Hi, everyone. i’m Sam Shirazi, and this is Federal Fallout, the 2025 Virginia elections. This episode, we will be interviewing Ashley Lanz. She is the Brady Packs Executive Director. So thank you so much for joining me.

Ashley Lantz

Thanks, Sam, for having me.

00:14.90

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, and I appreciate you coming on because I wanted to talk about a little bit more policy issues now that the election in Virginia is over. Obviously, next year, at the beginning of the year, the Democrats will have a trifecta and they will start to be passing bills. And there’s going to be a lot of different policies that they will be considering. And one of them obviously will be gun safety.

00:35.62

Sam Shirazi

So I wanted to kind of ask you some specific questions about that in Virginia and then maybe some general questions about gun safety in the political context. But before I do that, I wanted to just get a sense of you know what your organization does, both on the policy side and on the political side.

01:04.26

Ashley Lantz

We identify, support, and elect bold leaders who will champion gun violence prevention policies in every corner of this nation.

01:14.35

Ashley Lantz

On November 4th, Brady-Pack supported candidates in New Jersey and Virginia. We won 100% of those races and elected a new majority of gun violence prevention champions to those legislatures. Those are among the champions who will now lead a new era of public safety in Richmond.

01:31.09

Ashley Lantz

On our policy side at Brady, we work with Congress and in states to promote common sense gun safety measures. And in Virginia, those are numerous. Virginia has fortunately passed a number of common sense gun safety laws already, including enhanced background checks and extreme risk protection orders. But there’s still work to be done.

01:53.09

Ashley Lantz

in the next session the Legislature will be considering a number of bills, including those to ban ghost guns, a gun industry accountability measure that’s being led by Senator Adam Eben and Delegate Dan Helmer, measures on secure storage, and hopefully law to ban assault weapons as well. So we’re very excited. The sky is the limit going into this next session. And we believe that

02:19.04

Ashley Lantz

these candidates who were just elected on November 4th will meet the mandate that they were given to keep Virginia’s communities safe.

02:26.16

Sam Shirazi

Thanks. So, I mean, that’s a helpful background and and I appreciate all that. so I kind of want to unpack that a little bit, you know, in terms of the election and kind of lessons from the election, i mean, to be perfectly honest, you know gun safety didn’t really come up a whole lot. I don’t know if it was, you know, the main issue on voters’ minds. Obviously, the economy was important. And and so, you know, what do you think, what role do you think gun safety played and, you know, what lessons are there from the election in terms of this specific issue?

03:15.95

Ashley Lantz

We heard from youth across the state through our efforts. We mobilized in the field with young voters. And we heard that they believe that gun violence isn’t inevitable and more must be done, including through stronger gun laws.

03:29.80

Ashley Lantz

Youth are not afraid to turn out the polls, and particularly when they’re frustrated and discontent with how elected officials are handling issues, including gun safety. And we really saw that in this election. We had our youth grassroots on the ground. And we also had paid organizers working across the state focusing on engaging voters around the and issue of gun violence prevention. And that really paid off well.

03:55.72

Ashley Lantz

So we have heard about this in the field. I think you know there were a lot of issues that were going on in this election and being talked about. This was certainly one of them. And we heard a lot of voters talk about this being a repudiation of Glenn Youngkin’s actions, including the deadly vetoes of more than 30 gun violence prevention bills in the last two years alone.

04:16.100

Ashley Lantz

And Abigail Spanberger made gun violence prevention a top issue, a real central issue from the very beginning of her campaign. She wasn’t afraid to talk about it. She met with people about it. And that all had a very powerful result. And I think, you you know, when gun violence prevention is the number one killer of our kids in America, Virginians care quite deeply about this issue.

04:39.26

Ashley Lantz

Public and opinion in Virginia for a long time has shown that gun owners and non-gun owners alike support common sense measures. And I think, you know, there are other takeaways from this election that I would point out as well. One of them being that there’s really immense value in forcing gun extremists to defend themselves in every single race, on every single turf. And for decades, gun extremist candidates who have been bought and paid for by the gun industry have been able to cherry pick their battles and in Virginia and in other states as well. And they’ve been able to dominate the electoral map.

05:15.09

Ashley Lantz

This cycle, Speaker Don Scott and campaign chair Dan Helmer ran a bold and brilliant strategy of putting up candidates in every House district. And now we have this powerful majority of 64 seats, and they are going to work to pass meaning meaningful reforms that save lives.

05:32.30

Ashley Lantz

And this election clearly also showed the dissatisfactions of Virginians with the current direction of our country. It was really a repudiation of the extremist policies that make us all poorer and certainly less safe.

05:44.84

Ashley Lantz

And candidates with pragmatic solutions like Abigail Spanberger won the day.

05:49.74

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, and you know i think it’s a good point, but oftentimes it might not be in the news, but I think for a lot of people, it’s an important issue. And could you talk about your organization or or other grassroots organizations that are focusing on this issue? Because you know you don’t really see it necessarily every day in the news, but I just know personally people who really do care about this issue, and it’s something that might not grab all the headlines, but is something that a lot of voters are thinking about.

06:16.70

Ashley Lantz

Absolutely. Gun violence prevention organizations are certainly active and certainly active in elections. I can talk about what we did in this last election in particular. As I mentioned, we really focused heavily on turning out the youth vote.

06:29.90

Ashley Lantz

We have a program at Brady that we partner with called Team Enough, which are youth leaders. They are led by survivors of the Parkland shooting. And we turned out those youth volunteers to knock doors, hold phone banks, hold text banks, and train individuals who were in the field on talking about gun violence prevention. And we really heard from voters of all backgrounds, all ages about this issue. And it was just phenomenal.

07:00.89

Ashley Lantz

We were certainly engaged in this election and making sure that we could have leaders in Richmond who would take decisive action. Some of that was protecting leaders like Michael Fegans and Nadarius Clark and electing new individuals like a longtime gun violence prevention activist, Lindsay Dougherty and Jessica Anderson.

07:32.04

Sam Shirazi

Yeah. and And so kind of moving on to the General Assembly session in January, where obviously there will be a number of bills introduced. Could you kind of walk through what you think are the most likely bills to pass and you know why they’re important?

07:46.29

Ashley Lantz

Absolutely. Lawmakers must use this mandate to protect safety. That is certainly clear. Every Virginian deserves to feel safe in their community. And that means we also have to keep illegal guns from flooding our streets. We should be doing everything we can to help law enforcement keep guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals and not pad the gun industry’s profits. So the sky is really the limit, but we think that there will be a number of bills considered, particularly because Glenn Youngkin vetoed every gun violence prevention bill that was put before him. including almost 20 in and the last session. So we are hoping that there will be a secure storage a measure, the measure to ban ghost guns, and one of our top priorities, which is holding the gun industry accountable.

08:47.78

Ashley Lantz

And we also will be working on a permit to purchase bill in addition. So we have a long list of priorities. We think that this assembly is ready to take up all of them and ready to act on this issue.

08:59.94

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, and i wanted to follow up specifically about the assault weapon ban, because I think that one often gets a lot of attention. There’s often rhetoric about, you know you’re going to come and take people’s guns. Do you have a sense of if it’s just going to be a ban of future purchases of these weapons? And do you think a a Governor Spanberger would sign such a legislation if it came to her desk?

09:22.72

Ashley Lantz

Governor-elect Spanberger has been a longtime champion on this issue. she will sign gun violence prevention legislation. i think that, you know, you have to keep in mind that this this assault weapons ban has to be on the table, but so do other priorities. An assault weapons ban is not a standalone solution. There are many solutions that must be addressed, including those that I mentioned, the ghost guns ban, secure firearm storage, gun industry accountability. So it’s one piece of the puzzle.

10:05.02

Ashley Lantz

Addressing the proliferation of these weapons is the most direct way to mitigate the risk of high fatality shootings in public venues and in our schools. And legislators know that. They know that when assault weapons are large capacity magazines, are used in a shooting, there are 155% more victims compared to incidents using other types of firearms. So this this ban must be considered, but also in the context of the many other solutions as part of a comprehensive framework in Virginia.

10:38.51

Sam Shirazi

And what do you say, I’ve already seen, you know, Republican members of the House of Delegates use rhetoric like, well, the Democrats are going to come and take our guns, you know, this is going to be on their agenda, they’re going to come take our guns. And you hear that kind of rhetoric a lot. i mean, how would you respond to that?

10:55.36

Ashley Lantz

No one’s taking guns. We are trying to keep guns out of the hands of people who pose a danger to themselves or to others. That is a common sense measure. Common sense measures like secure storage, we’re trying to enact that. That is simply asking people to use a gun lock or a gun safe.

11:13.68

Ashley Lantz

Every responsible gun owner will tell you that they believe in secure storage. So the idea that we can’t have any gun violence prevention reform is simply absurd. And it’s not what the voters want.

11:58.51

Ashley Lantz

It’s just absurd. So these are all common sense policies that voters frankly want. And despite what the gun industry says, we know the truth. And the truth is that they are to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals.

12:14.48

Sam Shirazi

And I also wanted to just push on something that I anticipate Republicans will say in response to some of these measures is, you know, the Democrats got this win because people wanted them to focus on the economy. And now, look, they’re focusing on all this other stuff. And, you know, could you kind of talk about why this is, you know, in some ways something that people care about because of what they’re going through their everyday lives? And it’s not some distraction, like maybe the Republicans would argue.

12:43.91

Ashley Lantz

Absolutely. This is a kitchen table issue. And we can walk and chew gum. In fact, we can address affordability and cost of living. And we can do everything possible to keep our children and our community safe. They’re non-exclusive issues.

12:59.96

Ashley Lantz

And parents will tell you time and time again of the fear that they have in dropping their kids off at school or wondering if their kids will be shot that day. We see that issue with parents. We also know that firearm suicide, particularly among veterans in rural communities, is on the rise.

13:20.89

Ashley Lantz

And the candidates who won on November 4th know that they must address them.

13:26.04

Ashley Lantz

We can do all of these things with the new majority. We don’t have to choose. And we can have leaders who reflect the will of the Virginia people.

13:35.42

Sam Shirazi

And mean I think that’s really helpful in terms of some of the policy and debates going to happen probably in January in the General Assembly.

13:43.72

Ashley Lantz

Mm-hmm.

13:43.71

Sam Shirazi

I wanted to maybe move a little bit more big picture nationally. We’re obviously coming up into the midterms. And I think one thing the Democrats are kind of struggling with is how to win back some Trump voters who they need, particularly in the Senate and some of these more rural and more working class states.

14:02.88

Sam Shirazi

And so often what you hear from you know certain people who are who are thinking like pundits basically saying, yeah, the Democrats need to moderate a little bit on the gun an issue so that they can win you know places like Ohio or Iowa.

14:16.92

Sam Shirazi

what do you What’s your response to that kind of argument?

14:37.76

Ashley Lantz

Rural voters are overwhelmingly supportive, including gun owners and Republicans, of responsible gun I can talk about Virginia, but let’s also take a look at Maine, for example.

15:04.12

Ashley Lantz

Since Trump took office, state candidates have caused significant upsets in heavy Trump-won districts and from 2024. while supporting gun violence prevention. That includes Pennsylvania Senate District 36 with James Malone, Mike Zimmer in Iowa, and Sam Sutton’s victory in New York State.

15:24.18

Ashley Lantz

That was an upset that in an area that Trump carried by 55 points in 2024. So it’s no surprise, Sam, that rural voters don’t want to see children shot shot in school any more than you and I do, And across rural counties in the United States, suicide rates and gun death rates are creeping up higher than in urban counties. The biggest lesson that we can take away is not that Democrats or even Republicans, for that matter, need to move away from gun safety. It’s that they need to stay strong and message clearly on highly popular solutions that ensure the safety of all communities, including rural ones. Safety is a core American value that no political party should ever abandon.

16:04.80

Ashley Lantz

If the takeaway of either party from the 2024 and 2025 elections is that it needs to abandon gun violence prevention and crime prevention, then those candidates should be prepared to lose many, many future elections. But I do hope by now that Democratic candidates realize that they can walk and chew gum, that they can address significant and understandable affordability concerns that we all share,

16:29.92

Ashley Lantz

and also deliver on everyday concerns such as gun violence prevention. The real political liability right now is extremism run amok. It’s really about Republicans who are out of touch with their constituents’ desire for safety and who kowtow to the corrupt interests of a gun industry that’s more interested in their own profits than our lives. And that’s shown in the opposition of extremists to even the most basic of gun safety protections like secure firearm storage. And that’s a real vulnerability that we should all be paying more attention to and talking about.

17:06.50

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I think that’s a good point, specifically about the Maine election. i think I think it didn’t get enough attention that Maine overwhelmingly passed that measure to increase gun safety. So I wanted to maybe pivot less from on the kind the political side of things to kind of the persuasion side about trying to not just to win elections, you know, convince people, but really kind of a hearts and minds change the direction of this conversation? Because I think often it’d be, you know, it’s often kind of this binary between you’re either pro-gun or you’re on the other side.

17:44.18

Sam Shirazi

Can you kind of explain how, you know, you may try to reach voters who, own a gun or come from a hunting culture in rural areas, but you want them to kind of come over to your side and not necessarily believe all the things that they see about perhaps people taking their guns away and and all that, all that stuff.

18:04.97

Ashley Lantz

Absolutely. Rural voters in particular, they’re not oblivious to the dangers of gun violence. They are especially concerned about preventing domestic violence and firearm suicide among veterans in particular.

18:18.26

Ashley Lantz

We’re leading a first-of-its-kind effort at Brady to both deeply engage and elevate the voices of gun owners, particularly those in rural areas. we’re working with gun owners very closely.

18:29.19

Ashley Lantz

And what we’ve found and what we remind people is that rural gun owners are not a monolith. Most are responsible individuals who in turn support responsible gun ownership and public safety. what we found in this effort of working with gun owners quite quickly is that they not only support common sense measures to protect public safety and promote responsible gun ownership, they also have significant frustration with an extremist run political party that opposes every single gun safety action while our children continue to be gunned down in schools. And that’s really the source of tension on this issue, not opposition from voters, not opposition from gun owners, not opposition from rural voters.

19:12.36

Ashley Lantz

It’s really that our the extremism in this process and the fact that our leaders are doing the bidding of the gun industry. So we’re not really working to convince rural voters or gun owners so much as they’re actually pretty decided on this issue. But we are empowering them to turn out and vote to speak about this issue in public, to hold their elected officials accountable and make sure that gun safety measures that they support pass.

19:45.31

Ashley Lantz

So this is not an issue where we have to convince people. We don’t need to convince rural voters or, gun owners because they actually back these policies in polling.

19:57.30

Ashley Lantz

Often at rates that are very similar to urban and suburban voters and to, to non-gun owners. So there’s years and years of pulling on that around universal background checks and extreme risk protection orders in particular.

20:11.57

Sam Shirazi

Well, you know, speaking about voters, obviously this year they they had their say and it was a good year for Democrats. And we’ll see kind of policies they start to implement because of that. But next year with the midterms, there are a lot more elections, a lot more states.

20:30.15

Ashley Lantz

We are very focused on the midterms already. We’re already endorsing candidates and we’re beginning to you know plan our efforts to get in the field in 2026. At the federal level, we will be focusing on taking back the House of Representatives with a large majority. We believe that there are a number of gun violence prevention champions who are already on the ballot or are about to be on the ballot who will help lead change, much needed change in Congress. We’ll also be working on some Senate races as well.

21:31.94

Ashley Lantz

Another thing that i’ really focused on at Brady Pack is this youth voter piece that I spoke about. We are going to work on building a youth mobilization arm.

21:43.74

Ashley Lantz

I really believe that it’s the youth who have lived through this experience, known as Generation Lockdown, who will bring about the change on this issue.

21:54.35

Ashley Lantz

And that one day they will say enough is enough. And we will have young leaders in Congress who will take on this issue. So we’re going to be doing everything possible to turn out grassroots, to turn out young voters across the country, and really show the political power of youth.

22:13.91

Sam Shirazi

Well, that’s all really interesting. I appreciate you coming on and kind of giving your perspective and your organization, giving more information about your organization. How can people find out more if they’re interested?

22:24.91

Ashley Lantz

You can go to BradyPAC.org to learn more about our organization.

22:30.88

Sam Shirazi

All right. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to come on. And yeah, we’ll we’ll all keep a close eye as the General Assembly convenes and see what type of actions they take in the new year.

22:41.63

Ashley Lantz

Thanks, Sam.

22:42.60

Sam Shirazi

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

00:24.06

Charles Nuttycombe

Hey, Sam, thanks for having me back on.

00:26.10

Sam Shirazi

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

00:33.82

Charles Nuttycombe

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

00:56.66

Charles Nuttycombe

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

01:23.06

Charles Nuttycombe

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

01:27.59

Sam Shirazi

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

01:33.44

Charles Nuttycombe

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

01:37.21

Sam Shirazi

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

01:38.87

Charles Nuttycombe

That was good.

01:40.89

Sam Shirazi

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

01:57.98

Sam Shirazi

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

02:20.70

Charles Nuttycombe

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

02:38.81

Charles Nuttycombe

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

03:18.67

Charles Nuttycombe

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

03:31.12

Charles Nuttycombe

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

03:48.32

Charles Nuttycombe

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

04:24.21

Charles Nuttycombe

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

04:46.18

Charles Nuttycombe

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

04:57.18

Charles Nuttycombe

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

05:10.05

Charles Nuttycombe

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

05:36.26

Charles Nuttycombe

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

05:58.54

Charles Nuttycombe

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

06:47.80

Charles Nuttycombe

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

07:01.32

Charles Nuttycombe

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

07:22.16

Charles Nuttycombe

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

07:34.71

Charles Nuttycombe

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

07:44.54

Charles Nuttycombe

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

07:58.04

Charles Nuttycombe

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

08:08.79

Charles Nuttycombe

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

08:20.25

Charles Nuttycombe

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

08:25.72

Sam Shirazi

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

08:54.52

Sam Shirazi

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

09:14.07

Charles Nuttycombe

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

09:31.42

Charles Nuttycombe

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

09:50.04

Charles Nuttycombe

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

10:09.01

Charles Nuttycombe

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

10:55.12

Charles Nuttycombe

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

11:08.10

Charles Nuttycombe

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

11:28.69

Charles Nuttycombe

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

11:39.36

Charles Nuttycombe

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

11:54.62

Charles Nuttycombe

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

12:07.70

Charles Nuttycombe

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

12:31.21

Charles Nuttycombe

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

12:46.06

Charles Nuttycombe

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

13:11.75

Charles Nuttycombe

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

13:27.92

Charles Nuttycombe

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

13:49.62

Charles Nuttycombe

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

14:03.28

Charles Nuttycombe

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

14:08.15

Sam Shirazi

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

14:28.89

Sam Shirazi

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

15:07.39

Charles Nuttycombe

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

15:17.24

Charles Nuttycombe

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

15:34.79

Charles Nuttycombe

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

16:13.13

Charles Nuttycombe

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

16:29.44

Charles Nuttycombe

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

16:41.79

Charles Nuttycombe

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

17:05.62

Charles Nuttycombe

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

17:19.86

Charles Nuttycombe

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

17:34.07

Charles Nuttycombe

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

17:45.99

Charles Nuttycombe

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

18:02.99

Charles Nuttycombe

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

18:35.07

Sam Shirazi

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

19:00.51

Sam Shirazi

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

19:17.08

Charles Nuttycombe

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

19:42.64

Charles Nuttycombe

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

20:02.89

Charles Nuttycombe

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

20:48.12

Charles Nuttycombe

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

21:06.99

Charles Nuttycombe

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

21:24.70

Charles Nuttycombe

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

21:40.27

Charles Nuttycombe

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

21:57.45

Charles Nuttycombe

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

22:18.50

Charles Nuttycombe

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

22:30.61

Charles Nuttycombe

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

22:45.33

Charles Nuttycombe

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

23:06.35

Charles Nuttycombe

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

23:20.33

Charles Nuttycombe

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

23:34.94

Charles Nuttycombe

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

23:45.78

Sam Shirazi

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

24:17.70

Sam Shirazi

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

24:28.76

Charles Nuttycombe

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

24:43.100

Charles Nuttycombe

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

25:09.06

Charles Nuttycombe

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

25:24.10

Charles Nuttycombe

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

25:38.12

Charles Nuttycombe

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

25:55.36

Charles Nuttycombe

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

26:28.58

Charles Nuttycombe

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

26:46.24

Charles Nuttycombe

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

26:59.26

Charles Nuttycombe

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

27:04.00

Sam Shirazi

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

27:20.30

Sam Shirazi

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

27:34.51

Charles Nuttycombe

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

27:46.54

Charles Nuttycombe

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

27:59.21

Charles Nuttycombe

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

28:16.28

Charles Nuttycombe

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

28:34.65

Charles Nuttycombe

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

28:58.67

Charles Nuttycombe

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

29:26.72

Charles Nuttycombe

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

29:40.05

Sam Shirazi

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

29:54.37

Sam Shirazi

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

30:05.31

Charles Nuttycombe

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

30:17.42

Charles Nuttycombe

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

30:26.73

Charles Nuttycombe

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

30:37.71

Charles Nuttycombe

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

31:02.48

Charles Nuttycombe

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

31:13.21

Charles Nuttycombe

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

31:33.08

Charles Nuttycombe

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

31:44.83

Charles Nuttycombe

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

32:00.12

Charles Nuttycombe

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

32:15.15

Charles Nuttycombe

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

32:31.62

Charles Nuttycombe

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

32:48.29

Charles Nuttycombe

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

33:10.95

Charles Nuttycombe

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

33:35.54

Charles Nuttycombe

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

33:45.07

Charles Nuttycombe

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

34:00.08

Charles Nuttycombe

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

34:16.98

Charles Nuttycombe

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

34:28.18

Charles Nuttycombe

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

34:39.86

Charles Nuttycombe

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

34:53.00

Charles Nuttycombe

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

35:02.41

Charles Nuttycombe

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

35:13.20

Charles Nuttycombe

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

35:38.83

Charles Nuttycombe

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

35:52.66

Charles Nuttycombe

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

36:09.54

Charles Nuttycombe

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

36:21.74

Charles Nuttycombe

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

36:36.71

Charles Nuttycombe

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

36:46.21

Sam Shirazi

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

37:18.22

Charles Nuttycombe

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

37:32.99

Charles Nuttycombe

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

37:48.42

Charles Nuttycombe

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

38:11.48

Charles Nuttycombe

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

38:30.74

Charles Nuttycombe

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

38:46.62

Charles Nuttycombe

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

38:49.62

Sam Shirazi

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

38:51.91

Charles Nuttycombe

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

39:21.98

Charles Nuttycombe

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

39:41.58

Charles Nuttycombe

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

40:01.90

Charles Nuttycombe

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

40:12.26

Charles Nuttycombe

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

40:30.83

Charles Nuttycombe

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

40:54.91

Charles Nuttycombe

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

40:59.90

Sam Shirazi

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

41:09.66

Charles Nuttycombe

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

41:12.83

Charles Nuttycombe

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

41:28.96

Charles Nuttycombe

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

41:45.08

Charles Nuttycombe

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

42:06.04

Charles Nuttycombe

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

42:19.96

Charles Nuttycombe

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

42:40.96

Charles Nuttycombe

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

42:53.72

Charles Nuttycombe

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

43:13.64

Charles Nuttycombe

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

43:31.17

Charles Nuttycombe

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

43:49.52

Charles Nuttycombe

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

44:05.24

Charles Nuttycombe

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

44:20.01

Charles Nuttycombe

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

44:39.70

Charles Nuttycombe

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

45:03.26

Charles Nuttycombe

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

45:13.34

Sam Shirazi

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

45:30.82

Charles Nuttycombe

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

45:33.26

Sam Shirazi

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

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

Hi everyone, I’m Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fall Out the 2025 Virginia elections.

