sam Shirazi

And while I think that’s still true to a certain extent, I don’t think it’s a done deal. I do think the last two weeks or so, there’s been a bit of a vibe shift. I want to talk a little bit about that. You know, right now we’re in kind of this lull of the campaign period where We’re in the middle of early voting.

01:13.29

Sam Shirazi

It has come down a little bit, but it’s still very high numbers. I expect well over a million people kept voting early and potentially one and a half million people voting early, which is just really, really high numbers for a non-general election.

01:25.93

Sam Shirazi

And then the last 10 days of this campaign are going to be really big. because that’s when all the, most of the early voting locations, satellite locations are gonna be opening up. So I think the last 10 days are gonna be a sprint. And so we’re in this kind of holding pattern right now where there’s some consistent early voting happening. And then I think at the end, there’s gonna be this huge momentum to for people to come vote early. And I think in terms of the vibe shift right now,

01:51.24

Sam Shirazi

I think there’s a sense both in terms of the early vote. I think it’s starting to look better for the yes campaign. And I think part of the reason for that is just fact that typically the longer early voting goes on, the better it typically is for Democrats because more male votes are added. And I think oftentimes the people who vote earliest are like,

02:11.09

Sam Shirazi

older people. And usually as the early voting period goes on, it starts to get a little bit younger, more diverse. So I think those are starting to show through some of the early voting data. And I think it’s going to get even better once we get the early voting satellite locations opening up for the Yes campaign. So I think The early voting is not as great as it was at at the beginning for the the No campaign. And there’s a couple of different outlets that do analysis of early vote. You know, in Virginia, there’s no party registration. So we don’t know what party anyone belongs to.

02:41.25

Sam Shirazi

Like you can do that in some other states and do that type of early voting analysis. However, you can kind of model what the model party ID is. And one organization that does that, for they’ve and they’ve done it for a long time, is called L2. They’re just kind of a a data organization.

02:57.82

Sam Shirazi

And their estimate is roughly that, you know, give or take, it’s about 60-40, the Democrats coming out in this election so far. You know, caveat that, but we don’t know how these people are voting. But typically, that’s what you see in Virginia early vote about a 60-40 advantage for Democrats if you take into account the mail vote. Chaz Netticombe, who was on last week, also did analysis through State Navigate. And he found or his team basically found the same thing, roughly sixty forty Democrats, you know, in terms of the early vote.

03:27.92

Sam Shirazi

you know I caveat all that by saying that we don’t know how these people are voting. We don’t know how independents are voting. Even if if model ID is 60-40 Democrats, it could be 50-50 yes-no, just because the no campaign is getting some persuasion.

04:14.14

Sam Shirazi

I think in this election, I think you can assume most R’s are going to vote no. I think most D’s are going to vote yes. You know, what is the number? Is it going to be 80%, 85%, 90%, 95%? I think that’s going to be important.

04:26.94

Sam Shirazi

We don’t quite know how many D’s are voting against it. You know, it seems like there’s probably going to be more than voted for Earl Sears, but is it going to be a lot more or is it more anecdotal? and I think the real question mark are the independents. How do independents go?

04:41.53

Sam Shirazi

Obviously, Spanberger did really well with independents last year. That’s part of the reason she got such a big win. This year, I think I could see the independents definitely being more skeptical of the Yes campaign, just given the nature of it, given it’s a more partisan endeavor to gerrymander Virginia.

04:56.83

Sam Shirazi

At the same time, a lot of independents, their number one priority is maybe sending message to President Trump. So if it’s just a straight referendum on the president, I think that’s going to be better for the yes campaign in terms of independence. So still a lot of unknowns. Like I’m not comfortable saying, you know, definitely yes is going to win or no is going to win. I just think it’s not that type of election.

05:14.53

Sam Shirazi

But I am comfortable talking a little bit about the vibe shift. And the the reason I mentioned that is election like this. There hasn’t been a lot of polls, and there particularly has not been a lot of polls of, you know, specifically the question that’s on the ballot. I think there are some organizations that have put out polls, but they’re not exactly a question on the ballot.

