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