This episode we will have Joe Szymanski.

He is going to help walk us through perhaps the Republican reaction to what happened in Virginia, maybe lessons they can learn and things that could potentially change for them ahead of the midterms, because obviously both parties are going to be trying to figure out what they can do differently or the same to to do as best as possible or during during the midterms. Joe, I follow you on social media. I always appreciate your takes. I think you’re pretty objective and you’re pretty realistic in your assessment. So it’s good to have you on.

00:38.35

Joe

I appreciate it, Sam. Thank you very much for having me back.

00:40.63

Sam Shirazi

Yeah. So, I mean, to begin, i think, you know, whenever there’s an election like this, the party that loses, there’s kind of soul searching and kind of questioning of what happened. You know, how much of this do you think was just the environment, given what happened in New Jersey? So how much do you think what happened in Virginia was the environment versus kind of the specific campaign dynamics?

01:01.24

Joe

Well, i think I think it depends on what race you’re talking about. you know I think, obviously, when you look at the fact that Abigail Spanberger won by 15 points, you know significantly higher than there are other statewide compatriots. Ghazala Hashimi only won by about 11.5. You had Jay Jones, obviously, only winning by about 6.5 points.

01:26.20

Joe

So, you know, Abigail Spanberger winning by around 15.3%. That, you know, that’s a big difference. Obviously, that’s a, I think that’s a Spanberger-like thing, the fact that she was able to get that high.

01:38.51

Joe

But if you, I think the Hashmi-Reed race, I talked, I put out a post about this a couple of days ago. That seemed to basically be kind of the the set generic R, generic D race. That was the race had the least attention.

01:50.67

Joe

That was the race that just kind of seemed to be, I think, where if we’re just talking about baseline where R’s and D’s were in Virginia this year, that seemed to be the place right there. And I think when you look at the races in the House of Delegates, I think that kind of tracks pretty well with the seats that we saw flip or get close. You know, I think in general, I think that sits pretty well with what we are looking at statewide. But certainly, I think in the case of, you know, how relative in terms of compared to the other two statewide races, how relatively close to the AG race was. and how you know far apart the governor’s race was, I think those were candidate-based. But I think when you get down to, I think, some of these has of deal a lot of these House of Delegate races, and I think the lieutenant governor’s race as well, it just showed just general blue wave that I think fell over the parts of the country that held elections two weeks ago.

02:40.43

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I mean, I think that’s a good point. Like if you look at the lieutenant governor’s race as kind of the generic ballot, D.R. and the Democrats win by 11.

02:48.38

Joe

Uh.

02:48.71

Sam Shirazi

I mean, if you compare to that to 2017, that’s a bigger win than the governor’s race or the lieutenant governor’s race in 2017 in Virginia. So how much do you think, you know, Virginia, New Jersey,

02:59.18

Sam Shirazi

was kind of a flashing signal to the Republicans because some Republicans have said, well, those are bluer states, so there’d probably be more of a backlash in those types of states. you know how How big of a deal do you think the elections were?

03:12.30

Joe

I think certainly certainly they’re a big deal. And certainly when you, I think, underperform expectations like Republicans did, you know, not just in Virginia, but across the country.

03:22.89

Joe

two weeks ago, that’s going to be a huge problem. That can send red red flashing lights, I think, for everyone. You know, Republicans didn’t do well in New Jersey, like you said. They didn’t do well. There were some very key races in Pennsylvania that brought forth a lot of money. The Republicans didn’t do well there.

03:37.91

Joe

There was a lot of local stuff in many states that did not go Republicans’ way. That was a lot of problems. Obviously, the big red, flashing light, I think you look at the legislative elections in both New Jersey and Virginia, where Republicans you know failed to failed to make, you know either limit their losses, like I think the hope was Virginia, or potentially to make some gains, like I think they were quite honestly hoping to do in New Jersey. you know and Republicans basically had their worst night possible, losing 13 seats, basically all the seats that were

04:09.88

Joe

rated toss-up or even the few that were lean Republican by the end of the night were in the Democratic column. You know, you had upsets, you know, you had Chad Green losing, Paul Mild, Bobby Oroch, you know, those are kind of the three seats that I think people going into the night were, you know, kind of thinking that Republicans probably had a slightly better than 50% chance in. And then, you know, Democrats win all three of those seats with, honestly, with some relative ease. None of them were within a point in the closest seat.

04:39.60

Joe

that Democrats won was actually Gary Higgins’ seat, which some people thought may be not as close as it was. But there there should be a lot of red flashing lights here. I think obviously with Virginia, you know you have to take the government shutdown into effect.

04:54.13

Joe

Certainly that’s what happened in 2013. But you know now you have a government shutdown happening that really ticked off a lot of Virginia voters. Well, you’ve got a Republican president you know who is not popular right now. If you go by the polling data, he’s not a particularly popular person right now.

05:10.28

Joe

And it’s certainly not surprising that he’s not he was not popular in a lot of these deep blue pockets that Virginia has around Richmond, you know, the D.C. suburbs, of course, and then around, you know, Hampton Roads area, Norfolk, Hampton, Newport News, Portsmouth, even the inner parts of Chesapeake and Virginia Beach, you know.

05:29.80

Joe

It’s a very clear sign that the people who are turning out to elections right now are upset and Republicans need to take notice and maybe I think recalibrate some of the messaging that we hope to have 2026.

05:40.13

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, and and I’ll get to the midterms and kind of what the Republicans can maybe change. I did want to just spend a moment just on the House of Delegates because you know you you obviously know know knew those races really well. And I think you know pretty much no one expected Democrats to pick up the 13 seats.

05:55.71

Sam Shirazi

And I think the question I have kind of... about the Virginia elections in this context is more, do individual candidates matter at this point at the kind lower parts of the ticket? Because I feel like most people don’t even think too much about the House of Delegates candidates anymore. In 2013, Terry McAuliffe won the governor’s race and the Republicans won like 66 House of Delegates seats. It just seems like people don’t do that anymore. And I mean, do you think there’s gonna be any ticket splitting in the future or is just we’re kind of done with that?

06:30.22

Joe

Well, mean, we still did see some evidence of ticket splitting. You know, you go to via eighty six district. AC Cordoza did, I think, significantly worse than most of the top of the ticket.

06:42.20

Joe

We had Carrie Coyner in 75, even though she still lost, do significantly better than Republicans at the top of ticket did in that seat, even though she still ended up losing by just about six points there. So I think i think when you look at some of these races, there is still some signs of ticket splitting for some favors to to incumbents, but you know,

07:01.80

Joe

You look at, I think, people like Mark Early Jr., who was, you know, knocked out by over three points. You look at David Owen, who who had a very moderate voting record and in Henrico County in what became a very blue seat. He got trounced. I think Ian Lovejoy, I think, in HD22 and Prince William, I think that’s the biggest one. Ian Lovejoy.

07:42.60

Joe

I think that showed the partisanship more than maybe any race throughout the cycle, the fact that people did not care that Ian Lovejoy was a relatively moderate Republican delegate. He just where he had an R next to his name, and the people in Northern Virginia were not going to elect any Republican this year.

07:59.01

Joe

That’s the fact they weren’t going to do it. and you know, that’s what happened now. I mean, Northern Virginia is completely blue the house level now. Jerry Higgins is gone. Ian Lovejoy is gone. If you want him to count Paul Mildon there in that middle Stafford seat, he’s gone. And even if you want to go as far as Bobby Oreck, you know, he’s gone now, too.

08:17.81

Joe

So, you know, I think certainly there is a good chunk of it that was anger. There’s certainly still, I think there’s still some ticket splitting you can see here, but certainly it’s becoming less and less, you know, it’s becoming less and less common, becoming less and less a decider. You know, we might be seeing it a point or two, but we’re not seeing it by the 10, 15-point splits that we would see a decade ago.

08:36.62

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, and and that makes sense. And, you know, it it is, I think sometimes when there’s these waves, whether it’s a blue wave or red wave, it kind of takes people with them and there’s not a lot you can do. And so looking towards the midterms, I guess, before we get to what Republicans can do or learn, Do you think you’ll see a similar dynamic where some of these incumbents, you know, maybe in the past they’ve been safe? i mean, obviously, the biggest name is Susan Collins. After 2020, there’s this assumption she’s very hard to beat. But do you think maybe if there’s this wave that some of these incumbents could actually be pretty vulnerable?

09:11.11

Joe

I mean, that’s I think that’s the case with every wave, potential wave of election, quite honestly. i mean, if you go back to the conversations in 2022, there was a lot of that the Republicans could knock off. some historically song strong Democrat candidates. Now, obviously, that year didn’t turn out like like it had been previously hoped, but you know that was certainly part of the thinking there. And if you want to consider 2024 wave election in some circumstance, you had Republican president, Senate candidate winning the popular vote in Donald Trump, Republicans making gains in both houses of Congress and in state legislators across the country.

09:44.09

Joe

You know, you i think Bob Casey. I think if you want to consider 2024 to be a certain type of wave, you have Bob Casey, who was considered one of the stronger candidates in the country. you know, kind of just get eliminated out of nowhere, truly by partisanship. So, you know you know, I think Susan Collins can’t wet rest, certainly, I think, compared to lots of candidates.

10:04.17

Joe

She’s done a better job at portraying her brand. She has a longtime brand. we see see We still see those longtime people survive. But, you know, if to make the Virginia connection, you’ve got someone like Bobby Orrick, who had been there for 30-plus years, you know, getting absolutely swamped.

10:20.12

Joe

know, it’s very clearly starting to matter less. And if people are mad, and if those people are voting, then, you know, I think, Connie, you’re out of luck there, quite honestly.

10:30.50

Joe

It’s going to be tough for of these people imagine. But, you know, the the old days are almost dead when it comes to stuff like this. and those those days that we have, those major ticket splits, don’t really exist anymore. Now, we like this like we’ve said, like I’ve said, we’ve had some still some stragglers. And some of those stragglers are still going to exist, I think, after the 2026 election.

10:50.60

Joe

It’s just going to continue to be less and less than what we’re used to in this nation.

10:54.100

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, and I think it’s a good point about Bob Casey, because I think that was one where I was surprised in 2024. And it’s just a good reminder that can’t take any you can’t make any assumptions in any election. So we’ll just have to wait to see how the midterms go. I did want to ask about kind of lessons to be learned or or things that could potentially change, because, you know, obviously on the Democratic side, there’s a sense of, yes, Virginia and New Jersey proved our theory that you know Democrats are going to come back and there’s going to be a blue wave in 2026. I’m kind of hesitant to all make these big assumptions because obviously 2022, there was a lot of talk about a red wave. and It didn’t really happen, even though the Republicans made some gains.

11:39.89

Joe

You know, I think the read is that Democrats are probably favored. You know, obviously, I think it is little bit too early. Obviously, we had the ruling on the Texas redistricting yesterday. We’ll see how that appeal goes. You know, if that gets flipped back to the redrawn Texas districts, then that will – kind of, I think, rechanged some priors again. You know, we’ve had obviously so much, you know, mid-term, mid-cycle redistricting, you know, that’s not good for our country, quite honestly.

12:08.93

Joe

It’s bad for democracy. It’s bad for this place. You know, it’s bad in Texas. It’s bad in California. It’s bad in Missouri. It’s bad in North Carolina. You know, it’s bad. It’s bad in Virginia, with Virginia looking you like to do with it I think that’s bad, obviously. And, you know, i you’ve got Indiana looking do it. You know, this Illinois going to go one farther. You know, Maryland, there’s a lot of pressure in Maryland to try and eliminate Andy Harris in that last Republican seat there.

12:36.60

Joe

it’s it’s just kind of this coalition of a lot of things that are occurring at one time and just a lot of partisan anger at each other that in truth is not good for our country. It’s not healthy for our country. and It’s a lot of lot of negative thoughts and feelings, I think, that are going right now with that. And i think we’re going tonna have to see and wait how how that kind of ends and develops.

12:55.92

Joe

You know, I think we’re going to have to and candidates, you know, who’s going to get primaried. Republican anger has sometimes led in some seats to nominating in swing seats of very partisan candidates. Now, I don’t think it would be the same type of partisan candidates for Democratic primaries, but certainly do you get maybe these – – someone made the point to me, maybe these, you know, Carr Eastman – Jamie McLeod Skinner, if you know those names, then you’re impressive. But these very left wing, but also academic types, who kind of are notorious for turning off swing voters.

13:25.62

Joe

you know Do Democrats maybe get a couple of those in swing seats? you know do they blow those there? We don’t really know the the real extent of democratic Democratic anger yet that I think we could see in some of these primaries. I’m very fascinated to see how that develops.

13:39.38

Joe

And I think that will make a lot of calls. But I think certainly right now Democrats are favored to retake the House. And I think there will be questions about the Senate. I think the Senate could be very close, but just because of the seats that are up, I do think Republicans are a little bit favored to, I think, keep control there.

13:55.50

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, I mean, that that seems to be the what it looks like right now, but obviously year is a long time. And so given that there’s still time until the midterms, you know, any party after an election like what happened in Virginia, New Jersey, they’ll take some time to reflect, try to figure out, OK, what went wrong?

14:11.96

Sam Shirazi

It seems like the main issue the Republicans had was the economy and they didn’t talk enough about it. We’ve already seen a little bit of changing, I think, in some of the messaging for the Republicans. But do you think there’s like anything the Republicans can do in terms of changing the messaging or just the economy have to get better? And that’s really the only thing that can maybe help the Republicans for the midterms.

14:32.12

Joe

You know, obviously the economy getting better it would be the change of all change. It certainly wouldn’t be to the level the Roe v. Wade ruling being overturned by the Supreme Court, but certainly an improvement in the economy would help Republican chances. it would certainly, I think, lessen the size of the wave that they could face, for sure.

14:53.88

Joe

think that’s undeniable if the economy approves. But I also think Republicans just have to talk more about what they’re trying to do with the affordability crisis. There is an affordability crisis in this country. You know, I’m 24.

15:28.11

Joe

I believe, as a Republican, I think that Republicans can be far better. think in terms of, you know, I think unleashing the free market for a housing industry. And, you know, that’s something that i’m I’m increasingly passionate about and believe that I think Republicans can need to message more affordability because I believe they are doing some strong things. And I believe it’s trying to focus on affordability and what they’re trying to do to help people in their pocketbook.

16:02.57

Joe

not what people are worried about right now. People are worried about affording rent, and they’re worrying about trying to buy their first home, and they’re trying to worry about food putting food on the table. think Republicans have to reconstruct themselves through affordability crisis, and I think if we do that, I think we can certainly, if we can message it well, think we can certainly avoid a super wave that would knock out the lots of candidates in seats that we should not be losing, that we might be losing under the terms of a massive wave.

16:28.83

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, and I think that’s a good point about you know the messaging.

16:30.99

Joe

Thank

16:31.94

Sam Shirazi

And it’s not super complicated, but obviously the Republicans have to work on that for the persuasion side of things. I did want to talk about turnout because in some parts of Virginia, like Southwest Virginia, turnout wasn’t as strong as it was in 2021. You often hear about low propensity Trump voters. They don’t show up for the midterms. That’s going to be a problem for the Republicans.

16:51.26

Sam Shirazi

My sense is some of the trans stuff is to try to motivate those people to show up, which, you know, I don’t know if that really works. But how do you think the Republicans can deal with that issue of their low propensity voters?

17:02.61

Joe

Well, it’s certainly a question that’s hard to do. I think a lot of Republicans look to groups like Scott Pressler’s Early Vote Action. To be totally honest, I think Early Vote Action does a very good job the first step, which is getting people to register to the vote.

17:17.60

Joe

I don’t think they’re particularly very good at the second and third step, which is educating them on where to vote and making sure they get out to vote. I think they’ve not done a very good job at that.

17:27.93

Joe

that’s a frustration I have with the group that I think we’re taking maybe too many opinions of how we should run our local campaigns. But that’s, I think, a topic for another conversation another day.

17:39.45

Joe

But I think Republicans, like I said, I think they have to talk to people’s pocketbooks. I think we have to, you know, again, i think we have to hit on what we’re doing to focus on the affordability crisis and what we’re doing to help people’s pocketbooks and make sure that we know the the people know that we’re fighting for them and that we give them a reason to turn out. If we do not, I think a lot of people and the parties in power don’t,

18:02.23

Joe

do a very good job of this. I think Democrats certainly struggled with it during Joe Biden’s term. Republicans struggled with it a bit in Donald Trump’s first term. I think Democrats suffered with it significantly more in Barack Obama’s eight years as president and those off-year elections of giving them a reason to turn out. The only reason that Joe Biden, think they not suffer terrible midterm losses is because Roe v. Wade being overturned gave lots of Democrat voters and activists reason to turn out.

18:32.10

Joe

Republicans aren’t going to have something like that, so we have to fight for it ourselves and message in that way to give them a reason to turn out for us and you know you know try and keep our majorities as much as unlikely as that may be in some circumstances.

18:44.17

Joe

circumstances

18:45.36

Sam Shirazi

Well, that’ll make sense. And, you know, we’ll see how the midterms go. i did want to shift things back to Virginia to talk about perhaps something that will be happening in the spring, because obviously the Democrats have proposed redistricting.

18:59.52

Sam Shirazi

Now there’s some legal challenges. We’ll see how that goes. Democrats, in theory, would have to vote for it again, which seems like likely that they would.

19:05.63

Joe

Thank you.

19:07.12

Sam Shirazi

So let’s say there’s a referendum in the spring. I think the assumption among Democrats, at least, is, oh, this will be a slam dunk. You know, look what happened in California. And, you know, we’re going to get this redistricting referendum passed. I mean, do you think there’s a chance it might not pass? Because obviously, Virginia is not California. And, you know, the polling, it looks like slight majority might support it. But, you know, in theory, especially if Texas redistricting goes down, there might be this world where,

19:34.90

Sam Shirazi

The voters might say, you know, this isn’t really necessary anymore.

19:37.91

Joe

Yeah, I think if the Texas Rediscerating stays down, that could change things tremendously. Personally, you know, I think it takes away a big chunk of the argument that Virginia Democrats have.

19:50.37

Joe

Like you said, it’s certainly, it’s not California, you know, 15 points is my Abigail Spamberger is, you know, it’s a miracle. It’s, it’s such an incredible result. One of the best results for Democrats ever in the modern age. If a candidate for governor won by only 15 points in California, you’d have people like freaking, freaking out. in that state, if I’m being honest. You’d have mass panic among Democrats in California if they only won by 50 points.

20:38.76

Joe

you know i you know And like you said, if it’s going to happen in the spring on an off year maybe a little bit, Democrats going to have to try harder. you know yeah The rural black vote and even I think the urban black vote in Virginia has always been has always been a consistent problem for Democrats in non-presidential years. That’s something they’re going to have to work on too, especially if Republicans maybe can get their voters turned on on this. And maybe if, again, if Texas isn’t back, Democrats are then going to have to continue to find a reason.

21:07.87

Joe

if they can’t find a reason then that’s really where uh republicans and no activists can step in and uh you maybe defeat the referendum here which would be very interesting to see

21:17.67

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, so let’s assume for whatever reason the the maps aren’t changed. Just for now, we obviously don’t know what potentially new districts would look like. Could you kind of talk a little bit about what you are seeing in the second district in a Kiggins-Loria rematch and in the first district with a Whitman-Taylor matchup?

21:37.85

Joe

Yeah, those are going to be two of the, I think if the map stays the same, are going to be two of the more interesting races. in the in the country. I think certainly those are going be the two most interesting races in Virginia.

22:10.63

Joe

You know, if you have Elaine Luria back in the second, if you have, you know, you’ve got Shannon Taylor in the first, who has a lot of momentum after her strong primary performance against Jay Jones, you know, there’s still certainly going to be, you know, there are still primaries for both. You know, I think Taylor,

22:27.57

Joe

is a sure thing. I i i think Lurie will end up being a sure thing. You know, there are still a couple of candidates in this race that I’m still maybe a little bit interested in you know, seeing and what they might do here. You know, they’ve raised a couple of, they’ve there’s been some candidates who’ve raised some decent money for starter for new candidates. So I’m interested to see maybe what goes on there, but I think certainly...

22:48.18

Joe

If the districts stay the same, we’re going to have Luria versus Kiggins 2.0. two point zero I think we will have Shannon Taylor versus Rob Whitman. Certainly, Rob Whitman will be the harder candidate to take down. I think the question is how overwhelming Western Henrico and Chesterfield is compared to the rest of the seat.