05:31.71

Sam Shirazi

I think hopefully we’ll get some more polls in the final days of the campaign. I think Chaz Naticombe mentioned that State Navigate is going to be doing a poll. I think we’re going to probably get a few other polls, but there there isn’t a lot of polling to go off of. There isn’t kind of a lot of...

05:44.89

Sam Shirazi

precedent for this in Virginia, you know, like we did with the governor’s election where, you know, okay, the party out the White House typically does well in the governor’s election. We just can’t really assume that because we don’t do this type of referendum in Virginia very often or ever. So I think a lot of the analysis so far has been on vibes. And and what I mean by vibes is just people’s guts, people’s like, you know, this kind of feels like, you know, the no campaign is doing okay or the yes campaign is doing okay. There’s not really a lot of logic behind it other than maybe some very, you know,

06:13.41

Sam Shirazi

Broad interpretation of early vote data. So all of that is to say, basically, we are not going to get really good data on on this election until but maybe the end when we get the final polls. And so a lot of the analysis has been based based on vibes. I think certainly the No campaign and certain movements, certain people within the conservative movement have been very loud and I think they’ve made their voices heard. And I think that has perhaps informed the vibes in terms of, well, the No campaign seems like they have some moment momentum, seems like they’re doing well.

06:45.28

Sam Shirazi

So I think that was kind of the initial vibe reading in Virginia, at least once the early voting started. I think the last two weeks, you know putting aside the early voting data, I think just given the national environment, I think things have gotten harder for the Republicans.

07:22.13

Sam Shirazi

And so if you think about this referendum, you know what are people going to be doing when they go into the voting booth? Are they going to be thinking, you know, really nuanced questions about gerrymandering and trying to think through, you know, should Virginia gerrymander to counteract Republican states? I mean, is that really the calculation or is it just going to become, you know, I want to send a message. I don’t like what’s going on in D.C., so I’m going to vote yes on this campaign. Certainly the yes campaign wants that to happen.

07:48.01

Sam Shirazi

Obviously, the no campaign is trying to make it a Virginia specific campaign. The yes campaign is trying to make it a national campaign. And you may have remembered that is the same dynamic that happened in Virginia in 2025. Almost always with these state elections, the party that’s out of the White House wants to make it a national election. The party in the White House wants to make it a state election. And you’re seeing those dynamics again.

08:10.70

Sam Shirazi

The Yes campaign wants to make this about President Trump and national politics. The No campaign wants to make this about state-specific election in terms of gerrymandering these seats.

08:36.36

Sam Shirazi

So we’re seeing all those dynamics play out. I mean, I think part of the analysis in terms of the vibe shift fives shiftft is just, you know, national politics is more in the news, especially now with gas prices, with the war in Iran.

08:48.55

Sam Shirazi

It’s just... You know, people are not thinking about the nuances of gerrymandering. They’re kind of thinking about how am i going to pay for gas and groceries and all those things. And so the more that becomes the dominant issue in the news leading up to April 21st, I think the more difficult task the no campaign is going to have. I think interesting question is going to be, you know, we’re about. a little, about two and a half weeks out from this referendum, you know, what is going to be happening on April 21st? Is there going to still be a war going on in the Middle East?

09:19.26

Sam Shirazi

Are oil prices going to continue to be elevated? You know, right now, that seems very you know possible that that could be happening on April 21st. Although in theory, you know, things could wind down.

09:29.23

Sam Shirazi

There could be the end of the war that could cause, you know, stocks to go up. That could cause oil prices to come down. You know, in theory, there are these kind of dynamics that could change in these next 20 days or so But I think the reality is, even if that happens in the best case scenario for the Republicans, I think, you know, these things are kind of baked in at this point. And it’s it’s pretty hard to move the national politics that much. And so long story short, i think it’s just interesting to think through where we are in Virginia right now.

10:00.11

Sam Shirazi

i you know... I’m just kind of giving you an update in terms of what I’m seeing out there. I don’t personally think the dynamics have changed that much either way. i think a lot of this is just kind of commentary and, you know, we got to talk about something. So we’re going to talk about no doing well or yes, doing well.

10:16.97

Sam Shirazi

I would really like to see some, Polling, I think the State Navigate poll is going to be great. Hopefully you get some more polling as well. I also think the the final early voting numbers will be great because I think, you know, the first few days early voting may be skewed. I really look for early voting almost at the end. I mean, you really have to wait because of the satellite voting locations.

10:37.76

Sam Shirazi

I’ll probably do a whole episode about... what I call Super Saturday, but I will preview it for you here. So Super Saturday will be on April 11th. The reason I call it Super Saturday is that’s the first day we we’ll have weekend Saturday early voting across Virginia.

10:52.44

Sam Shirazi

And a lot of places will be opening up their satellite voting locations, including Fairfax, Arlington, Loudoun, Prince William County, Virginia Beach, lot of big places typically more democratic voters in those areas are going to be opening their early voting locations that’s later than they usually open. And so I think this Saturday on April 11th, I think we’ll see a lot of early voting because there’s been a lot of pent up demand with people waiting for their satellite early voting locations. So,

11:19.13

Sam Shirazi

Long story short, I mean, I think it’s too early to really use early voting to predict what’s going to happen. I think maybe at the end you can use it. I think at the end you’ll also get more polls. The polls will be closer and time to the election.

11:30.72

Sam Shirazi

All the advertisement money is going to be spent. So I think more so than a typical election, this is really one you’re just going to have to wait till the end to make a formal prediction. I mean, to be perfectly honest, like I didn’t do this in the governor’s election in 2025, but I probably could have. I mean, I think as soon as Doge happened, I mean, I was pretty confident that Smanberger was going to win the governor’s election. There was really no other way the Republicans could come back from that, no matter how good of or bad of a campaign Earl Sears ran. It didn’t really matter. I think I was pretty confident in saying that.

11:58.81

Sam Shirazi

i you know I didn’t say it on here because I didn’t i didn’t want to you know jump to conclusions, but that was you know in the back of my head. Here, you know I certainly think the Yes campaign has the advantage, but it’s not the same where I can say with 100% confidence, it’s definitely going to happen. I just think it’s just not that type of election, given the kind of unique circumstances that has...

12:18.51

Sam Shirazi

that has given a rise to the election and, and just the unpredictability. You don’t know how many Democrats are going to end up voting. No, you really don’t know how many independents could be voting. No, I think there’s a wide range.

12:29.65

Sam Shirazi

It could, it could be much more than we’re expecting in theory. And so just want to be a little bit cautious, but I did want to note the vibe shift that has been happening. Okay, so last thing I want to talk about just briefly is just some of the areas to look for in terms of the redistricting campaign when these results start coming in. Because I think one of the question marks that that I flagged are independents, and especially independents in kind of ancestrally Republican areas that have become blue. And so I’ll i’ll talk about a few counties that Spanberger did well in in 2025, places like Stafford, Chesterfield, you know, these are in

13:03.33

Sam Shirazi

kind of suburban parts of D.C. or Richmond where traditionally they’ve been red, but they’ve been becoming more and more blue. I think there was a dynamic where Spanberger did well in those areas, but Jay Jones was was running further behind there and then other parts of Virginia. And that’s just because you have people who have traditionally been more comfortable voting for Republicans.

13:22.08

Sam Shirazi

So they might have liked Spanberger, but they were willing to vote for Miárez. I think you could see a similar dynamic where in some of those counties, people who voted for Spanberger, they just you know This rubs them the wrong way, either because they don’t like one party rule, they don’t like one party trying to maximize its power. They may just you know traditionally be willing and sympathetic to Republican arguments, so they’re willing to hear the no side campaign more than they would otherwise. So those are some of the interesting counties that I’m looking for.

13:51.43

Sam Shirazi

And then the other counties, and that’s really on the persuasion side. so that’s in terms of, you know, are people going to vote for the no campaign, even though they voted for Spanberger? I think that’s kind of those are the types of places to look for, in know, more higher income, wealthier, educated areas where, for whatever reason, they may have traditionally been Republican and they’re willing to vote no for Spanberger.