23:05.71

Joe

You know, does Whitman overperform in, you know, the Northern neck portion of the district where he’s represented his whole career? How much does that help him there? You know, that’ll be question. I think it looks very, it looks tough right now. I think for Jen Kiggins, and it just seems like that seems like a district that just, you know, it’s one of those districts that just swings back and forth and back and forth the way it’s drawn right now. And, uh,

23:27.96

Joe

I think she would certainly have a very tough time going against Luria, though I will always say it’s always, I think, more of a risk to run a candidate again after they lose in the general election versus a newcomer. I think that comes with different types of risks.

23:42.09

Joe

You’ve already had, you know, these races be able to run against that candidate. But, you know, I think certainly I would think I think in the end, Elaine Luria would probably favored there. and I think it would be very, very tight between Rob Whitman and Shannon Taylor.

23:54.17

Sam Shirazi

And I wanted to ask about the Senate race, because, you know, realistically, I don’t think Republicans are going to target it I mean, Mark Warner is going to the election, right?

23:59.81

Joe

wow

24:01.29

Sam Shirazi

I guess, you know, in 2018, we have a similar dynamic. Tim Kaine got a big win. And frankly, towards the end of that, he just spent his time basically campaigning for the congressional seats. Do you think Warner, if he gets like a Spanberger type 15% win, it could have influenced the House seats?

24:16.41

Joe

i think I think absolutely. I think Tim Kaine’s big win absolutely did so for Democrat House candidates and in 2018 for Democrats, a thing that helped out there.

24:26.72

Joe

you know i You know, obviously there’s no Corey Stewart, it looks like, this time. that That will be a big difference. Corey Stewart was much of you know... as you know Tim Cain was a good candidate. Stewart was as much of a drag of a candidate.

24:42.52

Joe

You know, it’ll probably come, you know, Bryce Reese is running. There’s been some talk around this David Williams, a U.S. Marine reserve reservist who just announced, you know, it’ll probably be one of those two.

24:53.60

Joe

I bet at that point, you know, you never know if an outsider can. But Bryce Reeves is not Corey Stewart. If it’s Bryce Reeves, I think there’s potential. He could keep it below a Spanberger-level blowout. You know, I think, I don’t know if that makes sense. You know, it’s like a difference between a 13-point Warner victory and a 15-point Warner victory. I don’t think does much for... Jen Kiggins, I think that could be very big for Rob Whitman, that top of the ticket. I think when you’re talking about that seat, that’s where maybe some difference could lie. you know If Warner’s maybe winning by 10 or 11 points, that’s where I think Whitman i think has a better chance of surviving than I think Kiggins would. I think you know you get to the double-digit races, I think Jen Kiggins is a lot of trouble then down the ballot.

25:42.44

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, that makes sense. And you know obviously we have to wait to see what the lines are in next year in Virginia. Well, I did want to leave on one note, which I’m sure the Republicans probably aren’t looking forward to, which is 2027 in Virginia because the the entire state Senate and the entire House of Delegates is up for election.

25:54.63

Joe

and

25:58.25

Sam Shirazi

I mean, obviously state Senate, i think Republicans have a... are in trouble in some of these districts and some of their incumbents and may go down or retire. So first on the state Senate and then also on House of Delegates, do you think, you know, do you think it’s realistic that Democrats are going to pick up more seats or can have they kind of hit their peak in the House of Delegates?

26:19.43

Joe

I think certainly in the Senate, I think they’re going to pick up at the bare minimum, you know, three seats. I think Danny Diggs, I think Glenn Sturdivant, and I think, I believe that Tara Durant’s seat.

26:33.82

Joe

think they’re picked up. I’m a little bit less sure. I think Republicans would have a better chance with Dave Suterlein and Emily Jordan. Those are just more Republican seats in general. And i think they could have a better chance to survive there. You know, Bill DeStef, Abigail Spanberger won that seat.

26:51.49

Joe

Northern Virginia Beach there. But, you know, again, i think that those three are maybe slightly more reaches. I think when you’re talking them the House, you know, it’s very tough. Obviously, the closest one was I think you have Tony Wilt’s seat.

27:03.73

Joe

And then I think it becomes significantly harder harder for Democrats to gain more than that. And I think when you’re looking at 2027, at least at the moment, I think you’re going have to expect Democrats to actually have to spend money defending some of these seats.

27:16.53

Joe

I certainly think House District 30 is going to be one tough to defend. I think they will you know take a shot at House District 69, the one that Mark Downey knocked off Chad Green in. I think that is one where Republicans will actually look to spend and look to attack.

27:56.07

Joe

Democrats will have to, I think, cover. I think that makes gating any more than maybe one to two seats difficult because i think they’re going to have to play a lot of defense in in some of these seats. I think certainly much more than they had to this past cycle.

28:08.80

Sam Shirazi

And I guess the last question about the Virginia Republicans is, you know, how do you think they start rebuilding? Because I think there’s obviously a huge hole that they’re in. And, you know, they got three more years of the Trump administration, which is probably not going be easy to rebuild in that environment. Or they just have to kind of see what happens in 2028 and basically wait for 2029 to have a realistic shot of, you know, perhaps coming back?

28:32.08

Joe

I think just to have to be a ride the wave type thing. You know... redoing the messaging, start the process, but I think they’re going just try to ride the wave through 2027 and then kind of go from there, which is kind of what Virginia Republicans did in 2019. They kind of rode that wave, had to ride that wave, and then kind of post-2019 and post-2020 started to figure themselves out little more and try to reset.

28:54.54

Joe

you know i think going to have to try and be a similar thing here. It’s It’s going to just continue to get more and more difficult. you know I think Virginia is just it is what it is. It’s an increasingly blue state.

29:04.97

Joe

and’m going to find it difficult, I think, for Republicans to really maybe ever get back to the levels they want were once were. Those days are gone. I think the best they can hope for is there are majorities, and it seems very difficult to believe that that’s necessarily going to be coming back anytime soon. So you have to kind of just build from the bottom and try and figure out your pathway from there.

29:24.89

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, well, it’s, you know, I think after 2017, you know, most people thought Virginia Republicans were done for a while. And then obviously in 2021, they won. So I think Virginia goes back and forth. I think that’s the main lesson as opposed to, you know, Democrats had some huge victory. So anyways, I appreciate you taking the time to come on. And yeah, if you if you want to let people know how they can find you and, you know, follow your stuff.

29:48.10

Joe

Yeah, I’m on X at Joseph Samansky. I’m also on sub Substack.

29:52.58

Joe

Elections by Ski on Substack. It’s a free Substack. So if you want to subscribe to me there, I’m also there if you want to follow me along with my election takes. I’ve been very busy the last couple of weeks, so i haven’t done anything yet, but more should be coming soon. And Sam, as always, I appreciate you having me on today.

30:07.26

Sam Shirazi

Yeah, thanks so much for coming on. 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 2025 Virginia elections. This episode, we will go over some of the really granular data in the election results in Virginia to see what it might tell us about the midterms and potentially what lessons each party can learn.

00:18.08

Sam Shirazi

So obviously, big picture, Democrats had a good night. And so if we want to look at some of the data really close up, we can try to figure out why they had a good night. And conversely, for the Republicans, we can try to figure out what went wrong, why do they potentially have some issues going into the midterms next year.

00:35.08

Sam Shirazi

Now, to begin, i think the the first interesting way to look at the election data is through the five basic different types of election results that are displayed on the Virginia Department of Elections website.

00:47.53

Sam Shirazi

So if you go into the governor’s race and you go to any county or city, it’s basically broken up into five different types of vote. There is early voting, which is implicitly it’s saying in-person early voting. So it’s people who go vote in person.

01:01.17

Sam Shirazi

There is election day, which is obviously people who go vote on election day. There is mailed app absentee, which are people who send their ballots back. There is provisional, and we’ll I’ll talk more about that. And then finally, there is post-election, which is basically post-election mail. So that’s mail that’s received by noon on Friday after the election if it’s been postmarked by Election Day.

01:24.57

Sam Shirazi

I did want to note after all the votes were added, including the provisionals and the the final mail ballots, Spanberger is going to eventually win by more than 15%.

01:35.97

Sam Shirazi

So this was you know a huge landslide at the top of the ticket. And and with these final votes, Spanberger is going to be able to cross that 15% threshold and just really more than what anyone ever thought was possible.

01:48.95

Sam Shirazi

And I wanted to spend a little bit of time on the provisional ballots because I think they’re super interesting in this election. Now, what are provisional ballots? I’ve explained this before. Provisional ballots are essentially votes that are cast that are not counted on election night. They are set aside.

02:03.18

Sam Shirazi

Typically, the reason for that in Virginia are same-day registrations because the registrations have to be checked. And essentially, these are votes that are cast because people are not in the system registered to vote.

02:15.65

Sam Shirazi

And this is a way for someone to vote, and then their eligibility will be determined later And then if they’re allowed to vote, the vote will be cast counted. And it usually takes a few days to do this because it’s a rigorous progress process. They have to review all the election information to make sure the person’s able to vote.

02:35.19

Sam Shirazi

And the thing with provisionals, as I said, the vast majority in Virginia are same-day registrations. And if you think about someone who same-day registers, it typically skews younger. So you think about college students, you use same-day registration a lot.

02:48.60

Sam Shirazi

And it’s also people who are just less engaged in politics. They forget about the voter registration deadline. They wake up, there’s an election. They go down to their local polling place. They want to vote. kind of If you think about basically the lowest propensity voters, people who...

03:03.98

Sam Shirazi

yeah for lack of better word, are not with it enough to register ahead of time, don’t necessarily you know live and breathe politics. These are typically the least engaged voters who vote same-day registration.

03:15.17

Sam Shirazi

I mean, obviously, there’s some exceptions and people reasons why people would same-day register, but most of the time, it’s just younger people who are less engaged and who vote at the very end. So in terms of the provisionals, Spanberger won those 73.5%.

03:29.76

Sam Shirazi

And that is not, it wasn’t super shocking in the sense of Democrats tend to do well with provisional ballots. So if you look at most elections in Virginia, Democrats typically win the provisional ballots.

03:42.21

Sam Shirazi

However, I was really looking for the paris provisional ballots this election because of what happened in 2024. And one of the things that really surprised 2024 in Virginia was...

03:55.14

Sam Shirazi

the margin by which Harris only barely won provisional ballots. So in 2024, Harris only won Virginia provisional ballots by 52.6% of the vote.

04:06.97

Sam Shirazi

so and And Trump got a decent amount of the provisional ballots in Virginia. What what what that was telling me in 2024 was that the Republicans... were doing relatively much better than they usually do with younger voters, with less engaged voters, and the Democrats were not doing well.

04:23.57

Sam Shirazi

And so I think that was a big warning sign for the Democrats in 2024, that they were struggling with younger and less engaged voters. Fast forward to this year, and the Democrats are doing much better with the provisional ballots. And that is an indication to me that Democrats are doing much better with younger and less engaged voters.

04:42.56

Sam Shirazi

And so you you look at some of these critical counties like Loudoun in 2024. Harris, again, barely won the provisional vote in Loudoun in 2024. 2025, Spanberger gets a big win in the provisionals in Loudoun.

04:55.77

Sam Shirazi

Prince William, same thing. All these critical counties in Virginia... the Democrats this year are doing much better with the provisional ballots. And so I think that’s a big warning sign to the Republicans because in 2024, part of the thing that they were happy happened, the Republicans were happy about was that younger voters, less engaged voters, they skewed towards the Republicans.

05:16.59

Sam Shirazi

And then this year, that was not the case. I think very clearly from the provisional data, younger and less engaged voters were skewing very heavily towards the Democrats. And I think there’s a lot of reasons you can think about that. I think the most the easiest explanation just the economy.

05:33.42

Sam Shirazi

Those people are feeling perhaps the sting of high prices and other issues in the economy. So They’re willing to go with the Democrats this year. And then the other thing I should mention, so this is kind of moving away from the provisionals, but related to provisionals are young voters. And and you know the provisional data is telling us they that Democrats did well with younger voters.

05:53.65

Sam Shirazi

And then the precinct data at some of these universities is telling us that Democrats did well with younger voters. I already talked about House District 41. Democrats got a big win in that race because Lily Franklin was able to bring out students in Virginia Tech.

06:07.24

Sam Shirazi

And it’s not just the fact that you brought out the students. The students at Virginia Tech overwhelmingly voted for the Democrats. So if you look at some of these precincts that are specifically the Virginia Tech precincts in Montgomery County, where Virginia Tech is located, some of these precincts, Spanberger is winning them 80%, 86.75%, 80% again,

06:27.81

Sam Shirazi

just really high margins in these campus precincts at Virginia Tech. Same things, similar story at UVA, JMU, William & Mary, just a lot of these college campuses.

06:39.71

Sam Shirazi

I mean, it’s not a huge surprise. Yes, Democrats do well on college campuses. I think the thing that was surprising was in 2024, these margins were a lot smaller for Democrats. So I think if you compare a lot of these precincts from 2024 to 2025, Democrats have made a lot of yeah gains in specific precincts where there a lot of younger voters, college voters.

07:00.62

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, there was a lot of talk in 2024 about young men and how, for whatever reason, because of podcasts or whatever, young men had moved towards the Republicans. I think with these results, you cannot be getting these margins if it’s just women.

07:14.92

Sam Shirazi

It’s clearly that young men have also moved towards the Democrats, perhaps not as much as young women, but certainly Democrats won young men this year in Virginia. Okay, now, that’s kind of the young person side of things. I wanted to move on to another really critical demographic for 2026, and that is Hispanics.

07:36.14

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, to be perfectly honest, New Jersey has more interesting data about Hispanics because there are more Hispanic people in New Jersey, and some of the precinct data is much clearer. But... And so just quickly talk talk about New Jersey for a second, it’s very clear that Democrats made substantial gains with Hispanic voters in New Jersey.

07:54.57

Sam Shirazi

and And I think one of the shocks in 2024 was Trump gotten what got really close in New Jersey within six points, which is much closer than any Republican has gotten in New Jersey in a long time, partly because of his gains with Hispanic voters.

08:07.72

Sam Shirazi

I think at least in this election, it’s very clear that Hispanic voters pretty much reverted to their pre 2024 voting patterns.

08:15.85

Sam Shirazi

And so I can talk about one city city in Virginia. Again, Virginia doesn’t have a huge Hispanic population, but there are certain areas with more of Hispanic voters. One of them is Manassas Park City. So this is a city right next to Manassas City, which so it’s kind of funny. There’s Manassas City and then Manassas Park City, both relatively smaller cities, uh,

08:36.14

Sam Shirazi

Kind of an exurban part, suburban exurban part of Northern Virginia outside D.C. good Good amount of Hispanic voters here. Why? Because relatively lower cost of living. So you have more working class people here. But obviously, Northern Virginia still expensive. These people are feeling the economic squeeze as well.

08:55.51

Sam Shirazi

So in Prince, sorry, in Manassas Park City, Spanberger got 71% of the vote. You compare that to 2024, and in Manassas Park City in 2024, Harris got 58.5% of the vote.

09:10.45

Sam Shirazi

So again, we’re seeing this huge swing towards Spanberger in this part of Virginia, and more than the overall swing that she’s getting in other parts of Virginia. And I think part of the reason for that, again, Hispanic voters...

09:22.57

Sam Shirazi

moving towards the Democrats. And I think this is a big warning sign for the Republicans because young voters, I think most people thought, you know, young voters tend to be kind of anti-establishment. Whoever’s in charge, they tend to vote against. So I think most people expected young voters to swing back towards the Democrats just because they tend to be much more fluid in their voting patterns.

09:41.95

Sam Shirazi

I think what the Republicans were really hoping for in 2024 and after 2024 was that these Hispanic voters would switch to them long-term, similar to how white working class voters switch to Republicans. So after 2016,

09:57.65

Sam Shirazi

and 2016 and twenty sixteen then onwards, we saw a huge swing of white working class voters from the Democrats to Republicans, and they’ve really never gotten back. And the Democrats haven’t really ever figured out how to win back white working class voters. It’s just been very difficult.

10:11.06

Sam Shirazi

Some elections, they make marginal gains with them, but they just aren’t able to get this wholesale reversion back. And and we’ll talk about that in a little bit. But Hispanic voters, you know they tend to be a little bit going back and forth.

10:23.48

Sam Shirazi

I think the Republicans were really hoping that 2024 was this like massive sea change and Hispanic voters would go to them long term. I think what 2025 potentially is telling us that maybe some of the movement in the Hispanic community was more about economics and less about cultural issues.

10:38.75

Sam Shirazi

And I think if the Hispanic community doesn’t feel the economy’s working for them under Republicans, they are more than willing to vote for the Democrats. And frankly, it might be easier for them to vote for the Democrats because they traditionally have voted for the Democrats.

10:51.45

Sam Shirazi

And so all that’s to say is I think the Hispanic issue is a big one for the Republicans. Why? Because Hispanic community is growing. I think a lot of Trump’s gains in 2024 came from Hispanics.

11:02.83

Sam Shirazi

Part of the reason... he was able to win pretty convincingly in 2024 was because of how much he gained with Hispanic voters. So if the Republicans lose all that, I think that’s a really big issue for them. Conversely, if the Democrats are able to win back those voters, it’s a really big deal. And I think part of the reason the Democrats were so shell-shocked in 2024 was just this feeling like, wow, how could we have done so poorly with Hispanic voters?

11:26.31

Sam Shirazi

And now they feel like they’re getting back and... being able to win some of these voters. And the one thing the last thing I’ll say about Hispanic voters ahead of 2026 is that a lot of the Republicans’ hopes for gerrymandering, specifically in places like Texas, was built upon the assumption that they were going to be able to maintain these gains with Hispanic voters.

11:48.83

Sam Shirazi

Now, maybe they might. Hispanic voters aren’t a monolith. Virginia Hispanics are different than New Jersey Hispanics, who are different than Texas Hispanics. So it’s possible you know the Texas Republicans are going to do fine with Hispanic voters in 2026. It’s also possible we see this movement back towards the Democrats in Texas. And I think that’s where it’s going to get really interesting to see, do the Republicans you know actually gain all those seats they were hoping to gain in Texas?

12:13.94

Sam Shirazi

I guess the last thing I’ll put on this point about redistricting and Hispanics in Texas is, you know, after the 2020 election, you could argue the Texas Republicans maybe were a little bit too safe in the map that they drew purely from their own partisan perspective. They drew too many safe seats and and could have been a little bit more aggressive.

12:31.30

Sam Shirazi

I think after the 2024 election, they felt like, yeah, let’s go on the offense. And they might have learned the wrong lesson. The lesson is not, you know, do your gerrymander over again. The lesson is elections swing a lot.

12:42.54

Sam Shirazi

And so maybe would they would have been a little bit smarter to leave the maps alone and or do some sort of kind of incumbent protection map. Yeah. Anyways, I still think that the Texas Republicans are going to gain seats next year in the midterms. The question is, do they gain as many as they thought that they were going to gain?

13:00.16

Sam Shirazi

And at the end of the day, do the California Democrats maybe gain more seats from their gerrymander? So anyways, long story, that’s a lot of other things not super related the Virginia elections, but I just wanted to talk about that because of the importance of Hispanic voters.

13:14.10

Sam Shirazi

Okay, now let’s move over to another demographic that shifted a lot in the 2025 election. And these are specifically South Asian, Indian, and also maybe Muslim Middle Eastern voters.

13:28.04

Sam Shirazi

Both of those groups of voters, Democrats struggled with in 2024 for different reasons. I think part of it was just you know cost of living, same issue that a lot of other groups...

13:37.92

Sam Shirazi

move towards the Republicans on in 2024. And then specifically with the Muslim and Middle Eastern community, I think there was the issue of Gaza in 2024, which hurt the Democrats. and And this was part of the reason in 2024 Loudoun shifted so much and why the when the results came in in Loudoun in 2024, everyone knew the Democrats were in for a tough night because it was so much redder than people had anticipated.

14:01.64

Sam Shirazi

However, this year when Loudoun came in, it looked very different. And I think some of these specific precinct data results kind of explain why the Democrats were able to do better this year in Virginia and specifically with South Asian, Indian, and Muslim voters. So I’ll go over a specific precinct that I like to look at in Loudoun to kind of gauge where those voters are.

14:28.18

Sam Shirazi

Okay, so I will go over the Dulles South precinct. So Dulles South, is as its name implies, it is near Dulles Airport, has a lot of very diverse community. In 2024, Kamala Harris got 55.5% of the vote in this precinct, which you know is not horrible. She won it, but I kind of explain why it’s not a big deal.

14:49.66

Sam Shirazi

It was a big deal because of what happened in 2025. So in 2025, in the Dulles South precinct, Abigail Smehberger got 70% of the vote. So again, we’re seeing this huge shift from 2024 to 2025, more than in other parts of Virginia.

15:04.60

Sam Shirazi

Why? Because Indian, South Asian, Middle Eastern, Muslim voters are willing to go back to the Democrats. Maybe some of these issues that were a big deal for them in 2024 are not as big of a deal in 2025. Maybe there’s some backlash to What’s going on with the Trump administration? Maybe there’s federal fallout.

15:21.50

Sam Shirazi

We saw similar things in parts of New Jersey. And I think it’s just another indication that some of these gains that Republicans made with non-white voters are not going to necessarily be there for the for them in the midterms. And if they were counting on these gains to kind of sustain their long-term majority, that’s a very shaky assumption after what happened in 2025.

15:43.34

Sam Shirazi

All right. I just wanted to talk about a couple other things. I’ve talked about black voters before. i mean, realistically in 2024, Trump didn’t make that many gains with black voters. I think that his gains with Hispanic and Asian voters was much more dramatic.

15:56.93

Sam Shirazi

I often talk about black voters. The issue for Democrats is more turnout. I’ve talked about it before. I think Democrats made good inroads in terms of getting turnout with black voters this year in Virginia in this off in these off year elections.

16:09.78

Sam Shirazi

So, Just wanted to kind of emphasize that again, that, you know, Democrats, they can’t take it for granted. They need to work on turnout with black voters. But this year in Virginia, that looked pretty good.

16:21.18

Sam Shirazi

Okay, so a couple of other things I wanted to mention was white voters, because I think oftentimes there’s a lot of focus on non-white voters, which makes sense because those demographics are interesting.

16:34.36

Sam Shirazi

But still, the majority of voters in Virginia and you know most states are white voters. And I think that that is a much more complicated part of the electric, because a lot of the the white vote depends on college education. i think that’s a big dividing line between college educated white voters and non-college educated white voters. A lot of it is cultural between evangelical white white voters and non-evangelical white voters.

16:59.50

Sam Shirazi

So I kind of wanted to like explain what happened in Virginia with the white voters and then things that potentially could be good for the Democrats and maybe good for the Republicans. So in terms of the white vote, specifically in the suburbs, kind of wealthier college educated,

17:18.26

Sam Shirazi

I think that trend of the Democrats continuing to gain with white voters who have college educations will continue. Northern Virginia, we’ve talked about federal fallout. I mean, Northern Virginia has been blue for a long time.

17:29.42

Sam Shirazi

i think, again, this election, a lot of... I think interesting is places like the Richmond suburbs...

17:43.13

Sam Shirazi

certainly they the democrats probably still made some progress there i think what’s really interesting is places like the richmond suburbs And Hampton Road suburbs, I think Democrats made inroads with some of those traditionally kind of country club Republican tripe type of places that have white voters with college education who traditionally voted Republican. I think Democrats have continued to make gains and they will continue to make those gains in the Trump 2.0 era in those areas.

18:10.39

Sam Shirazi

So I think certainly... That is just another place where that demographic is continuing to move towards the Democrats. I think the challenge the Democrats have, and you know this is maybe the one thing the Republicans, if you want to look at any of the good news for them in Virginia,

18:27.60

Sam Shirazi

are white working class voters. So voters who are white, who don’t have a college education. I think there are certainly parts of Virginia you could point to where Spanberger made some gains with those voters. But frankly, that was probably the place where she made the least gains.

18:41.93

Sam Shirazi

So there are still parts of Virginia where, you know, the Republicans are just overwhelmingly dominating White working class voters, specifically like Southwest Virginia. I mean, some of those counties, Earl Sears got really big margins, and they were pretty close to the 2024 margins. So I think Democrats still have an issue. They haven’t really quite figured out how to...

19:04.40

Sam Shirazi

appeal and win over white working class voters. I mean, there’s a lot of factors you can talk about. I think the reality is some of those cultural issues are just more important for those voters than the economic issues. And I think while Hispanic community, obviously cultural issues are also important, perhaps they are more movable on the economic issue than some of these white working class voters are in parts of Virginia. And you know I think the the one thing I would flag for the Republicans, though, is we I talked about this before, particularly Southwest Virginia, turnout wasn’t that great.

19:36.22

Sam Shirazi

let me just kind of flag some areas where the Democrats may potentially have opportunities 2026 in the midterms. Okay, and I’ll talk about this in terms of the Senate, because I think there’s a lot of House seats and some of the House seats are still in flux, so I don’t want to kind of go House seat by House seat.

19:52.27

Sam Shirazi

But right now in the Senate, the Republicans enjoy a 5347 majority. And that makes it very difficult for the Democrats to win the majority in 2026, because obviously they have to flip four seats.

20:03.04

Sam Shirazi

And frankly, the Senate map doesn’t look super favorable to them. But there are a few pickup opportunities for the Democrats, and I wanted to talk about that. So i’d I’d say probably the best pickup opportunity for the Democrats is in North Carolina, where there is an open Senate seat.

20:16.98

Sam Shirazi

And North Carolina, kind of similar to Virginia. You have a large black population. You have traditionally, I would say, a more conservative-leaning white population, but a lot of white voters with college education who used to perhaps be Republicans may be open to voting for the Democrats. So I think...

20:36.14

Sam Shirazi

and And there’s been a lot of talk about this, that you know North Carolina is the next Virginia. It hasn’t ever quite gotten there because I think North Carolina is a little bit more Southern. And I think some of those voting patterns are hard to break.

20:47.63

Sam Shirazi

But I do think this year there’s a potential where if the Democrats can get black turnout in North Carolina and they can make gains with white white college educated voters in North Carolina, I think there’s an opportunity for the Democrats to definitely pick up North Carolina in 2026 at the Senate senate level So after North Carolina, I think the best pick up opportunity for the Democrats is in Maine.

21:09.23

Sam Shirazi

And obviously, Maine, Susan Collins is a strong incumbent, and she won in 2020, even though everyone thought she was going to lose. But having said that, Maine also has a decent college-educated white population.

21:23.43

Sam Shirazi

i think if Susan Collins is really struggling with those voters because, you know, they you know at some point voters might not care that she’s Susan Collins. They might just be so upset at the Trump administration, they just want to send a message.

21:35.41

Sam Shirazi

I think there’s a potential where the Democrats could pick up that seat. However, Maine also has a large white working class population that President Trump has done well with.

21:44.08

Sam Shirazi

those voters stick with the Republicans, then Maine could still be a difficult seat for the Democrats, particularly if Susan Collins still has her special appeal in Maine. All right.

21:54.70

Sam Shirazi

Now, but let’s just assume the Democrats pick up those two seats because you know they’re making gains with those demographics. That gets them to 49 seats, and they still need two more seats to win back the Senate in 2026. I think most people think the best opportunities are Ohio, Ohio.

22:11.01

Sam Shirazi

iowa texas and alaska and i’ll talk quickly about a few of those races ohio democrats got sherrod brown to run again he was the senator from ohio that lost in 2024 but he has this kind of special appeal to working class voters if democrats can perhaps start winning back some of those white working class voters maybe because sherrod brown has a special appeal And they’re able to improve their margins with white college educated voters because Ohio is the type of place that still has a decent amount of white college educated voters that vote for the Republicans.

22:57.66

Sam Shirazi

Yeah.

22:59.83

Sam Shirazi

I’ll talk about Iowa. So Iowa has been this, you know, Democrats keep trying to win Iowa. They tried in 2020 to win that Senate race, put a lot of money into it. And again, white working class voters have been really difficult for the Democrats.

23:13.67

Sam Shirazi

Iowa especially has more white working class voters than the national average. And you know it’s just one of those things. If the Democrats can’t break that issue, then they’re not gonna win those Senate seats. So we’ll see if they’re able to do that in Iowa.

23:28.22

Sam Shirazi

Quickly wanted to talk about Texas and Alaska. but Texas, similar story where the Democrats keep trying to win in Texas and they’ve been coming up short. 2024 was really bad for the Democrats in Texas. However,

23:39.38

Sam Shirazi

there is going to be a messy primary for the Republican Senate nomination in Texas. So that presents Democrats an an opportunity. And again, if for whatever reason, the Republicans really collapse with the Hispanic vote voters and Democrats make inroads with white college educated voters and they’re winning, mate perhaps they’re going to get decent turnout with black voters. I mean, in theory, you could see a scenario where there’s this perfect storm in Texas,

24:06.80

Sam Shirazi

So I’ll just talk about Alaska quickly because potentially if the Democrats get a good recruit like the former representative, Mary Peltola, perhaps that will be a competitive race. Alaska is kind of interesting state, a lot of mix of different groups. So little bit different than what we’ve been talking about. a Hard to make big kind of demographic demographic conclusions about Alaska. But I guess my main point is the election showed a lot of groups the Democrats are doing well with.

24:36.44

Sam Shirazi

They’re doing well with Hispanic voters. They’re doing well with young voters. They’re doing well with college-educated white voters. They’re doing well with black voters. That is all good news for the Democrats. Those are all really important groups. They need them.

24:47.26

Sam Shirazi

They need them to do well in the midterms. I think what the election still leaves an open question mark about is how well can Democrats do with white working class voters? And I think since 2016, the Democrats have lost a lot of Senate seats because they have not been able to do well with white working class voters. And some of these states like Iowa, Ohio, Texas, other places like that, you have to be able to be somewhat competitive with white working class voters. And the Democrats have just not been able to do that.

25:17.16

Sam Shirazi

And I think while the Democrats, there was a lot of good news for them, I think that is the one thing that they have to figure out. And we’ll see. We’ll see potentially with some of these economic issues if the Democrats are going to be able to do well.

25:30.02

Sam Shirazi

The one thing they were able to do in 2006 was they were able to win decent amount of white working class voters because they won Senate seats in places like Montana and Ohio and Missouri because various factors, there the Iraq the economy was not that great.

25:46.64

Sam Shirazi

there There were a lot of things going on in 2006 that kind of created this perfect storm storm for the Democrats. And we’ll see if perhaps with the economic issue, the Democrats, if they’re able to make those gains with white working class voters, we’ll see if 2026 is a repeat of 2006, which was 20 years ago.

26:05.51

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, I think most people think the Democrats are somewhat favored to flip the House, but the Senate, I would say most people think the Republicans are favored. And that was also the case for most of the time leading up in to the elections in 2006. And we’ll see if 2026 potentially going to be a repeat of history. But anyways, lot of interesting stuff in the Virginia elections, a lot of stuff you can kind of figure out from the data. I hope people found this interesting.

26:30.37

Sam Shirazi

Going into the weeds a little bit more in this episode. And yeah, I appreciate everyone who’s listening who’s been listening. 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

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 2025 Virginia Elections. This is a special bonus episode where we will go over some things that have happened in the Senate regarding the shutdown and a possible end to the shutdown and see how the Virginia Elections may or may not have played a role in all

00:17.87

Sam Shirazi

So to begin, just to give you kind of a rundown of what’s been going on, obviously the government shutdown has been going on for a while. The elections on Tuesday, Democrats did well. So a lot of Democrats felt like their approach to the shutdown had been vindicated.

00:31.39

Sam Shirazi

But then Sunday evening... News came out of the Senate that there was a compromise among some of the senators to come up with a deal to perhaps end the government shutdown. Now, there’s still a lot of procedural stuff that happens in Congress before the Senate can finally pass it and the House passes it.

00:48.23

Sam Shirazi

But long story short, it looks like the shutdown should be over sometime this week, depending on exactly when Congress votes on the bill. And I think there’s a lot of Virginia connections to what’s been going on, because one Obviously, the Virginia elections went well for the Democrats. I think some Democrats viewed that as, well, we were right to shut down the government. We were correct to stand up.

01:11.77

Sam Shirazi

And we did the right thing. And we were rewarded at the polls by the voters. And so we got to stick to it and not give in on the government shutdown. But then Sunday evening, one of the key senators who came out in favor of this bill to reopen the government,

01:27.24

Sam Shirazi

was Senator Tim Kaine from Virginia. And honestly, as soon as I saw that Tim Kaine had come out in favor of this, the bill was going to pass the Senate. And I think a lot of people were questioning, well, why did Kaine do this? Why have some of the Democrats decided to vote with the Republicans?

01:44.62

Sam Shirazi

I think most Democrats in the Senate and in the House are probably going to vote against this. So it’s really just kind of this so group of senators on the Democratic side that voted for it. So there’s a lot of kind of confusion about exactly what happened. and And I wanted to share some of my thoughts and my initial reaction. So first, i think a lot of people were confused about what ended up happening and why the Democrats ended up, or at least some of the Democrats ended up voting for this proposal.

02:12.41

Sam Shirazi

I think one thing this has made clear is the Democrats really need to work on communicating to their base about decisions they’re making, deals that are happening. I think a lot of people were surprised by this. They were not expecting this.

02:23.28

Sam Shirazi

and think that was part of the reason for the... you know, shock that the Democrats ended up doing this. Now, they had kind of been signaling for a few days that they were going to probably try to compromise. But I think kind of the speedway which had happened was surprising.

02:36.93

Sam Shirazi

And I think, frankly, the other thing, too, is the scale of the Democratic victories for the first time really since President Trump won in November 2024. think Democrats felt good.

02:47.57

Sam Shirazi

They felt good about what happened in Virginia. They felt good about what happened in New Jersey, California, New York. So Democrats felt like finally, We are making some progress. We are starting to get things in order.

02:58.77

Sam Shirazi

And that only lasted a few days because by Sunday night, a lot of Democrats were upset. And there’s this phrase that is kind of a meme about Dems in disarray. So for a few days, Dems were united and felt good.

03:10.12

Sam Shirazi

But now, again, they are back to fighting each other, pointing the finger, some people blaming Senator Schumer, some people blaming Senator Kaine, just a lot of you know upset people. And and I think in in Virginia specifically, I saw a lot of Democratic activists really upset at Senator Kaine and other senators who voted for this compromise because they felt like they didn’t really get anything out of it. Why are they doing this?

03:32.53

Sam Shirazi

They gave up on the Obamacare subsidies issue. And I kind of wanted to go through and explain it from different perspectives, maybe you know why some of these Democratic senators decided to do what they did, and then why the base is so upset.

03:45.41

Sam Shirazi

Now, first from the Democratic senators who voted for this proposal’s perspective. I think from their perspective, the government shutdown, there was no end in sight. I mean, i think some people have floated, well, the Republicans can just get rid of the filibuster. It didn’t seem like the Republicans were willing to do that.

04:01.84

Sam Shirazi

And I think the government shutdown had gotten to the point where The federal employees had missed two paychecks. They obviously holidays are coming up. There’s going to be a lot of expenses. People want to buy gifts to their families, et cetera. And federal employees were definitely getting to the point where they might not be running. They might be running out of their savings.

04:20.98

Sam Shirazi

So think that was one issue. Obviously, FAA, air traffic, flights, there were a lot of issues. Thanksgiving’s coming up. There was a pressure building that this needs to get resolved before Thanksgiving. So I think from that perspective, there was a sense of we need something to be done.

04:35.80

Sam Shirazi

And realistically, the Republicans are never going to compromise or give us anything on the Obamacare subsidies. So we have to see where we can get compromise or get something from the Republicans elsewhere. So there are a couple of things that the Democrats pointed to in this compromise, so to speak.

04:51.34

Sam Shirazi

One was SNAP benefits. so this committed to pay spen SNAP benefits or for the rest of the fiscal year. So I think that’s going to not necessarily be as big of an issue. Obviously, it doesn’t address the health care issue, but SNAP is important in order to get people food.

05:06.60

Sam Shirazi

So I think that was part of the formula of what the Democrats chose to do. I think the other thing, and this was specifically with Senator King, because I know that he was essentially the big the key swing vote. And that if he had voted for it, then it’s going to pass. And I think he was pushing back on the rifts, the reductions in force that happened since the shutdown.

05:24.42

Sam Shirazi

So what he was able to do is in this bill, there cannot be any more reductions in force for as long as this bill lasts, which is until January. The reductions in force that happened since October 1st are going to be reversed.

05:36.82

Sam Shirazi

And also the federal employees who have not been receiving a paycheck, they will get back pay. I mean, that was already kind of the law, but this just kind of emphasizes that again. And, you know, from I think Senator King’s perspective is this was a way to protect some of these federal employees.

05:52.83

Sam Shirazi

To be perfectly honest, this is the first time really the Congress has placed any sort of limits on the Trump administration since he came into office on January 20th. So Congress is essentially telling the president you can’t do more riffs for at least a limited amount of time.

06:06.97

Sam Shirazi

Might not seem like the biggest deal in the world, but I think symbolically it’s important that Congress is pushing back a little bit. And also practically, this is like a few thousand jobs that were threatened to be riffed that won’t, at least in the short term.

06:18.12

Sam Shirazi

Now, I’ve heard from some Democrats basically saying like, you know whatever, Trump’s going to ignore this. He’s never going to actually you know honor the agreement. And you know that’s possible. But I mean, at the end of the day, like if you are a member of Congress, the most you can do is write a bill essentially and hope that the president honors it. And if they don’t honor it, you know you can go to the courts, et cetera. you know I think that was the perspective from Senator Kaine and those who voted for this bill.

06:44.39

Sam Shirazi

And I think also practically, you know there’s a big question mark of what the elections meant this year. I think one way to view it, and I’ll get to the kind of more Democratic activist perspective, one way of viewing the elections is like the Democrats stood up to Trump and they’re getting rewarded for it. And what the American people want to see is people standing up to President Trump and the Democrats fighting and fighting for these things that are important like healthcare.

07:08.86

Sam Shirazi

I think that’s one perspective. I think the other perspective, and frankly, You know, Congresswoman Spanberger, former Congresswoman Spanberger, now Governor-elect Spanberger, she also said that the shutdown needed to end. And so I think there is this other perspective that really what the voters rewarded the Democrats for on Tuesday was really more pragmatism.

07:30.31

Sam Shirazi

focusing on issues people care about, like cost of living, et cetera, and not being so ideological, not focusing on the trans issue, which we talked about where Winston Merle-Sears just spent too much time on that issue.

07:41.75

Sam Shirazi

So really what the Democrats were rewarded for was for being, focused on things people caring care about and actually listening to the concerns people had. And so one argument, and this is maybe what Senator Kaine and those who support opening the government say is like, look,

07:56.52

Sam Shirazi

People expect the government to work. They don’t want to miss flights. Federal employees need to get their paychecks. This has gone on long enough. We tried our best, but at some point, the Republicans were never going to compromise, and we can’t keep the government shut down forever.

08:11.23

Sam Shirazi

Eventually, people are going to start blaming us, especially if it doesn’t look like we’re trying to compromise. And as much as we get that people are upset, they want action. Ultimately, we are the minority in Congress.

08:23.51

Sam Shirazi

We tried our best to get the Republicans to move. They’re not going to move. Now the American people are going to see if their Obamacare subsidies, Obamacare premiums go up a lot. Democrats can say, we warned you, we tried to fix this. The Republicans didn’t care. And I think that’s kind of the mentality of, you know, we essentially did the most we could. But at this point, right before Thanksgiving, federal employees, they need to receive paychecks eventually. The flights need to be somewhat normal. Like people have to get SNAP benefits. Like we can’t keep the government closed forever. And realistically, the Republicans, that was their plan. they They want to close it forever and there’s nothing we can do.

09:00.25

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, we have to be a little bit more responsible, I think. so So that’s kind of on one side. You know, I’ve heard from a lot of Democratic activists that like, look, at the end of the day, the Republicans are in charge. And so if they wanted to get Democratic bill votes for their bill, they have to actually offer something concrete. And these, you know, half measures about the riffs and the snaps is just not what the point of the shutdown was. The point of the shutdown was over Obamacare subsidies and the Democrats have just not been able to get anything out of that.

09:31.02

Sam Shirazi

And it’s not about, you know, who wins or some kind of ideological battle. It’s really about people’s premiums are going to go up. And so, People can now afford health care. That’s what we fought this shutdown over. That’s why on Tuesday, people gave us a mandate to fight.

09:46.05

Sam Shirazi

And now the Democrats look like they are not fighting and that they are giving up. And so that’s their perspective. I think that’s from the more Democratic activist base. and And it’s tough because I think and think specifically the ones in Virginia, heard a lot of them say things like, look, I spent all year working for the Democrats, trying to get a big win. We got a big win. We sent the country a message. We hopefully sent Congress a message.

10:19.47

Sam Shirazi

We are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, which Democrats tend to do. I mean, that’s the mentality. I know it’s more complicated, but I’m kind of trying to articulate some of the mentality people have from the more Democratic activist side of things.

10:32.75

Sam Shirazi

And essentially, there’s this this feeling that the Democrats are unwilling to fight, unwilling to kind of go to the mat. And sure, they shut down the government for a while. But as soon as the going got tough, the Democrats just gave up and decided to move on.

10:45.84

Sam Shirazi

because they just didn’t feel like fighting anymore. And, you know, it’s it’s it’s tough. I think, you know, at the end of the day, I don’t, this is something that’s going to have to play out within the Democratic Party. And I think the question of how much they’re going to stand up to Trump, on what terms do they stand up on Trump?

11:01.62

Sam Shirazi

When is it too much? When does it not make sense? I mean, these are all strategy calls. And I think the reality is the Democratic Party that is somewhat leaderless. There’s no one person that runs the Democratic Party like there is in the Republican Party where the Republicans have Trump. They all look to Trump, whatever Trump says the Republicans are going to do The Democratic Party is not like that. It’s much more coalitional.

11:20.34

Sam Shirazi

Obviously, there’s no one singular person who’s like the president right now on the Democratic side. So I think they’re much more divided. And it’s kind of the reality when you’re an opposition party. And, you know, the thing I will say, you know, regardless of which side of the divide you fall under, maybe the more pragmatic side where we have to make a deal to reopen the government, or maybe the more activist side where you’re like, we really need to fight as hard as we can for these things that the American people care about. I think the one thing that is a little bit, you know, in my personal opinion, indisputable is just the communication side of things on the Democrats. I mean, this was just not rolled out well.

11:57.10

Sam Shirazi

I think people were surprised. I think people were confused about what happened. And I think if the Democrats are going to do stuff like this, they really do have to communicate it better and and it communicate what the end goals are, communicate why they are taking certain steps. And the problem right now is the Democrats are super divided. So you have this kind of a smaller group of people who were willing to vote for the bill. And then there’s this larger group who are still saying no, including some pretty moderate members of the Senate. So for example, Mark Warner, who’s also from Virginia, obviously, he he’s going to vote he no on the bill. And he’s more generally thought of as more moderate than Tim Kaine. it was kind of interesting that Tim Kaine voted for the bill, but Mark Warner didn’t vote for the bill.

12:38.93

Sam Shirazi

And so there’s all this kind of Confusion about what’s going on. And, you know, all that’s to say is like last few podcasts been saying, oh, everything’s great for the Democrats. Good Democrats had such a good night. And it just shows you in politics, things are complicated.

12:53.81

Sam Shirazi

You know, nothing good will ever last in politics. Unfortunately, you will have a good night. And then pretty quickly, you’re going to hit road bumps. I think the Republicans found this out. They thought, oh, yeah, we got this huge victory in 2024. Everything’s great.

13:06.11

Sam Shirazi

you know Tuesday night in Virginia and New Jersey was a wake-up call for the Republicans that they are not entitled to power. No one’s ever going to keep voting for them forever. That was an important message the Republicans got. And I think the Democrats are starting to learn, while you will have good nights, it’s easier being in opposition from an election standpoint. It’s harder when you’re in opposition to be united, to come up with a coherent strategy.