14:12.71

Sam Shirazi

The campaign. i think the other dynamic to look for is just turnout. You know, what is turnout looking for looking like in the Democratic areas, for example, areas with more black voters and more young voters on how are Democrats doing in those areas in terms of turnout, because probably if people end up voting.

14:31.04

Sam Shirazi

They’re probably going to vote yes in those areas. I think the Democrats, frankly, in the early vote data have done a pretty good job with black voters in places like Hampton Roads, where sometimes they struggle with those voters. I think here they’re certainly keeping up with 2025.

14:44.79

Sam Shirazi

And I think for Democrats, they have to be happy about that because obviously, I think the more black voters that come out, the more it’s likely they’re going to vote yes. So I think Democrats are doing well or the yes campaign is doing well in terms of getting out those voters in those parts of Virginia.

14:59.15

Sam Shirazi

I think the real area where Democrats or in the yes campaign could struggle is potentially college towns, places with young voters. You know, we saw that the Democrats did well in places like Blacksburg in 2025. That’s how Lily Franklin was able to flip a seat. I think.

15:26.95

Sam Shirazi

I think the challenge the Yes campaign is going to have in this election is just – A lot of college students, younger voters, they may not really understand what’s going on. is there referendum? What is redistricting? What is gerrymandering? I mean, it’s just it’s just a different thing that they might not quite get and they might not be as engaged.

15:44.71

Sam Shirazi

And so I think that’s just one thing to keep in mind. you know There may not be as much youth turnout because it’s just a different type of election as opposed to a governor’s election. However, I think if they’re able to kind of persuade people or at least you know make the case that this is more a referendum sending a message on President Trump, I think there’s certainly a possibility those yes voters can come out for for Democrats who are younger.

16:05.87

Sam Shirazi

On the Republican side, there’s a similar dynamic with with Turnout in terms of rural areas like Southwest Virginia. I think part of the reason there was this kind of optimism about the no campaign was places like Southwest Virginia, which typically doesn’t have great turnout in state elections because it’s more of a working class area, but very red.

16:24.04

Sam Shirazi

Those areas had pretty good early votes so far. The problem is, you know, it’s not, you know, super crazy high. Like it’s it’s good relative to 2025, but given 2025 was pretty bad. It’s just not this like crazy, crazy high level of turnout. And I think the no campaign will just need really, really high turnout in places that are very red because obviously the red, you know, they’re going to vote no you know, rural areas where, you know, they may be affected by the gerrymander. They’re going to be voting no.

16:52.46

Sam Shirazi

The question is, do they get kind of like, OK, turn out maybe a little bit better than 2025? Or did he get like really through the roof turnout? Again, we don’t really know until Election Day. A lot of those places probably people prefer to vote on Election Day. So we just really have to wait and see. And I think the fundamental problem that no campaign going have is even if they get a lot of low propensity Republicans out.

17:12.97

Sam Shirazi

So, you know, this type of election. It’s just, you know, if even if they get their voters out, if it’s generally a high turnout election and the Democrats are getting their voters out and they’re getting their low propensity voters out, I mean, Virginia leans blue. So what the no campaign really needs is high turnout in rural red areas and low turnout in Democratic areas. It seems like they’re getting pretty good turnout in the red areas. They’re just not getting the low turnout in the Democratic areas. And so I think that’s part of the challenge that no campaign has. So long story short, we’ll just have to wait and see how that all happens, how that all plays out. You know, I’ll be covering it all as we get more early vote data. I’ll i’ll give you more analysis on that as we give more.

17:52.14

Sam Shirazi

Polling, i’ll I’ll give you kind of more information about that. But I think right now we’ll just have to wait and see where things are. i did want to mention the vibe shift. And, you know, I appreciate everyone who’s been listening. I’ll keep covering the wild ride that is the Virginia elections. And I’ll join you next time on Federal Fall Out.

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