13:30.17

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, we’ll just have to wait and see how all this goes. I mean, my sense is This bill will pass. Government will reopen. But this issue is not going away. and And there will be another government shutdown fight in January. We’ll see if there’s a shutdown then.

13:44.26

Sam Shirazi

We’ll see what happens with the Obamacare subsidies. How much of a deal, big deal will this be for the midterms? is Is there a possibility that Democratic activists get really frustrated? They give up. They don’t do as much as they did this year in Virginia for the midterms because they just don’t believe in the Democratic brand.

13:59.73

Sam Shirazi

I mean, I think just to be super cynical, I mean, I think part of the calculation of the Democratic leaders who voted for this or the Democratic senators who voted for this, they’re going to say, like, look, at the end of the day, people are going to eventually forget about this, even if they’re upset about it now. And Trump is just going to make these people make our base so upset that they’re going show up no matter what. They’re going to support us no matter what.

14:21.41

Sam Shirazi

And I think that’s true to a certain extent. But I do think it’s important for Democratic elected officials to not take their base for granted and not take the activists for granted. I mean, i saw it in Virginia. They worked really hard this year in Virginia. They’re expecting results.

14:34.23

Sam Shirazi

They’re not expecting, you know, kind of wishy-washy things from the Democrats. They worked hard and they got a big win for Democrats in Virginia, virginia New Jersey, other states. And they are expecting something in terms of results for the, from their perspective, the fight against President Trump.

14:51.76

Sam Shirazi

And I guess the last thing I should say is, you know, the midterms are the big question mark. The midterms are really going to you know determine a lot. And I think there’s a year away. And just because the Democrats did well this year in Virginia doesn’t mean they’re guaranteed to do well in the midterms, particularly if some of these divisions keep keep causing issues for the Democrats.

15:08.59

Sam Shirazi

And yeah, I mean, I guess all that’s to say is there’s there’s a lot going on. I think the shutdown was a big deal in the Virginia elections. It seems like it’s going to be over soon and we’ll just have to see where things go from here. But, you know, obviously Democrats came off a bit of a high after what happened in the Senate.

15:26.70

Sam Shirazi

And it just goes to show you politics is complicated. Things are never as good or bad as you you think they are. I think President Obama once said that. So anyways, that’s just want to do a quick recap of everything that happened. I will continue to do a few of these episodes just to kind of cover what’s going on in the news in the Virginia elections and continue to unpack everything. But for now, 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 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode, we will go over the flips the Democrats made in the House of Delegates and kind of go race by race to see why the Democrats were able to flip the seats and what lessons could be learned from each district. And the reason I wanted to do this, i think there’s been a lot of interest in the specific...

00:21.63

Sam Shirazi

flips the Democrats made, the number of gains they made, and some of them were pretty surprising. And, you know, my last episode, I talked about a few of them, but I wanted to give an overview of every single flip.

00:32.46

Sam Shirazi

And the way I’m going to do this, I’m actually going to go from the most surprising flips to the least surprising, because I think usually the way you do this, you go from most likely the flip to least likely the flip.

00:42.87

Sam Shirazi

Now, that’s before the election. After the election, you know the results. We can kind of go back and try to think through, okay, how did the Democrats flip these seats? What does that potentially mean for the midterms and maybe lessons the Democrats can learn in each of these specific seats?

00:57.32

Sam Shirazi

Okay, so I will start with off with House District 66. So this is south of Fredericksburg along I-95 Spotsylvania County and Caroline County.

01:09.99

Sam Shirazi

And this, I think, was the biggest shock of the night. The reason you had an incumbent, Bobby Oroc, who had been there for a long time. He was first elected to the House of Delegates in 1989. He was the dean of the Virginia House of Delegates.

01:22.87

Sam Shirazi

And he was defeated by Nicole Cole, who is on the Spotsylvania County School Board. And she flipped the seat by about 4%, which you know is not even super close at the end of the day. I mean, this one, Democrats did a good job.

01:38.03

Sam Shirazi

This was a Trump district. They won it by 4%. And I kind of want to think through, okay, what happened in this specific district? we What you see here, this this is south of Fredericksburg along I-95, and this has seen a lot of growth because people are looking for Affordable housing, lower cost of living.

01:57.96

Sam Shirazi

They’re in the kind of it’s on the outer edges of northern Virginia, exurban area. Traditionally has been more rural, more Republican. i think this is the type of district where working class voters, particularly working working class voters who are not white. So the district, I think, is about 20 percent African-American.

02:14.54

Sam Shirazi

The affordability issue, I think, is important for them. The Democrats were able to make gains on that. And also, I think Nicole Cole was able to bring out black voters in this district. And that was an important part of her success.

02:26.24

Sam Shirazi

So we’re seeing when we’re thinking about the midterms in 2026, we can kind of think through, okay where can the Democrats make some gains? And I think in kind of exurban working class areas where people are feeling the pinch in terms of cost of living, that’s the type of gains they can make. So and if you think about 2018 when the Democrats flipped the house, they made a lot of gains in wealthier suburbs, kind of historically Republican areas that were wealthier suburbs.

02:54.57

Sam Shirazi

Now, most of those seats have flipped. So there isn’t as many opportunities for the Democrats to flip seats in wealthier suburbs where the Democrats may have more of an opportunity are in more working class exurbs that are diverse, maybe have black population, Asian population, Hispanic population.

03:12.23

Sam Shirazi

Those types of areas I think are going to be really interesting to watch in 2026. twenty twenty six And these are kind of outside major metro areas. So for example, this district is outside D.C.,

03:24.01

Sam Shirazi

kind of further down I-95. And obviously federal fallout, the district is also impacted by what’s going on with the federal cuts in DC. So I think that was part of the equation in this district. So anyways, I spent a little bit more time on this district because i think it was really interesting thinking about an exurban district and can the Democrats build on some of those exurban gains they made 2025 in 2026. Yeah.

03:49.11

Sam Shirazi

All right, now let’s move down to a different district. I would say this is maybe the second most surprising flip of the night, and that is House District 69. This is in the Hampton Roads area around Yorktown.

04:01.08

Sam Shirazi

The incumbent, Chad Green, was unopposed in 2023, but he ended up losing to Democrat Mark Downey. And we had Dr. Downey on my podcast earlier in the year, and you can go listen to that episode if you’re interested.

04:16.06

Sam Shirazi

I think a few things to think about this district. You know, when he was on the podcast, Dr. Downey, he talked about being a doctor. And I think doctors generally are strong candidates for either party because they’re known in the community and people just trust doctors. So I think that was an advantage the Democrats had.

04:32.50

Sam Shirazi

And he ended up getting about a 3% win in this district, which I think was pretty surprising because again, this is a Trump district the Democrats were able to flip. And I had flagged all the way back in 2018 my podcast with him that there’s this kind of weird thing in the district where it goes across the river into Gloucester and Gloucester is this red part of Virginia, whereas most the district is more in the blue parts of York County.

04:56.53

Sam Shirazi

Long story short, I think Dr. Downey got a big win in York County. York has a lot of military installations, again, federal fallout. You know, the Republican did well in Gloucester. It just wasn’t enough to overcome the federal fallout in the military area.

05:11.97

Sam Shirazi

And again, listen lessons for 2026. Military dependent areas traditionally tend to be Republican because obviously a lot of people in the military are more conservative leaning.

05:23.79

Sam Shirazi

But they may be feeling the impact of some of the federal fallout. And so if the Democrats are able to kind of tap into that sentiment with work with military voters, I think that’s going to be a big advantage potentially in the 2026 midterms.

05:38.92

Sam Shirazi

And obviously, as the midterms come up, we don’t know what the final maps are going to look like in Virginia, but... The first district and the second district both have a lot of military presence. And, you know, whatever the final outcome looks like in those districts, I think that’s going to be a big opportunity for the Democrats to flip those seats based on potential gains with military voters.

06:00.70

Sam Shirazi

Okay, now let’s go to a different type of district. This is House District 73. This is in the Richmond suburbs in Chesterfield County. The incumbent, Mark Early, he lost re-election to Leslie Mehta.

06:14.51

Sam Shirazi

And the final margin will be around 3% in this district, a little over 3%, maybe closer to 4%. And I think what was interesting about this district is this part of Chesterfield has been traditionally a very...

06:28.73

Sam Shirazi

Republican area. And I think what the Democrats were able to do here they were able to get a lot of Spanberger voters at the top of the ticket to vote for Leslie Mehta at the House of Delegates level. So there wasn’t enough ticket splitting where the Republicans could win in this district.

06:44.45

Sam Shirazi

And I think the lesson here is for 2026, the Democrats in these suburban districts are doing well. We all know the Democrats have made a lot of gains in the suburbs, in the Trump era.

06:55.30

Sam Shirazi

There are still some suburbs that are still... Republican leaning, but I think in this second go round of the trump and the second Trump administration, I think there’s a possibility that a lot of those districts start becoming more and more Democratic because obviously Democrats are doing well with college educated, wealthy voters.

07:14.36

Sam Shirazi

And I think specifically for this district, I think it’ll be interesting to watch in 2027 when the state Senate is up because there is a very potentially competitive state Senate district in this area in Chesterfield County that again has traditionally been Republican.

07:29.51

Sam Shirazi

And we’ll see if the Democrats are able to flip that state Senate seat in 2027. So again, Democrats doing well in the suburbs, not a huge surprise. I think the thing that was surprising about this race was everyone kind of have a feeling at some point this district was going to flip.

07:43.73

Sam Shirazi

A lot of people in the back of their head kind of thought, okay, is this the year that the district flips? And yeah, it ended up being the year

07:50.89

Sam Shirazi

Okay, now let’s head back up to Northern Virginia in House District 30. This is where the incumbent Gary Higgins was defeated by Democratic challenger John McAuliffe. he McAuliffe is going to win by around two points when all the votes are in.

08:06.89

Sam Shirazi

And we also had John McAuliffe on earlier this year on the podcast, actually pretty recently. So if you want to go ahead and listen to that episode, I think it’s pretty interesting.

08:17.90

Sam Shirazi

Okay, so this is in Western Laod and Western Fakir. Obviously, there was federal fallout. That was part of the formula in this district. I talked about in my last episode the kind of outreach to Indian voters and South Asian voters in this district, the kind of eastern part of the district that...

08:35.19

Sam Shirazi

is becoming more suburban, has seen a lot of growth. I think that was part of the equation. But the thing I wanted to talk about this district specifically was data centers. So John McAuliffe, he made data centers a big part of the campaign.

08:46.86

Sam Shirazi

You’re hearing more and more about data centers because they’re taking up a lot of land. They’re taking up a lot of energy. And I think specifically the Democrats, I think are going to increasingly be running against data centers because it it touches them on a lot of issues like affordability,

09:02.55

Sam Shirazi

I think John McAuliffe ran a really smart campaign, specifically not just, you know, this is driving up your energy bills, although he did talk about that. He talked about kind of trying to keep farms together and talking about kind of more rural issues in this district that is still kind of rural. So I think he ran a smart campaign in a district that slightly voted for Trump.

09:21.26

Sam Shirazi

And I think it’s it’s one of those districts where the Democrats, if they’re looking how to win in kind of an exurban slash rural district, in 2026, I think there’s a lot of lessons they can learn from John McCaulough.

09:33.18

Sam Shirazi

All right, let’s stay in Northern Virginia for another seat. This is House District 64. The incumbent, Paul Milday, lost to Democratic challenger Stacey Carroll by about 5%. And I think this was surprising because...

09:48.44

Sam Shirazi

Most people thought this district election would be close, but Stacey Carroll won by a comfortable margin, and she was another candidate that we had on the podcast. so if you want to go listen to that episode, a little bit similar to House District 66 in that kind of more outer edges of Northern Virginia.

10:05.59

Sam Shirazi

I guess the thing to emphasize with this district, kind of suburban, exurban district, pretty diverse. So traditionally, this district has been thought of as a very so kind of safe Republican area.

10:17.66

Sam Shirazi

But increasingly, people are coming here for affordability reasons, diverse community, large black population, large Hispanic population. And I think Stacey Carroll, she focused on getting out those voters who maybe don’t show up a lot in these elections, particularly the state elections. Maybe they’ll show up for a presidential election, but they don’t always vote for...

10:34.91

Sam Shirazi

in the state elections. I think sta Stacey Carroll ran a smart campaign targeting those voters who don’t traditionally come out. And I think it’s a lesson to the Democrats for 2026 you you know If the Democrats are able to get out these mid and lower propensity voters, they might be able to flip some unexpected seats because the voters traditionally don’t come out in midterms. But if if they do, you can flip a lot of seats quickly if you can get all your voters out. So another lesson for the Democrats for 2026.

11:05.59

Sam Shirazi

Okay, we might as well wrap up Northern Virginia while we’re at it with one more House seat. This is House District 22. This is in middle Prince William County. The incumbent Ian Lovejoy lost to Democratic challenger Elizabeth Guzman, who makes a comeback and will be back in the House of Delegates.

11:21.91

Sam Shirazi

And I think the big surprise in this district was Guzman’s margin. So I think when all the votes are in, she’s going to be winning by more than 9%. And I think that was a really big surprise because I think most people thought, okay, maybe Guzman will win, but it’ll be a close race.

11:33.84

Sam Shirazi

But I mean, this was not really that close at the end of the day. And think there’s a lot of factors you can look at. Federal fallout for sure hit this district. I also think Elizabeth Guzman, I talked about it in my previous episode, she did a good job getting out and reaching out to the Hispanic community.

11:48.58

Sam Shirazi

Similar kind of dynamic where a diverse district, but maybe those voters don’t always come out. And I think it just goes to show you that having a candidate who has maybe a more diverse background, able to speak the language of some of the voters in the district can help.

12:04.21

Sam Shirazi

So I think that was an interesting dynamic. And I guess the last thing on this district, I had flagged previously that Elizabeth Guzman certainly comes from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. And I think there is a kind of thought among the Democratic establishment, for lack of the better word, or maybe the consulting class that if you have a swing district, you just got to get the most generic, moderate person you could possibly find to run.

12:28.06

Sam Shirazi

I think what Elizabeth Guzman proved in this district that you can be a you can be a progressive, you can be from a different background, immigrant background, and win in a very competitive district. And you can win big. Like this wasn’t close at the end of the day. And so I think, you know, every district’s different. You don’t want to necessarily...

12:49.13

Sam Shirazi

do one playbook for every single district. But I think this fear that some Democrats have running progressive voters, at least in this district, didn’t come to fruition because Elizabeth Guzman was able to win.

13:01.08

Sam Shirazi

And now you can argue, well, that’s just the top of the ticket. People are just voting straight ticket. And I’m sure that was part of it. But at the end of the day, like, The fact that she was a progressive didn’t seem to hurt her in this district. And maybe you could argue it helped her reach some more diverse voters. And so anyways, very interesting race in Middle Prince William County.

13:19.18

Sam Shirazi

All right. Now let’s go down to the New River Valley in Southwest Virginia with House District 41. The incumbent, Chris Obenshain, lost to Democratic challenger Lily Franklin.

13:31.86

Sam Shirazi

Now, at the time of recording, the same-day registrations in this district have not been allocated, but I think Lily Franklin will probably end up winning between 4% to 5%. which is a pretty healthy victory in this district, given that it was a Trump district. So I think Lily Franklin did a really good job in this district, getting out students. I talked about that before.

13:52.71

Sam Shirazi

I think the thing that Democrats can learn is that in order, if you have a college in a swing district, you need to get on the ground quickly and organize.

14:02.71

Sam Shirazi

There are Democratic groups that can organize on campuses. So for example, there’s NextGen America that does a organization and registering voters on campus. So I think that’s an important part of the equation.

14:16.54

Sam Shirazi

I think if a candidate is younger, like Lily Franklin is younger, she can reach those voters. She kind of knew what it was like to be in college. She knew how to connect with the local college Democrats at Virginia Tech, use them to register voters, get them out.

14:30.93

Sam Shirazi

And I think the thing that was really... flagged this in my previous episode, but I talked about... Virginia has same-day registration. And same-day registration is a good tool if you are not registered to vote and you need to go on election day and register to vote.

14:44.59

Sam Shirazi

But it is not... the same as registering to vote ahead of time and voting a regular ballot because same-day registrations are provisionals. The other thing with same-day registrations, they take a lot of time on election day because someone’s got to go there.

14:57.84

Sam Shirazi

They got to fill out an extra form. they have to fill out the voter registration form. The election worker has to review it. I mean it just slows down the system. And so... I think what was smart that Lily Franklin did is she didn’t just say, all right, well, we’ll just get a bunch of same-day registrations on Election Day and everyone will go vote on Election Day. I think she and her campaign knew that they needed to register people ahead of time. They needed to get certain voters to go vote early so the lines aren’t crazy on Election Day.

15:24.81

Sam Shirazi

And I think the big payoff for her was she was able to win on Election Day. You know, she didn’t have to wait until all the provisionals were counted. So all that’s to say is I think, you know, there’s a lot of lessons Democrats can win about campus organizing in some of these swing districts in 2026.

15:39.18

Sam Shirazi

Maybe the campus is going to be the deciding factor in some of these really close races. And they’re often this kind of untapped pool of voters who don’t usually show up in a midterm. But if the Democrats can get them organized and get them to vote, I think that be a important thing for the Democrats to do in the

15:53.71

Sam Shirazi

All right, now let’s go to another district in the Richmond area. This is House District 82. The incoming Kim Taylor was knocked off by Democrat Kimberly Pope Adams in a race that didn’t end up being that close at the end. I think when all the votes are in, Kimberly Pope Adams will probably win by close to 8%.

16:11.87

Sam Shirazi

And this was a very close seat in 2023, but Kimberly Pope Adams got the bigger win this time. I talked about this district last time. Getting out Black voters in this district was something that the Kimberly Pope Adams campaign focused on.

16:26.36

Sam Shirazi

And I think... It’s important for Democrats not to forget black voters and how important a part of the Democratic coalition they are. I think it’s, you know, you’re often trying to chase the swing voter or trying to win back white working class voters from Trump.

16:41.57

Sam Shirazi

And obviously that’s important. You don’t want to forget any voter. You want to reach out to every single voter. But Consistently, the the group that is the most loyal to the Democratic Party are black voters. And every voter you get out, I mean, usually Democrats go 90% plus for the Democrats. So every you know if you get out black voters, those are just margins you are racking up for the Democratic Party. And I think sometimes...

17:07.47

Sam Shirazi

There is kind of this failure to appreciate that the challenge with those voters is not that the Republicans are going to be be able to win their votes. It’s just that they might not show up. And I do think i’ve I’ve heard in the past, there’s this mentality that and Democrats only show up on Election Day. They don’t they take our votes for granted.

17:24.28

Sam Shirazi

and i think the Democratic Party should not take the Black community for granted. And in Virginia, I think because of a lot of organization, like the Black Caucus, both in the state Senate and the House of Delegates is going to grow, partly because Ghazal Hashmi is going to be resigning. And so likely the her successor will be...

17:42.90

Sam Shirazi

another black state senator. So and then the House of Delegates, a bunch of black House of Delegates members will be coming in. So I think in Virginia, the black caucus is becoming and has been is is going to become a more powerful force in the General Assembly.

17:58.14

Sam Shirazi

And it’s just important for Democrats to remember all parts of their coalition. I think especially there was this temptation in, I guess, when the Democrats were making these huge gains in the suburbs to just be focusing on kind of wealthier college-educated suburbs. Like that’s where the Democrats need to rack up the votes. And obviously that’s important. You don’t want to take those voters for granted. But frankly, most of those voters end up showing up on midterms.

18:20.18

Sam Shirazi

But you don’t want to forget, you know, black voters are important. They are important in a lot of swing states, lot of swing districts and for the midterms. They might be deciding some of these elections. So just important for the Democrats not to forget that either.

18:33.34

Sam Shirazi

Okay, let’s move over to another district. This is House District 75, the neighboring district from House District 82. The incumbent, Carrie Coyner, she was defeated by Democrat Lindsey Daughtry by about 6%. And I think this was an interesting scenario because...

18:51.21

Sam Shirazi

Most people thought Kerry Coiner was this really strong incumbent. And I think there was a sense that there’s going to be a lot of ticket splitting. Like, sure, Spanberger is going to win the district. But Kerry Coiner, you know, she’s got a brand in the area. She’s going to survive. Like, there’s no way the Democrats can knock her off.

19:06.35

Sam Shirazi

And at the end, it didn’t end up being that close. And I think the lesson here... perhaps for the midterms, is you know there’s no giant that can’t be slain necessarily in a tough environment.

19:16.27

Sam Shirazi

you know i will think about I’ll talk about Maine, Susan Collins. There’s you know a lot of trauma from 2020 when the Democrats were not able to defeat her. a you know If there is a really bad environment for the Republicans, I think a lot of incumbents could potentially lose and and potentially strong incumbents.

19:32.10

Sam Shirazi

And so... you know If you are voting straight ticket or you are voting to send a message, if this becomes a referendum and the only thing on your mind is I want to vote against Donald Trump, you don’t really think too much about the specific individual. And I think it’s important for the Democrats to not necessarily fear any sort of incumbent as undefeatable in an in an environment potentially like 2026 could become. Because I think if the 2026 environment is like 2025, I think there are potentially incumbents that have not faced competitive elections in a long time who could be in danger. And I think it’s important for the Democrats to target seats where

20:08.07

Sam Shirazi

they haven’t traditionally targeted it. And you know the 75th district in 2023, the Democrats kind of half-heartedly targeted it it. This time, obviously, it was a top-tier battleground. And the results showed that you know at the end of the day, like either the top of the ticket or the national environment was more important than any sort of specific candidate in this district.

20:26.86

Sam Shirazi

All right, let’s go down to Hampton Roads for House District 86. This is where incumbent A.C. Cardoza was defeated by Virgil Thornton. the The final margin was probably going to be around eight points. So definitely a big win for the Democrats in this swing district in Hampton Roads.

20:47.87

Sam Shirazi

You know, frankly, in 2023, again, the Democrats didn’t really contest this seat too seriously. This time they poured in a lot of money. I think here, An important lesson was, so AC Cardoza, he was first elected in a wave in 2021, and no one expected him to win in 2021. So there was not a whole lot of effort spent researching him.

21:07.100

Sam Shirazi

And then in 2023, again, the Democrats didn’t really target the seat. They kind of half-heartedly tried. But the lesson here is, you know, you could potentially have a weak incumbent, even if the last few elections, the incumbents won.

21:20.86

Sam Shirazi

If they’re in a tough environment and the Democrats have never really targeted that incumbent, there is a potential that target that that incumbents pretty weak. And I think at the end of the day, AC Cardozo was a pretty weak incumbent.

21:31.18

Sam Shirazi

That became obvious. The margin makes it clear he was a pretty weak incumbent. And so I think, again, it’s important for the Democrats to think about. Not just the strong incumbents that they could potentially knock off in 2026, but kind of the weak incumbents that they haven’t taken a close look at.

21:45.16

Sam Shirazi

Maybe 2026, it might make sense to take a closer look at some of these seats where potentially there’s a weak All right, almost wrapping things up. A few more districts. I will go to House District 89. This is, again, in Hampton Roads.

21:57.56

Sam Shirazi

The incumbent retired, so the Republican was Mike Lamine, but he was pretty soundly defeated by Karen Robbins Carnegie, who will win this race by almost 10%.

22:08.12

Sam Shirazi

ten percent Pretty pretty big result there for Carnegie. And, you know, this was the only open seat in a competitive election This year in Virginia. And I think the lesson here is open seats provide big opportunities.

22:23.90

Sam Shirazi

Now, Baxter Ennis, you know, to be honest, wasn’t necessarily the strongest incumbent, but incumbents, people know them, they have better fundraising. And I think anytime you see an open seat on the table, it’s going to be a pretty strong target.

22:36.57

Sam Shirazi

And so I think for the Democrats 2026, obviously, there’s going to be open seats. Focus on the open seats. Not a huge surprise, not like rocket science, but I do think this district showed that in an open seat, there is a lot less ticket splitting and people just end up voting straight ticket if there’s not an incumbent.

22:51.92

Sam Shirazi

Okay, one last seat in Hampton Roads area, and this is House District 71. The incumbent, about Amanda Batten, ended up losing to Jessica Anderson. when all the votes are set in When all the votes are in, I would say that Jessica Anderson will win by about 6%.

23:08.44

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, I think the one thing with Jessica Anderson is... She was very persistent. We’ve had a few candidates who ran in 2023 and lost and then ran in 2025 again. And so one of them was Kimberly Poe Adams. We talked about that seat. One of them was Lily Franklin.

23:22.83

Sam Shirazi

And Jessica Anderson was another candidate in 2023. Frankly, I think given that it was a tougher environment for the Democrats, they didn’t take that seat seriously. But Jessica Anderson in 2023, she took the seat seriously.

23:36.18

Sam Shirazi

She kept it pretty close. She only lost by about 2% in 2023. so I think this time, Proof is in the pudding. She was able to show that this seat it was going to be competitive. The Democrats took it seriously.

23:46.53

Sam Shirazi

Jessica Anderson got a pretty healthy win in this district. I should have mentioned that Jessica Anderson came on the podcast very early at the beginning of the podcast. So if anyone’s interested, she can they can go and listen to her appearance on the Federal Fallout podcast.

24:00.52

Sam Shirazi

And I think, you know, I guess at the end of the day, it’s just... the fact that she was persistent. And I had mentioned this in my interview with her. Jessica Anderson’s very good on social media, different platforms, things like TikTok.

24:12.82

Sam Shirazi

I think Democrats can learn a lot from her about how to present yourself in public, maybe reach people where they are, not necessarily be... so guarded about different social medias. I mean, I know a lot of Democratic politicians who, you know, they don’t understand TikTok. Frankly, I don’t really understand TikTok. I think it’s for younger people, but, you know, you either get your staff or you try to figure it out because there are a lot of younger voters on TikTok. This district had William & Mary, lot of college students. They ended up showing up and voting. So again, i think it’s important for the Democrats to reach voters where they are. And I think Jessica Anderson did a good job in this district.

24:49.67

Sam Shirazi

All right, last district, and I appreciate everyone who’s stuck with me as we’ve gone through every single district the Democrats had flipped, and this is House District 57. So the incumbent David Owen lost to Democrat May Navar in perhaps the least shocking result of the night, and May Navar is going to get a big win at the end of the day.

25:08.63

Sam Shirazi

She is going to win by over 11%. I think the lesson for this district, I mean, not to take anything away from May Navar, she ran a good campaign. She was a strong candidate. At some point, yeah you know, the district is going to be the environment’s tough. a Certain districts are just gone.

25:35.85

Sam Shirazi

I think the one thing, maybe a lesson for the Republicans, i haven’t talked a lot about what the Republicans can learn, is you have to be realistic. like you know You may want to save an incumbent, but if it’s not there, the district is gone. There’s no point in spending money in this district. and you know i I don’t want second-guess the Republicans, but they should have triaged David Owen. i mean David Owen did his best. He ran his campaign, but there was no way he was going to win this year.

26:01.64

Sam Shirazi

and I noted in the last finance report that the Republicans were still spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on David Olin. Didn’t make a whole lot of sense. You know, you could argue like at the grand scheme of things, like if if they shifted some money to other races, it probably wouldn’t have mattered.

26:17.28

Sam Shirazi

And that’s probably true. This wasn’t like millions and millions of dollars they spent on this race. But if you’re talking about 2026 Senate or congressional races, I mean, you are going to be spending millions of dollars potentially on incumbents.

26:29.07

Sam Shirazi

And if if they can’t win and there’s no viable path, you have to be realistic. You cannot just kind of say, well, you know, let’s let’s you know but let’s try to save the seat. I mean, at some point, the environment is what it is and you have to be realistic. And I think it’s important...

26:44.52

Sam Shirazi

for the Republicans to understand sometimes where things are. And I think the the Virginia elections, new Jersey elections were a bit of a wake up call. We’ll see how much the Republicans change their strategy, which districts they’re focusing on.

26:57.60

Sam Shirazi

But very clearly this district was going flip no matter what. So anyways, that is the House of Delegates flips. that happened in Virginia. It’ll be interesting to see all these new delegates coming in what they’re going to do in the new General Assembly and how they are going to fill out the different committees.

27:15.84

Sam Shirazi

I guess the one thing I should note, there’s already been talk about 2027, and i know it’s hard to think about. think the Democrats are not done trying to flip seats. I think they are going to go on the offense in 2027, maybe get some of these seats that were close this time, but the Democrats didn’t fully invest in But one thing I should say, I mean, some of the seats I’ve talked about are probably going to be off the board. Like, for example, House District 57, I don’t think is going to be competitive in 2027.

27:40.54

Sam Shirazi

And I don’t think Republicans are going to target it. But some of these seats obviously could be. And some of them were pretty close. And so... 2027 in Virginia is going to be interesting. Democrats are going to have to play defense, but they’re also going to go on the offense. This year, the Democrats were pretty much 100% on offense because they didn’t really need to play defense.

27:56.77

Sam Shirazi

I think 2027 potentially could be a different environment. May not be as blue. We’ll see. Also, there’s no governor’s race. So it’s possible some of these lower propensity voters, the Democrats got out, may not show up in 2027.

28:10.13

Sam Shirazi

So definitely a long ways off, but House Delegates, super interesting. had flagged that for most of the election, most people were not following the House Delegates. But because Democrats got such a big win, they flipped 13 seats. i think at the end, everyone kind of took notice of the Virginia House Delegates. And I’m glad they got the attention it deserved because these races are important.

28:29.27

Sam Shirazi

And yeah, anyway, so... A lot going on in the Virginia elections. I will keep going with the podcast. i don’t Like I said, I don’t think I’m going to keep it on forever, but a lot to unpack, and I’ll continue unpacking it, and I may have some guests on to see what makes sense in terms of just debriefing the election. i appreciate everyone who’s been listening. This is 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 2025 Virginia elections. This episode, we will go over some lessons that both parties can learn from the Virginia elections this year, because obviously, after the results came in, it was clear that the Democrats had a very good night in Virginia.

00:16.72

Sam Shirazi

And so when you have a big election like this with a big swing towards one party, the party that wins can certainly learn some lessons that they can apply to future elections. And the party that loses can also learn lessons more what not to do. So I want to kind of go over what the Democrats got right this year in Virginia and perhaps what the Republicans got wrong.

00:37.41

Sam Shirazi

And before I go into those details, I did want to say like national environment, state environment, a lot of that is very difficult for a campaign to change. So as I’ve noted in Virginia, almost every single governor election, the party out of the White House wins.

00:54.10

Sam Shirazi

And so that’s just to say the Democrats had a lot of advantages structurally built in. Republicans had a lot of challenges. And so as much as we kind of microanalyze every part of a campaign,

01:06.15

Sam Shirazi

Sometimes the environment carries you a long way. I will say, though, given the scale of the Democratic victory, I think it’s clear that this was not just the environment. Because it was the environment, you’d expect, okay, maybe Spanberger would win closer to the Northam number of 9%.

01:21.62

Sam Shirazi

Instead, given the scale of her win, it’s clear that her campaigns did some things right and the Republican campaigns did some things wrong because you just don’t see that level of a win unless something went right and something went wrong.

01:33.83

Sam Shirazi

So I will go over some lessons that Democrats can learn for 2026. Conversely, obviously things that Republicans might try to change before then. Now, before I get into it, one last thing, and I wanted to talk about turnout and persuasion. And I’m going to talk about those in different sections. So, you know as I mentioned, there’s often this debate about turnout and persuasion, which one’s more important, which one caused the victory.

01:56.27

Sam Shirazi

You need both. And typically when you see huge swings like this, it’s both. So that means the party that wins has persuaded voters in the middle to to go over to their side.

02:07.75

Sam Shirazi

And they’ve also brought out their core supporters. So I think in this election, there was clearly both turnout and persuasion. Democrats got better turnout and they did better job persuading the voters in the middle and getting them to vote for the Democrats this year.

02:22.48

Sam Shirazi

So I just kind of wanted to lay that out there because sometimes you hear things like, oh this was all about turnout. The Democrats had good turnout and the Republicans had bad turnout. I think the reality is both in Virginia and New Jersey,

02:33.28

Sam Shirazi

There were people who voted for Donald Trump, who voted for the Democrats this year. There were people who perhaps didn’t vote in 2024 that came out for the Democrats. So the Democrats were able to win voters that traditionally are not Democratic voters.

02:48.54

Sam Shirazi

So first, I’ll talk about the Democrats, what they did right. And I wanted to start with persuasion.

02:53.71

Sam Shirazi

So persuasion, again, is the idea of reaching those voters in the middle. And I think the advantage Spanberger had is she and her campaign probably knew the Democrats were going to come out because they were upset this year in Virginia. So she could spend a lot of time on persuasion trying to convince the voters in the middle.

03:11.01

Sam Shirazi

And there’s been a lot made about her message and talking about cost of living and all that. And I thought, and mean I mean, that all makes sense. I mean, I think her focus on cost of living economy, that was clearly the top of mind issue.

03:22.37

Sam Shirazi

Her message was clear. She was opposing what President Trump was doing in terms of the federal cuts. She was opposing the tariffs. And I think the link to the economy was the key for her.

03:33.42

Sam Shirazi

So see she didn’t just say, you know, Trump is bad. Trump is doing all these horrible things. She’s saying Trump is doing these things that are hurting our economy and are hurting your pocketbook.

03:43.72

Sam Shirazi

And The federal cuts are are hurting Virginia in terms of job losses. The tariffs are increasing costs. So I think tying President Trump and the Trump administration to specific economic policies that are hurting people is a strong message.

03:57.66

Sam Shirazi

And it’s a stronger message than just saying Trump is bad. And I think that’s part of the success that Spanberger had. Which, you know, it makes sense and it’s not necessarily super complicated.

04:07.97

Sam Shirazi

i think the thing that was underappreciated about the Spanberger campaign was her message discipline. And message discipline is very difficult. And it’s very difficult, particularly when you have someone like President Trump and kind of the Republican Party now that has become kind of shaped by President Trump. And the reason I say this is the Republicans tried a lot of things to get Spanberger off message.

04:32.18

Sam Shirazi

you know We talked about it in the summer. They went all in on the trans issue, and it didn’t really make a whole lot of sense. But eventually the polling showed that. But at the beginning, you know you don’t know. i think Democrats were certainly nervous about it Given the results in 2024, they didn’t want to take anything for granted.

04:51.54

Sam Shirazi

So I do think Spanberger, you know, she she addressed it when she had to, but she did not want to make the election a referendum on the trans issue. Because I think, you know, we’ve talked about this before, and some of the way, depending on how you frame it, it’s possible the democrat the Republican position is stronger.

05:08.06

Sam Shirazi

But the salience of the issue is not that important. And I think the Spam Worker campaign understood that and and understood that, you know, if you just stick to your message about the economy and Earl Sears all day is talking about the trans issue, most people are going to say, like, look, my concern is the economy. So I don’t know why you’re talking so much about the trans issue.

05:27.16

Sam Shirazi

and then the other thing I want to talk about message discipline was obviously what happened with Jay Jones and the text. So that was kind of the October surprise and the thing the Republicans wanted to talk about the entire campaign for the, when the story came out.

05:42.36

Sam Shirazi

And I think obviously Spanberger had to address that. She tried to take this position where she didn’t fully endorse Jones. She didn’t necessarily disown him. It was a kind of a tough balancing act for her.

05:54.38

Sam Shirazi

But she didn’t want to make the entire campaign about Jay Jones because she understood that was not going to be good for her. She wanted to keep the focus on the economy. So she addressed it when she had to, but she didn’t lose track of what was going on and she wanted to focus on the economy.

06:09.83

Sam Shirazi

And so I think that is just a very difficult thing to do. I mean, it’s easier said than done. Obviously, message discipline. Yeah, it’s important. Talk about the economy. Yes. But in the day to day, when all these stories come out or President Trump every single day is doing something, he’s posting something every single day is doing something. It’s a little bit different trying to throw the Democrats off.

06:30.96

Sam Shirazi

And I think for a long time, the Democrats would take the bait. Every every single post Trump did. They felt like they had to push back on it. And I think the lesson of the Spamberg campaign is you just have to have your message discipline and just focus and hammer the issue. If your issue is economy and you’re saying President Trump’s making the economy worse, just hammer that issue and don’t necessarily get sidetracked by every single thing that President Trump is doing.

07:20.29

Sam Shirazi

I did want to talk about the turnout side. So turnout is different than persuasion in that you know that these voters, they’re going to vote for you. It’s just a challenge to get them out because they may be low propensity voters.

07:32.15

Sam Shirazi

And these typically fall into different categories. usually they’re younger. Usually they are more working class. And For the Democratic coalition, this tends to be non-white voters who are working class and younger voters like college students. And, you know, it’s very tricky in non-presidential years to get these voters out.

07:53.71

Sam Shirazi

And I think often in Virginia, the Democrats don’t do a great job getting these voters out in the state elections. But I think that there were specific examples where the Democrats did a good job. And I’m going highlight yeah maybe four different examples with four different groups.

08:08.54

Sam Shirazi

So the first is in Loudoun. Loudoun County always gets a lot of attention. the media always focused on Loudoun. Spanberger did really well in Loudoun. It reverted back to kind of the traditional, you know, advantage Democrats had in Loudoun before 2024.

08:24.57

Sam Shirazi

And a lot of that was, I think, getting out and persuading you know South Asian Indian voters and also Muslim voters to go back to the Democrats to come out and vote for the Democrats.

08:34.82

Sam Shirazi

And I heard things on the ground like they were trying different approaches, for example, kind of person to person contact through the Telegram app. So the Telegram app, some people use it, I think, in immigrant communities, it’s more popular.

08:47.63

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, it’s different than a normal text message that, you know, maybe a text messaging service will send out for elections. You kind of have to know the community. The community needs to know where it’s coming from. They have to trust the the the message. So I think the Democrats in Loudoun were able to kind of organize that way. And I think it’s a really important way for Democrats to reach the immigrant community in certain parts of the country. And I think it’s something that Democrats can learn for the midterms in 2026.

09:16.08

Sam Shirazi

Okay, wanted to talk about a different group that Democrats did a pretty good job getting out. And those are black voters in different parts of Virginia, Hampton Roads, Richmond area. And there were certainly a few House of Delegates seats that were decided by this. And the Democrats, part of the reason they got a big blue wave in the House of Delegates, they were able to get out the black voters in the critical House of Delegates seats.

09:37.24

Sam Shirazi

And I’ll just flag one, House District 82, it was 45% Black, very kind of polarized district. Most of the Black voters are Democrats, most of the white voters are Republicans. So it’s kind of who can get out more of their base.

09:48.87

Sam Shirazi

Kimberly Pope Adams won that race because she was able to get out voters, particularly in the city of Petersburg. And, you know, it’s it’s just one of those things. Democrats spent a lot of time on that. you know She had been running, Kimberly Pope Adams ran in 2023. She basically kept running after that race.

10:05.59

Sam Shirazi

And it takes... months, years to kind of build a campaign to do that. And I think oftentimes you hear in communities, you know, the Democrats come on election day, but they’re never there otherwise. I think in order to get those voters out, you need to be in the community for a while.

10:19.98

Sam Shirazi

And Kimberly Pope Adams, she put in the time, she put in the effort. She was able to get those voters out. That’s why the Democrats were able to flip that seat. you know, if those voters didn’t show up, it wasn’t going happen in that district. And and honestly, I was, you know, it was very hard for me to predict because I think there’s a temptation to say, the Democrats will never get the voters out in that district. And so Kim Taylor will, the incumbent will win because the Democrats can’t get their voters out. I think a lot of people were kind of thinking that maybe in the back of their head.

10:47.38

Sam Shirazi

But as the results came in, Kimberly Pope Adams was able to get out those voters and she was able to win. So again, i think you have to, you can’t just go there on election day. it has to be weeks and months of organizing in order to do that.

10:59.85

Sam Shirazi

Okay, give you another example of how you need to do that. And that’s what college students. So college students are notoriously difficult to get out. Again, you need weeks and months of organizing to get them out.

11:11.40

Sam Shirazi

And I will use the example of House District 41. This is in Virginia Tech area, Blacksburg. Lily Franklin was able to do that. And she just, you know, she another candidate that lost in 2023, it was very clear she was going to run again.

11:26.66

Sam Shirazi

And she spent, frankly, two years trying to figure out how to get the college students out in Virginia Tech. She and her team went out and organized. They registered students. They tried to get them go vote early.

11:38.52

Sam Shirazi

They got them out on election day. They used same-day registration. The thing that was amazing about this race, I mean, I think most people thought, okay, Lily Franklin’s probably going to win this time. But she didn’t even have to wait for the same-day registrations because the same-day registrations are provisional ballots. They take some time to count.

11:53.42

Sam Shirazi

But Lily Franken did such a good job registering voters and getting them to vote on election day or before that she won an election night. And I think probably in hindsight, that’s probably her goal because she wanted to win an election night, and she did.

12:07.22

Sam Shirazi

And again, the lesson is it takes a lot of time in organizing. You cannot just show up on election day and expect a bunch of college students to vote. At those universities, you have to be organizing weeks, months in advance. You have to be registering them in advance.

12:22.01

Sam Shirazi

Even if Virginia has same day registration, it just takes a long time to get students to do same day registration on election day. The polls, the lines of the polls are going to be super long if you don’t.

12:32.97

Sam Shirazi

and get enough voters registered ahead of time. So you can’t just rely on saving registration to save you. You really do have to organize ahead of time. I think Lily Franklin knew that. And that was part of the reason that she won that race. Okay.

12:44.87

Sam Shirazi

Wanted to talk about one other community really quickly. And that is the Hispanic community. I’ll talk about how twenty two house district house district 22 that is in middle Prince William County.

12:56.43

Sam Shirazi

Elizabeth Guzman, she was able to win in a very healthy margin, much more than I think most people expected. I think a lot of people thought that race is going to be really close. She won with, I think, around like eight points. Very strong win for Elizabeth Guzman.

13:10.38

Sam Shirazi

She is known for organizing, knocking doors. And I think, obviously, she comes from Hispanic community. That district had a decent amount of Hispanic voters. Kind of notoriously, they don’t necessarily show up for the state elections. And I think the other issue is In 2024, Democrats lost a lot of ground with Hispanic voters. There was a lot of talk about, you know, can Democrats do well, both in Virginia and New Jersey, Democrats did well with Hispanic voters.

13:34.23

Sam Shirazi

I think the lesson here is... you know, don’t give up at any group of voters. I think there was a little bit of despair after the 2004 election about why did Hispanic voters go over to Trump? It doesn’t make sense. You know, obviously Trump is doing all these things on immigration that are going to hurt the Hispanic community.

13:51.63

Sam Shirazi

I think Democrats, you know, they went through the process and worked to win back those voters and win back the trust of those voters and get those voters out. I think it it worked both in Virginia and New Jersey. So long story short, i mean, I think As much as you want to focus on persuasion and reaching the voters in the middle, and that’s important, you also have to think about all these different communities that make up the Democratic coalition and try to get out each different part of the Democratic coalition. And they may all require different types of messaging.

14:22.80

Sam Shirazi

And it’s hard. It’s not easy. But in order to win elections, you have to do all of it. And you know I’ll just end on one note with Spanberger. There was this clip that was kind of... And interesting, at the closing days of the campaign, she held a Hispanic outreach event.

14:39.14

Sam Shirazi

And at the event, she spoke Spanish. And I think a lot of people were surprised because they weren’t necessarily expecting Spanberger to know Spanish and to speak it. And i I heard anecdotally that that clip was kind of sent around the Hispanic community.

14:50.84

Sam Shirazi

Now, obviously, not every candidate is going to speak. be able to speak the language of every community. But I do think having kind of native language material and videos and information for voters, reaching them where where they are, frankly, just making an effort.

15:05.23

Sam Shirazi

I mean, a lot of these voters, you know, they know that, you know, they probably know English, but they’re trying to, they appreciate it when you make the effort and you try to speak in the language that they may speak at home. And I think,

15:18.27

Sam Shirazi

All that’s to say is there’s a lot that goes into a campaign. And when you do all these things right, you get a big win like the Democrats got on Tuesday night. All right. Now.

15:28.46

Sam Shirazi

Let’s go over what didn’t work and what didn’t go right for the Republicans in Virginia. i will go through the same kind of thing about persuasion versus turnout.

15:39.28

Sam Shirazi

On the persuasion side of things, I think the Republicans need to have a little bit of soul searching about the message they had and this year in Virginia. And I wanted to talk about a phrase that i maybe have used before, but I wanted to bring it up again. And it’s called X is not real life.

15:56.21

Sam Shirazi

So as I mentioned and in the previous iteration of xs known as Twitter, there was an expression, Twitter is not real life, because there was a sense that progressive activists were spending too much time on Twitter and their entire world worldview was shaped by Twitter and they were losing track of what was going on in the real world.

16:12.17

Sam Shirazi

I think once Elon Musk bought Twitter X and turned it into X, a lot of people left X and it has become a very right leaning site.

16:23.97

Sam Shirazi

Now, am still there and I think, you know, I find there’s a lot of interesting people in it and there’s a lot of value in X, but there’s certainly increasingly a lot of random crazy stuff on there, a lot of trolls, a lot of bots.

16:36.63

Sam Shirazi

It’s hard to really use it sometimes because it is so kind of filled with that stuff. So my point is, and you may be saying like, why are you spending so much time on X? Not that many people are on X and it’s it’s kind of this niche thing.

16:51.58

Sam Shirazi

To be perfectly honest, there are still a decent amount of political journalists. And I think the real important problem for the Republicans is a lot of political consultants and Republican kind of political elites get a lot of their news, a lot of their time and energy is spent on X and and maybe Truth Social. To be honest, I’m not on Truth Social. Maybe that’s part of the problem, too. But I do know on X there is a lot of...

17:14.25

Sam Shirazi

kind of groupthink and a lot of time spent on X. And I think the problem that Winston Earl Sears campaign had and this is kind of a basic problem they had, was they tried to reboot things in around July. And I think they my sense was they brought on some consultants to change some of her messaging.

17:32.39

Sam Shirazi

And those consultants basically measured success with X social media engagement and maybe engagement on other platforms.

17:41.47

Sam Shirazi

But as I mentioned, X is not real life. And I think certainly on the trans side of things, X was not real life. I mean, i I would see a lot of stuff about the trans issue on X. I talked about the sign in Arlington. So I’ll talk about Arlington because I live in Arlington. There was an incident with the sign in Arlington.

17:58.98

Sam Shirazi

in August, obviously inappropriate sign. It shouldn’t have happened. This is when Earl Sears went to a Arlington school board meeting, talked about the trans issue, and then someone held up an an inappropriate sign outside.

18:10.11

Sam Shirazi

Now, to be perfectly honest, it was a random person holding up a sign. They shouldn’t have held up that sign, but you know you know the Republicans tried to make it like this huge deal and wanted to make the entire election, at least in those few weeks, about this sign. And it’s like, look I get it. You’re trying to run your campaign. You’re trying to get your voters somewhat engaged.

18:30.54

Sam Shirazi

But like no one in the real world cares about this stuff. I mean, they care about their own lives. They care about putting food on the table, keeping their job. you know In terms of education, to the extent they care about education, it is they want their schools to be good. They want to have the teachers having the resources.

18:47.77

Sam Shirazi

I mean, that is what people care about. And you know the fact that you... Earl Sears would post over and over about the trans stuff. It just was really odd. And I think I got comments from a lot of people, not necessarily Democrats, like it’s just weird how much she’s spending on this one random issue. And and I think part of it is just the hyper kind of fixation of stuff on X. The last thing I would say about this is just, you know, there was a there was an ad that Earl Sears made and, you know, it was basically an attack ad against Spanberger on the trans issue.

19:20.09

Sam Shirazi

And there was line, they basically used a video of Spanberger and the quote was essentially, you know, are what Spanberger said was our LGBTQ neighbors have the same legal rights as the rest of us.

19:31.43

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, to me, it was very odd that they would use that ad in Virginia as an attack ad, because frankly, most Virginians probably agree with that statement. And so I just don’t know where they were thinking this was a good idea.

19:45.93

Sam Shirazi

So anyways, that was enough on the... The trans issue, the last point about persuasion I want to talk about was the Jay Jones text. Obviously, that’s a different type of story. It was the candidate directly.

19:57.38

Sam Shirazi

It did have an impact on the AG race. I think that the challenge the Republicans had was they kind of gave up on any sort of message at the end other than the Jay Jones text.

20:08.47

Sam Shirazi

And it reminded me of what the Democrats did in 2021 in Virginia with Trump. So in 2021, The Democratic message was essentially Trump is bad. you know, don’t vote for going on because that would give you Trump a win. and And every single time, like the response of the Democrats was Trump, Trump, like, you know, in 2021.

20:26.33

Sam Shirazi

Arguably, it worked in 2025 because that’s Trump is the president. But. I saw the Republicans kind of trying to do that with Jay Jones this time. So like every time, anytime something came up, they would just say, oh, but Jay Jones is bad or Jay Jones texts are bad.

20:39.14

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, I get it. Like you’re you’re on the other side. You’re trying to use that against the Democrats. But like it just didn’t work. And, and you know, Jay Jones himself won because, again, at the end of the day, like most people – they might If they look at those texts, or like, those are not good texts. I would not want you know someone to send those. And you know that’s not a great thing that Jay Jones did.

21:02.63

Sam Shirazi

But again, i care about putting food on the table, my kids’ school. I care about you know these types of normal issues. I’m worried about losing my job. And so if all the Republicans are talking about are the Jay Jones texts, you’re not talking about the actual issues people care about.

21:19.14

Sam Shirazi

And so I kind of closed the persuasion section for the Republicans. with a warning that you know you really need to keep a pulse on what the average person is thinking and maybe spend less time on X.

21:32.18

Sam Shirazi

you know That is not the way the world thinks necessarily, just because there’s a bunch of people on X who are saying things. And frankly, you know the way I understand X works, there are a lot of bots. I don’t know if they’re foreign. I don’t you know i have no idea, but like you just cannot base your worldview on what’s going on.

21:48.39

Sam Shirazi

On X, I think that’s also good point for the Democrats, you know to the extent that they’re spending too much time on social media, it’s generally not a good idea. It’s usually a better idea to go and talk to the voters.

21:58.42

Sam Shirazi

Okay, one last thing on Republicans. So Republicans, they did have a turnout problem this year in Virginia. Certain parts of Virginia, particularly Southwest Virginia, did not come out at the same rate as other parts of Virginia. And in terms of the low propensity voters, I’d say Democrats did a better job at getting out their low propensity voters.

22:16.63

Sam Shirazi

Again, This is part of the dynamic about the party out of the White House. It’s just easier to motivate your voters if they’re angry. It’s easier for your voters to get complacent if you are already in power in D.C.

22:28.35

Sam Shirazi

So I don’t necessarily fault the Republicans too much for the turnout side of things because it is just always the dynamics you see in these off-year elections. You know, and and frankly, neither party has really unlocked this issue of what do you do when you’re in power? How do you turn out your voters? Because Typically, anger is a very strong motivator.

22:51.63

Sam Shirazi

I would say the closest success either side has had was probably in 2022 and maybe 2023 in Virginia, where the Democrats, they were in power in D.C., but they were able to somehow get enough voters out to not get blown out because i think that was unique with the Dobbs decision and the overturning of Roe. There was enough anger at that directed at the Supreme Court. The Democrats were able to get decent turnout.

23:17.63

Sam Shirazi

But you know it’s just a problem that the party in power has. you know To the extent the Republicans, again, were maybe trying, i think part of the issue with the trans issue and then the Jay Jones text, it was more so trying to persuade people to get off the couch and go vote as opposed to trying to persuade voters in the middle.

23:40.22

Sam Shirazi

It was to try to motivate their voters. And you know you could argue maybe if they didn’t do that, fewer people would have showed up on the Republican side. I don’t really, you know i don’t have some magic formula about how do you get out these low propensity voters.

23:53.88

Sam Shirazi

I do think the Republicans have to think about that because I think that’s going to be an issue again in the midterms. i My sense is they’ll probably use Trump. I think he’ll try to do more rallies. But the problem like.

24:05.53

Sam Shirazi

That was a problem in Virginia. Like if Trump came and did a big rally in Virginia, that would probably get a decent amount of attention and, you know, might enthuse some of his supporters to come out. The problem is, you know, Trump was not a popular figure in Virginia during this election, so he really couldn’t do that. Maybe next year in the midterms in some of the rather redder states, maybe Trump can come out. But obviously, the Democrats are going to use that against Trump.

24:29.64

Sam Shirazi

Trump and they’re going to attack Trump. So long story short, I mean, I do think it’s a challenge for the party in the White House. And you know I’d be curious to see if anyone comes up with some magic formula, because I will warn the the Democrats about this, because eventually they will probably be back in power in DC, and they’re going to have this problem again. So as much as I like to think about 2025, Democrats had a good year, but I’m just talking about hypothetically, let’s say in theory, Democrats win 2028 presidential election.

24:59.29

Sam Shirazi

There will be a governor’s election in 2029. And if they are in power in D.C., they are going to have the problem the Virginia Republicans had this year. And so i I may be thinking way too far ahead, but I do think the Democrats down the line have to think about what are they going to do in the future when they’re in power? Because obviously in 2021, they got a little bit complacent. They thought Virginia’s a blue state. We’re going to win the governor’s election.

25:24.58

Sam Shirazi

And there was a huge swing. And Glenn Youngkin was able to win. So all that’s to say, i think the Democrats also have this turnout problem when they’re in power. It’s just this year they didn’t have that problem because obviously they’re not in power.

25:36.58

Sam Shirazi

And I do think, yeah you know, this is not the last Virginia governor’s election. And just because the Democrats got a big win in 2025, nothing’s predetermined doesn’t mean they’re going to get a big win in 2026. Doesn’t mean they’re going to get a big win 2027, 2028, 2029. So I think certainly an interesting election in Virginia lessons for both the parties.

25:55.80

Sam Shirazi

But I do think Democrats shouldn’t get complacent. They should try to replicate some of what they did and build on it. Republicans, they should probably learn some of the lessons and try to maybe shift, if not their messaging,

26:10.17

Sam Shirazi

I guess this is the last thing i’ll I’ll leave the Republicans with, you know, obviously you can shift the messaging and all that, but perhaps the voters were also sending a message about the way the Republicans are governing. And typically i will say, I’ll just be honest, both parties in in DC don’t really change that much because of the Virginia elections.

26:27.05

Sam Shirazi

I think the media and maybe outside observers, they take a lot away from the Virginia election, but it’s kind of interesting. party in power typically doesn’t change, you know, in 2021, know,

26:38.97

Sam Shirazi

Democrats went ahead. They did you you know various bills in 2022, like the Inflation Reduction Act and other things, even though they didn’t do well in the Virginia elections. 2017, obviously, Republicans kept doing what they were doing in D.C. after the Virginia elections in 2018. So long story short, I think the Virginia elections are a little bit of a warning to the party in power, typically.

26:59.56

Sam Shirazi

And we’ll see if the Republicans listen. I think at a minimum, they’re going to shift some of their messaging, if I had to guess. There’ll be less trans stuff in 2028, excuse me, in 2026. Democrats are just going to keep doing what they’re doing, try to link Trump to the economy and hope that works in 2026. And obviously we’ll find out. But hopefully this was an interesting episode. Wanted to kind of do this lessons of the Virginia elections for everyone. i will, again, keep doing the podcast for a little bit longer, at least have some guests on, hopefully to kind of go over the results. I appreciate everyone listening. And this has been Federal Follow-up 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 Fall Out the 2025 Virginia Elections. This episode, we will go over election night and the blue wave that came into Virginia on election day.

00:12.95

Sam Shirazi

So this is the moment that we had all been waiting for when the polls closed at seven o’clock. We saw the results come in. And I would say it was pretty surprising. i mean, we all knew that the Democrats were going to do well at the end. I think that was pretty obvious to both sides.

00:28.24

Sam Shirazi

But I think the scale of the victory was certainly at the top end of what was possible for the Democrats. And basically, it was a I would describe it almost as a blue tsunami more than a blue wave because...

00:40.57

Sam Shirazi

At the top of the ticket, Abigail Spanberger, she is going to win that race by over 15 points when all the votes are in. And that’s just, you know, a really large margin for the governor’s race, pretty much more than any of the polling had found.

00:56.10

Sam Shirazi

And the biggest victory that a Democrat has gotten in the governor’s race in a long, long time. yeah. Definitely big night at the top of the ticket for Abigail Spanberger. She will become the first woman to become governor of Virginia.

01:10.44

Sam Shirazi

For lieutenant governor, Ghazala Hashmi also got a very large victory. She is going to be winning by more than 11%. She will become the first Muslim person and the first South Asian person elected statewide in Virginia.

01:25.64

Sam Shirazi

So another big win for the lieutenant governor’s race. I think perhaps the most shocking result of the night was the attorney general race, because honestly, it didn’t end up being that close when all the votes came in.

01:36.31

Sam Shirazi

It looks like Jay Jones will win by more than 6%, probably closer to 7% when all the votes are in. Obviously, there was a fair amount of ticket splitting, about, it looks like about 8% ticket splitting, which honestly is kind of what I thought it would end up being. 8% sounded about right to me.

01:55.81

Sam Shirazi

I think the thing that was really surprising was just the fact that Spanberger won by so much. So 8% ticket splitting could have been a big deal had it not been for the fact that Spanberger won by by so much at the top of the ticket.

02:08.23

Sam Shirazi

And so Jay Jones, he will become the first black attorney general in Virginia history. Obviously the voters voters gave him a second chance and were willing to go with him because it seems like they wanted to send a message that they were unhappy with what was going on with the Republican Party.

02:25.81

Sam Shirazi

And I think the other big shock of the night after the attorney general race was the House of Delegates. So the Democrats are on track to win 64 seats in the House of Delegates. They are going to be flipping 13 seats in the House of Delegates.

02:40.19

Sam Shirazi

And that is almost every single seat that they targeted. Really a huge night for the Virginia House of Delegates Democrats. They were very ambitious and they were correct to be ambitious because they were able to flip a lot of seats, including Trump 2024 seats.

02:57.66

Sam Shirazi

So clearly, and they were different parts of Virginia. Northern Virginia, Richmond area, Hampton Roads, a seed in Southwest Virginia. So it’s just a complete Democratic victory in Virginia.

03:09.72

Sam Shirazi

And you know I’m going to do the full analysis in my subsequent podcast. This is more just kind of a quick summary of everything that happened. I don’t plan on wrapping up the podcast anytime soon. I think I want to do a few episodes to explore what happened, why it happened, individual races, what happened, and the special dynamics.

03:29.62

Sam Shirazi

But I think i wanted to kind of share some big picture thoughts that I had. I think big picture, there’s an argument that really... there was nothing the Virginia Republicans could do to avoid a loss this year in Virginia. i think realistically, once the scale of what was going to happen in DC on after January 20th became obvious, specifically with Doge, I think that was pretty much the end of the Virginia Republicans this year in Virginia.

03:57.30

Sam Shirazi

Now you could argue, you know, if, if Earl Sears had ran a better campaign, maybe on the margins, it could have, the outcome could have changed a little bit, but the reality is, you know, I think what was going on with Doge was just so toxic, specifically in Northern Virginia. And we saw huge swings in Northern Virginia.

04:15.97

Sam Shirazi

The Democrats picked up four seats in the Northern Virginia region in the House of Delegates. just Doge, I mean, I live in Northern Virginia. It was just really, really toxic for the Virginia Republicans.

04:28.94

Sam Shirazi

And there was really nothing they could do to come back from that. I mean, you know once Doge kind of went away for a little bit, you know And arguably, the Virginia Republicans were trying to mount to comeback.

04:40.48

Sam Shirazi

you know I think the shutdown and specifically the rifts that were threatened during the shutdown and that were attempted to be implemented, but eventually were mainly stopped through court court cases.

04:52.85

Sam Shirazi

I think that kind of brought a lot of that back to the forefront. And most voters in Northern Virginia, it just turned them off. And there was really nothing the Virginia Republicans to do could do to win those voters back. so you know There’s a reason the podcast was called Federal Fallout. i mean I had a feeling when I started this podcast, there was going to be a lot of federal fallout. And I think you know this election has basically proven that that that’s the case. now you know Every election, there’s a lot of things going on. I think Spanberger at the top of the ticket was a strong candidate.

05:24.85

Sam Shirazi

I think, obviously, there was issues with cost of living and you know the fact that inflation has not necessarily gotten that much better from 2024. So there’s a lot of things going on, but I do think the federal fallout, and I also think specifically the shutdown was an important issue, even though it didn’t really get that much attention on the campaign trail.

05:44.84

Sam Shirazi

So those are some of the... My initial thoughts. I also think, you know, another thing that I wanted to talk about was what this all means for Virginia. and And I’ll do more episodes to break this down. But essentially...

05:58.85

Sam Shirazi

there are going to be there’s going to be a trifecta in January in Richmond, which means Spanberger is going to be able to pass laws and the General Assembly is going to be able to pass laws pretty easily. And so I think it’s going to be important for Spanberger to work with the General Assembly, think about what laws she wants, and and the General Assembly has to think about what laws it wants to spend Spanberger because when you have a trifecta, it’s better for the governor and the General Assembly to work together so that there isn’t too much, you know,

06:25.74

Sam Shirazi

tension or too much conflict out in the open. You want to kind of figure that stuff out behind the scenes. So think that’s going to be an interesting dynamic. The other thing I’m looking at are these constitutional amendments.

06:36.00

Sam Shirazi

So obviously redistricting got a lot of attention. Redistricting is going to move forward now, given that the Democrats won the House of Delegates. It’s possible some of these court challenges might slow it down or might mess up the Democrats’ plans. But you know redistricting is obviously on the agenda.

06:51.05

Sam Shirazi

I think the other thing to keep in mind is the Democrats had already proposed three other constitutional amendments for November 2026. One would be on reproductive rights to enshrine in the Virginia Constitution, certain reproductive rights. There was also a amendment on marriage equality to repeal the ban on same-sex marriage in the Virginia Constitution and to protect same-sex marriage in the Virginia Constitution.

07:13.86

Sam Shirazi

And then finally, there is an amendment to restore automatically restore voting rights Two people convicted of felonies once they are released from prison. So those will all be on the ballot in November 2026. I think in almost all likelihood, those are going to be passed.

07:28.25

Sam Shirazi

So those changes to the Virginia Constitution are going to happen. And I also think there are the national implications of these elections. Obviously, there was also what what happened in New Jersey. New Jersey, Democrats did well. They did better than expected. it really wasn’t that close, even though people thought New Jersey was going to be close.

07:43.67

Sam Shirazi

Obviously, Democrats did well in Virginia. And I do think there is kind of a message the voters are sending to the Republicans in D.C. to maybe think about the scale of what they’re trying to do.

07:54.62

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, I think after every presidential election, and There is a sense by the party that wins that you know my worldview has been endorsed by the American people and they 100% agree with everything that we want to do.

08:07.74

Sam Shirazi

Democrats felt that way after 2020. Republicans felt that that way after 2024. I think the reality is most Americans have you know different views. They don’t always agree with a party on everything.

08:20.36

Sam Shirazi

And a lot of voters will lend their votes to certain parties in different elections because whatever reason in 2024, probably because of the cost of living inflation. And it doesn’t mean you necessarily agree with every single thing a party is doing. And I think it’s important for the Republicans and the Democrats to remember that, that you know they have their specific issues, they have their verr worldview, and the voters may agree with some of it, but they don’t necessarily agree with all of it. And I think it’s important for the Virginia Republicans to and realize that. And I also think it’s it’s frankly important for the Virginia Democrats to realize that.

08:54.82

Sam Shirazi

And I think one of the lessons... of the Virginia elections is things swing swing back and forth. Every four years, pretty much, there is a very dramatic swing in Virginia.

09:05.48

Sam Shirazi

And I think obviously 2021, Republicans had a good year. Now 2025, Democrats have a good year. There was a huge swing. and And so I guess what I’m trying to get at is I get that the Democrats feel like they have this huge mandate.

09:18.100

Sam Shirazi

They’re going to come in. you know Everything is you know behind them to make major changes in Richmond. you know They should also keep in mind that I think a lot of voters probably also lent their votes to the Democrats this election because they want to send a message about the Republicans. It became a referendum on Trump and they sent a message.

09:36.21

Sam Shirazi

But doesn’t necessarily mean they always endorse every single position the Democrats have. So I think it’s important for both the Republicans and the Democrats to have a little humility when it comes to these elections.

09:47.49

Sam Shirazi

And frankly, I think in 2021, the Virginia Republicans kind of misread the mood and the environment in Virginia. they had kind of thought after 2021 that, you know, we’re going to make Virginia red state again. And, you know, we’re going to totally change the culture in Virginia back to what it was maybe 20 years ago.

10:05.05

Sam Shirazi

And the reality is, i think voters, while... They probably wanted some change in Virginia in 2021. It was still fundamentally a light blue state. And I think the Virginia Republicans probably governed and Glenn Youngkin probably governed a little bit too far to the right for Virginia.

10:23.98

Sam Shirazi

And probably some of the backlash was also in 2025 to that, that the Virginia Republicans never really tried to Governed like they were in a purple state. A lot of it was kind of more red meat meat stuff for the base. And, you know, in theory, you could see them trying to govern maybe something closer to like Larry Hogan in Maryland. And that probably would have been pretty successful. successful But I think they just kind of went a little bit too far right.

10:49.67

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, Virginia is a complicated state. A lot of the places that Republicans come from, you know, pretty red. So I kind of get why they did that, but I think it’s important to remember fundamentally Virginia still is kind of a middle road state. And I also think it’s important for the Democrats to remember that because obviously most of the Democrats come from very blue parts of Virginia.

11:07.89

Sam Shirazi

There are very red parts of Virginia. While Spanberger got a big win, there’s still a lot of people who voted for Earl Sears. And I think it’s important for the Democrats to remember that. And it’s it’s important not to maybe...

11:20.08

Sam Shirazi

take it too far or maybe learn the wrong lessons. I think the thing that the voters really endorsed in this election Spanberger’s message, cost of living, kind common sense policies, not necessarily doing the culture war stuff. And, you know, obviously Earl Sears,

11:36.35

Sam Shirazi

kept focusing on the trans issue, and I think that was like a big mistake. And you know I had flagged for a while that didn’t make sense for Earl Sears to talk so much about the trans issue. So I think in that sense, the voters endorsed kind of the Spanberger vision of lowering costs, improving the economy.

11:51.10

Sam Shirazi

I think the challenge becomes now she has to deliver. And, you know, I don’t necessarily think the Democrats are going to be sidetracked by all these social issues, but there’s also the reality that they have to deal with a lot of things. They have to deal with red redistricting. And so if the voters kind of get the message after you get this big win, you know, you’re focusing on your own agenda or you’re focusing on all these other things.

12:09.27

Sam Shirazi

You’re not focusing on us. You’re not focusing on what we actually care about, what we elected you to do. And you could argue That’s kind of a message they were sending this year about what happened in 2024. So in 2024, you know, Trump and the Republicans get a big win.

12:25.04

Sam Shirazi

Arguably, a lot of that was economy, inflation, Voters expected them to fix that. President Trump comes in. They have a whole agenda. Some of it’s doge. Some of it’s immigration stuff. Some of it’s a lot of things that don’t really have to do a whole lot about lowering costs in the economy.

12:40.96

Sam Shirazi

And frankly, some of the tariffs have arguably increased the cost for the American people. And so the voters are kind of getting that. And I think at some point, you know, the national Republicans may want to think about the course they’re going down because, you know, the midterms are a year away. And typically what happens in Virginia is often followed by the midterms the next year.

13:05.49

Sam Shirazi

And so I think it’s important for the national Republicans, Virginia Republicans to learn the lesson of the 2025 Virginia elections. It’s also important for the Democrats to learn the lessons And I will unpack all this. There’s a lot to go over. I understand this podcast was probably a bit of a ramble of different things I was kind of thinking about in the moment.

13:26.65

Sam Shirazi

But I will try to organize my thoughts a little bit better down the line and give you kind of more of a a bigger picture breakdown of what everything that happened. But I will say, big picture overall, good night for the Democrats, obviously.

13:41.43

Sam Shirazi

And you know we’ll just have to wait and see where things go from here. Once I get a chance to process all the data and the specific precincts and the races and just kind of give you some more granular information, I want to do that. I want to kind of think through what this means for Virginia 2026 when democrats come in with the new new people elected. And long story short, a lot to still cover. As I said, I’m not going to wrap up the podcast yet. I don’t know.

14:09.52

Sam Shirazi

I don’t think it’s going to go on forever. But I do think in the short term, I do want to do some more podcasts, maybe i have a few more guests to kind of go over everything. And yeah, I mean, I appreciate everyone who’s been listening to the podcast, as you can tell.

14:21.10

Sam Shirazi

It’s something that I wanted to do to inform people. I hope people have found it informative before the election. I still want to inform people after the election. I appreciate everyone who’s been listening. I am obviously passionate about Virginia elections. I think they’re important. I think this election showed why they are important and why they often turn into these kind of national referendums and they send a national message.

14:43.35

Sam Shirazi

So anyways, 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 Fall Out, the 2025 Virginia elections. This episode, we will go over what to expect on election day and election night. The big day is finally here. It is election day in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Polls are open until 7 Voters can cast ballots at their local election places. And yeah, it’ll be really exciting tonight when the results start coming in.

00:26.52

Sam Shirazi

And I wanted to just do this podcast for people who want to listen on Election Day to give a little bit of a preview of what Election Day is going to look like. and then what might happen once the polls close.

00:37.29

Sam Shirazi

And, you know, it’s just the end of the campaign is always exciting. I think for the people who worked on the campaign and who’ve been following the campaign, I think regardless of what happens, most people are relieved that it’s over because it’s been a long haul.

00:49.38

Sam Shirazi

And obviously, once the results are coming in, there will be the opportunity to analyze the results and overanalyze the results and extrapolate what happened. So before we get to that, I wanted to kind of lay out what’s going to happen on Election Day. So generally,

01:02.52

Sam Shirazi

During Election Day, obviously people are going to vote and Election Day is a big wild card. I’ve talked about it before. You don’t know who’s turning out. It could be people you or have not modeled for. There’s a surge of turnout for whatever reason. One side or both sides are able to get out their voters. It’s possible turnout is not that strong. It’s possible that it’s it’s weak. you know There’s so many different possibilities on Election Day.

01:23.62

Sam Shirazi

We’re just going to wait and see how it all pans out. Typically what happens during election day, the certain counties and cities will post on social media or on their accounts just kind of what the turnout is looking like.

01:36.96

Sam Shirazi

All right, at noon, this many people have showed up. some Some people also try to call up the registrars or get information from you know local sources. Okay, I’ve heard that this many voters have come out in this city or this county.

01:49.12

Sam Shirazi

i think that’s all very helpful. you know It gives you some information, gives you a sense of what’s going on. couple things to keep in mind. i mean, you obviously have to add the early vote to that number. So if you’re saying 10% of people have come out as of 9 a.m., you also have to consider you know maybe 20, 30% came out during the early voting period. So you can’t just look at the election day turnout. i you know I think there are some things you can learn from it. I also get a little bit nervous because I think people really over extrapolate sometimes or they make these huge conclusions like, oh, turnouts down here. you know This side is going to do horrible.

02:22.18

Sam Shirazi

Sometimes that ends up happening. Sometimes it’s a little bit overblown. You have to think about a lot of different things, a lot of different factors. Do people come later? What is turnout overall looking like? So I tend to be a little bit hesitant to be you know going all crazy about turnout extrapolation during election day.

02:41.16

Sam Shirazi

think the reality too is that at 7 o’clock, we will know, starting at 7, we’ll know what’s going happen because the results are going to be released. So Long story short, I mean, keep an eye out on turnout and and generally it’s helpful, but I would not go crazy. I would not drive myself crazy.

02:58.72

Sam Shirazi

There’s been elections where based on turnout, I thought it would go one way and it went the other way and vice versa. So I think it’s just definitely not worth worrying too much about the election day turnout. And, you know, we’ll all know the answer soon enough.

03:12.97

Sam Shirazi

I think the other thing to keep in mind is so exit polls. So one of the worst phrases at we all dread is early exits. And you know I have a scoop. I know what the exit polls are going to show.

03:25.31

Sam Shirazi

yeah It’s helpful to maybe take a look at the exit polls once the polls actually close. The thing with exit polls, it’s kind of a, they recalibrate it after they get all the data and they look at the final outcome.

03:37.54

Sam Shirazi

And it’s not really meant to at 7 p.m. give you the result. I think it’s really meant to after the fact, after results come in, They get to switch up the weighing and all this, a lot of different stuff to just kind of give people a sense of what happened during the election. But it’s not really meant to be this predict prediction thing that it’s sometimes used as.

03:59.85

Sam Shirazi

Now, realistically, if the exit poll shows a really obvious outcome, some networks will just go ahead and call it at the close of polls. Personally, i like to wait to get some results because you never know. There’s been chimes in the past. The exit polls have been wrong, you know.

04:15.25

Sam Shirazi

I think after the 2000 election, networks tend to be very cautious using exit polls. So long story short, exit polls, they’re helpful. I tend to look at them more down the line. Really, I would not freak out about early exits or stuff you’re seeing online because frankly, it could be fake. yeah don’t Don’t go too crazy with exit polls.

04:35.10

Sam Shirazi

i Generally, that’s a good rule of thought and rule of thumb. And I think you’re never wrong just kind of ignoring the exit polls until later. Okay, so that’s kind of all up until 7 p.m. 7 p.m., the polls close, the first results are coming in.

04:50.64

Sam Shirazi

And I think there’s a few things you have to think about when you are looking at results coming in. You have to think about where are the votes coming from, both geographically where they’re coming from and also what types of votes are coming in.

05:06.17

Sam Shirazi

So I’ll just explain the three basic types of votes that come in on election night. You have... the election day vote, which are people who have gone out on election day and voted, and that’s data from individual precincts.

05:20.51

Sam Shirazi

And then you have early voting, and that’s split up into the mail early voting and the in-person early voting. And those in each county and city might come in at different times. So some counties and cities do the early voting first, they’ll put the mail and the in-person early vote first.

05:36.84

Sam Shirazi

Some counties will do the election day first and the early voting is the last thing that comes in. And so there’s really no rhyme or reason to how that happens. And so you really have to be careful when you are looking at results from individual city or county.

05:48.90

Sam Shirazi

Why do you have to be careful? In-person vote, both early and on election day, tends to be better for the Republicans. So it’s hard to tell with this election, but probably the Republicans will be doing pretty well on election day vote.

06:02.94

Sam Shirazi

I still think Democrats are going to win the in-person early vote, but just not by that much. as compared to maybe previous years, the area where Democrats have a huge advantage is the mail vote. So the mail vote is gonna be very, very blue as compared to the other types of votes.

06:16.97

Sam Shirazi

So if you’re looking at a county and city and you’re just looking at election day and in-person early vote, you’re gonna miss the mail vote. And you really need to wait for the mail vote to make a final call about a specific city or county.

06:28.56

Sam Shirazi

So I just caution all that by saying that you can’t you know just look at the first results that come in from a city or county. And then you have to think about geography, both within a city and a county and and then also within Virginia. So big picture within Virginia, obviously some counties are very red, some counties are very blue.

06:47.05

Sam Shirazi

So you really have to think about and look at where are the votes coming in. If it’s coming in from a red county and the Republicans are doing well, that’s not a huge surprise. Obviously, Republicans are going to win a red county. If it’s coming in from a blue county, same thing. Democrats going to be doing well.

07:00.81

Sam Shirazi

So you’re not going to... I wouldn’t drive yourself crazy thinking, oh my God, the Republicans are winning or the Democrats are winning when you just have votes from blue or red areas. And I will say...

07:11.92

Sam Shirazi

the It’s hard to know exactly, but typically the smaller rural counties tend to come in first and the more urban and suburban democratic counties tend to come in last.

07:24.35

Sam Shirazi

That’s not 100% true, but that’s generally what happens. and so There’s been this famous thing for a long time in Virginia elections where people kind of freak out, or at least Democrats tend to freak out because they’re they’re losing. And then at the end, all of the Northern Virginia vote comes in and the Democrats end up winning.

07:40.98

Sam Shirazi

This has happened several times. I think most famously 2014, the Northern Virginia vote came in for the Senate race late and that kind of saved Mark Warner. you’re going to see that dynamic where probably some of the latest reporting counties will be in Northern Virginia.

07:56.52

Sam Shirazi

So just another thing to keep in mind. And then within cities and counties, you still have to think about the geography. So some counties everywhere, every precinct is blue. Some counties, every precinct is red. But there are plenty of counties that are fifty fifty or 50-50.

08:10.25

Sam Shirazi

One part of the county is very red. One part of the county is very blue. And so just because some results are coming in from one county where it looks red or it looks blue doesn’t mean that’s going to be the final result because, again, Election Day comes in precinct by precinct. Sometimes the red precincts come in. Sometimes blue precincts come in.

08:26.69

Sam Shirazi

So a lot a lot of caveats on when votes are coming in. I think the good news for Virginia is that Virginia, Generally, they count votes very quickly, at least the election day and the early votes.

08:41.18

Sam Shirazi

So I think as seven o’clock, you’re going to start seeing the initial vote. Eight o’clock is really going to ramp up. And then nine o’clock, you’ll probably get most of the rest of it. So I think by 10 o’clock, frankly, most of the votes should be in.

08:53.75

Sam Shirazi

And so that’s the good news in Virginia. You’re not gonna be sitting around forever trying to figure out what’s going on. Pretty quickly, we’re gonna get the votes. I think the thing that’s gonna be interesting is when are calls going to be made? And and you know I tend to be pretty conservative. I like to wait wait for more votes.

09:08.70

Sam Shirazi

Before I make a final call in a race. And frankly, for this election night, because I’m going to be busy, i’m going to be doing a lot of other things. I don’t know if I’m going to call, you know, race by race. You know, Chaz Netticombe, State Navigate, they’re going to be doing that stuff. They’re really good. Another person I look to is Ben Tribbett. He, I’ve been following him for a long time. His election night calls are great.

09:28.37

Sam Shirazi

So, you know just keep that in mind. It’s possible. I don’t know what’s going to happen. If maybe some of the networks, they feel comfortable with the exit poll, they end up calling it you know very early. i tend to just wait for some votes because you know you never want to make a call and then end up being wrong.

09:45.10

Sam Shirazi

But good news, we should find out pretty quickly for most races what’s going to be happening. on election night. I do think i caveat this by saying in some really close races, and I’m thinking potentially in the attorney general race and definitely some of these House of Delegates seats are going to be really close.

10:02.04

Sam Shirazi

And by really close, I mean, it could come down to 100 votes. In 2023, some of the House of Delegates races came down to a few dozen votes. So when you’re talking that level of closeness, you basically have to wait for all the votes to come in. You can’t just say that one side is one when there could potentially be hundreds of votes still out there.

10:21.23

Sam Shirazi

Why might there be a few hundred votes out there? There are two categories of votes that are counted after the election, and I will talk about those. One are provisionals and one are the last mail votes.

10:32.98

Sam Shirazi

So I’ll talk about provisionals first. So what are provisionals? Provisional ballots are basically someone shows up to their polling place on election day, or they show up to a polling place on election day.

10:43.84

Sam Shirazi

And for whatever reason, they’re not on the books and something’s happening. They’re not registered to vote. the They can’t cast a normal ballot. If you’re not registered to vote, you’re not in the system, you will not be casting a regular ballot in Virginia.

10:57.93

Sam Shirazi

The biggest, the bulk of provisional ballots are what are called same-day registrations. So the way same-day registration works in Virginia, you show up on election day, you’re not registered to vote, you tell the election workers, I want to same-day register and I want to cast a provisional ballot.

11:14.28

Sam Shirazi

What they will have you do, they’ll have you fill out the voter registration form. You obviously have to be a qualified voter, 18, have to be a citizen, you can’t have your voting rights suspended or revoked.

11:26.32

Sam Shirazi

You fill out the voter registration form. After you do that, they will give you your provisional ballot. You vote. that Those votes, the provisional votes, are set aside. They are not counted on election night.

11:36.88

Sam Shirazi

They’re a special type of vote called provisional votes. And so what happens after election night is the election officials in each city and county, they will go through each provisional ballot.

11:47.77

Sam Shirazi

They’ll review the voter registration. If someone is a valid voter, they’re allowed to legally vote. That vote will then be cast. And it’s a very intense process. Both parties keep an eye on it.

11:59.05

Sam Shirazi

Obviously, if someone is not allowed to be a voter, they will be rejected. Parties have the right to review these things. So it’s a pretty rigorous process. And because of that, it takes some time.

12:10.19

Sam Shirazi

And each city and county does it a little bit differently. If it’s a small city or county with only a few provisionals, they could do it in a day day or two. Bigger cities or counties, it might take a few weeks, not a few weeks, sorry, a few days, and and you might not find out until maybe even next week all the provisionals.

12:27.09

Sam Shirazi

So I caveat, in some places, particularly college towns, Charlottesville, Blacksburg, Harrisonburg, Williamsburg, they could potentially have hundreds of same-day registration. Typically, same-day registrations happen in places with younger voters.

12:40.64

Sam Shirazi

They’re especially popular in college towns. So I’m thinking about House District 41, We may not know who’s going to win for a few days because Montgomery County and Blacksburg, Town of Blacksburg, they have to go through the provisionals. They have to determine which ones are valid, which votes will be cast. And so you all that’s to say is you you cannot just assume whoever’s ahead on election night, if it’s really close, is going to win because you have to wait for the provisionals and the same-day registrations. That’s one batch of votes.

13:06.60

Sam Shirazi

Typically, the rule is provisionals. are more Democratic. I will say in 2024, they were more Republican. There were more Republican provisionals than I was expecting. Democrats still won the provisional overall, but it wasn’t super blue. And I think that was an indication that in 2024, the Democrats were not doing that well with students and younger voters because the provisionals were not a blowout it like they typically are in the Virginia elections. And that’s one of the things I’m going to be looking at this year is what do the provisionals look like?

13:37.28

Sam Shirazi

Do the Democrats have a huge advantage in provisionals? If they do, that means they’re doing well with younger voters. If it’s more even, that means the Republicans are kind of keeping the gains they made with younger voters. So lot of interesting stuff you can kind of figure out through provisional data, but it takes a few days and you’re not going to know on election night what’s going on with the provisionals.

13:55.74

Sam Shirazi

The other kind of batch of votes are the mail-in votes. And most mail-ins are counted by election night. However, under Virginia law,

14:05.98

Sam Shirazi

as long as something is postmarked by Election Day, the mail ballots can be received up until noon on Friday after the election. So what does that mean? That means each day the local official election officials look at their mail.

14:21.38

Sam Shirazi

If there is a ballot, if it’s been postmarked by Election Day, they go ahead and process that. And then they will at the end add all the mail votes. Now, realistically, this isn’t going to be that many votes, but it’s not an insignificant amount statewide. So this is probably going to be, we’re talking tens tens of thousands of votes going to be added in the late mail.

14:40.34

Sam Shirazi

And the thing to keep in mind with the late mail this is going to be overwhelmingly Democratic. So, you know, whatever the margin is on election night, a combination of the provisionals and the late mail is going to boost the Democratic numbers a little bit.

14:54.37

Sam Shirazi

And most races is not going to matter. Either it’s very clear the Democrat or the Republican has won and these like, you know, marginal amounts of additional votes aren’t going to matter. But When is going matter in the really, really close race? So I would say for like House of Delegates, if it’s within a few hundred votes, depending on the district, you really have to wait for the final votes. You can’t make a call either way, but especially if the Republican is up, because if the Republican is up by 100 I mean, it’s possible the Democrats are going to make that up in the provisional and the late mail.

15:26.18

Sam Shirazi

Conversely, I think if the Democrats are up by about 100, I think it’s unlikely that the Republicans are going to make that up because realistically, the mail vote is just going to be pretty blue. Again, depends on the district, depends on the county. So it’s not like a universal rule.

15:38.84

Sam Shirazi

So all that to say is like, there’s a lot, there’s a lot that goes into analyzing Virginia results. Obviously, once the results are in, there’s going to be more granular analysis to show what the election tells us like, you know, are Democrats doing well with young voters or Republicans are making gains with, you know, Hispanic voters, you know, there’s a lot of things you could you know down the line, try to extrapolate from the Virginia election results just on election night. It’s just going to be exciting as the results coming in.

16:06.47

Sam Shirazi

you know i anticipate the governor’s race is going to be called pretty quickly unless something crazy is going on. Somewhat similar story with lieutenant governor’s race, although I think it’ll be a little bit closer. Attorney general race is the one that’s like a big question mark. like Can we make a call quickly? do we have to wait? is it How close is it? Do we have to wait for late mail? Do we have to wait for provisionals?

16:25.75

Sam Shirazi

A lot of stuff that could be going on in the attorney general race. And then the House of Delegates is going to be super interesting because you know, 90 to 95% of the seats in the House of Delegates, we should be able to call very, very quickly.

16:38.14

Sam Shirazi

i think the last few seats are going to maybe take a while in the House of Delegates. And there’s been in the past recounts in 2017, there was a famous incident where there was actually a tie and the winner had to be picked out of a hat.

16:51.82

Sam Shirazi

So, I mean, these House Delegates seats, I mean, they’re not huge and can often come down to, you know, handfuls of votes, dozens of votes. So, It’s going to be interesting. It’s going to be interesting to see how it all shakes out. you know That’s kind of what election day and election night is going to look for look like.

17:09.62

Sam Shirazi

A lot of granular stuff that you probably don’t have to worry about unless you really want to. Obviously, most people are just going to be paying attention to the governor number. And how big of a margin does Van Berger get? I think after that, people are going to look at the attorney general race to see if either Meares or Jones get a clear victory on election night or if we have to wait until the final votes are counted.

17:31.11

Sam Shirazi

House of Delegates, I suspect... The chamber is going to be able to be called on election night, where Democrats are probably going to get a majority on election night. The question really becomes, you know in these seats, how many of them are closed? How many can we call on election night? How many do we have to wait for the late mail, the provisionals?

17:48.49

Sam Shirazi

lot of interesting stuff. I mean, I’m going to be trying to cover it all through mainly social media. I think... Obviously I will do podcasts, probably do one the day after kind of a short summary. I will not wrap up the podcast yet. I think I want to go through and kind of analyze what the results mean, but a lot of just, you know, interesting stuff that happens on election day. I wouldn’t kind of freak out too much about things you’re seeing. I think one the things that’s not fun about election day is there’s a lot of anxiety for both sides because they’re seeing different things and, you know, some of it’s misinformation and,

18:23.18

Sam Shirazi

A lot of just quick analysis without a lot of you know nuance. And you know to a certain extent, I try to zone that out because it’s just not super helpful. And frankly, my attitude has become increasingly over the years. If it’s one o’clock on election day, like you’re going to know by seven o’clock or 7.30 or eight like what the results are going to be. So it’s not really worth freaking out too much during election day about some of the stuff you’re seeing.

18:47.39

Sam Shirazi

I will be doing my best to cover it. I’m trying to share and as much as I can and hopefully people find it helpful. But yeah, yeah, we’re we’re here here. This is election day. It’s going to be exciting to see what happens. I appreciate everyone who’s been joining me on this.

19:03.58

Sam Shirazi

Wild Ride, which has been the Virginia elections in 2025. i will join you on the other side of the election once we have the final results. And obviously I will do all the coverage of that. But for now, 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