Episode 38: Digging Into Virginia Election Data

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.00:18.08Sam ShiraziSo 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.00:35.08Sam ShiraziNow, 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.00:47.53Sam ShiraziSo 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.01:01.17Sam ShiraziThere 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.01:24.57Sam ShiraziI 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%.01:35.97Sam ShiraziSo 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.01:48.95Sam ShiraziAnd 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.02:03.18Sam ShiraziTypically, 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.02:15.65Sam ShiraziAnd 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.02:35.19Sam ShiraziAnd 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.02:48.60Sam ShiraziAnd 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...03:03.98Sam Shiraziyeah 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.03:15.17Sam ShiraziI 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%.03:29.76Sam ShiraziAnd 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.03:42.21Sam ShiraziHowever, 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...03:55.14Sam Shirazithe margin by which Harris only barely won provisional ballots. So in 2024, Harris only won Virginia provisional ballots by 52.6% of the vote.04:06.97Sam Shiraziso 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.04:23.57Sam ShiraziAnd 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.04:42.56Sam ShiraziAnd 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.04:55.77Sam ShiraziPrince 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.05:16.59Sam ShiraziAnd 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.05:33.42Sam ShiraziThose 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.05:53.65Sam ShiraziAnd 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.06:07.24Sam ShiraziAnd 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,06:27.81Sam Shirazijust 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.06:39.71Sam ShiraziI 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.07:00.62Sam ShiraziAnd, 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.07:14.92Sam ShiraziIt’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.07:36.14Sam ShiraziAnd, 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.07:54.57Sam Shiraziand 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.08:07.72Sam ShiraziI think at least in this election, it’s very clear that Hispanic voters pretty much reverted to their pre 2024 voting patterns.08:15.85Sam ShiraziAnd 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,08:36.14Sam ShiraziKind 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.08:55.51Sam ShiraziSo 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.09:10.45Sam ShiraziSo 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...09:22.57Sam Shirazimoving 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.09:41.95Sam ShiraziI 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 2016,09:57.65Sam Shiraziand 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.10:11.06Sam ShiraziSome 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.10:23.48Sam ShiraziI 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.10:38.75Sam ShiraziAnd 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.10:51.45Sam ShiraziAnd 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.11:02.83Sam ShiraziPart 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?11:26.31Sam ShiraziAnd 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.11:48.83Sam ShiraziNow, 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?12:13.94Sam ShiraziI 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.12:31.30Sam ShiraziI 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.12:42.54Sam ShiraziAnd 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?13:00.16Sam ShiraziAnd 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.13:14.10Sam ShiraziOkay, 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.13:28.04Sam ShiraziBoth 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...13:37.92Sam Shirazimove 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.14:01.64Sam ShiraziHowever, 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.14:28.18Sam ShiraziOkay, 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.14:49.66Sam ShiraziIt 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.15:04.60Sam ShiraziWhy? 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.15:21.50Sam ShiraziWe 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 2025.15:43.34Sam ShiraziAll 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.15:56.93Sam ShiraziI 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.16:09.78Sam ShiraziSo, 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.16:21.18Sam ShiraziOkay, 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.16:34.36Sam ShiraziBut 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.16:59.50Sam ShiraziSo 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,17:18.26Sam ShiraziI 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.17:29.42Sam Shirazii think, again, this election, a lot of... I think interesting is places like the Richmond suburbs...17:43.13Sam Shirazicertainly 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.18:10.39Sam ShiraziSo 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,18:27.60Sam Shiraziare 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.18:41.93Sam ShiraziSo 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...19:04.40Sam Shiraziappeal 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.19:36.22Sam Shirazilet 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.19:52.27Sam ShiraziBut 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.20:03.04Sam ShiraziAnd 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.20:16.98Sam ShiraziAnd 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...20:36.14Sam Shiraziand 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.20:47.63Sam ShiraziBut 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.21:09.23Sam ShiraziAnd 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.21:23.43Sam Shirazii 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.21:35.41Sam ShiraziI 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.21:44.08Sam Shirazithose 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.21:54.70Sam ShiraziNow, 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.22:11.01Sam Shiraziiowa 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.22:57.66Sam ShiraziYeah.22:59.83Sam ShiraziI’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.23:13.67Sam ShiraziIowa 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.23:28.22Sam ShiraziQuickly 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,23:39.38Sam Shirazithere 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,24:06.80Sam ShiraziSo 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.24:36.44Sam ShiraziThey’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.24:47.26Sam ShiraziThey 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.25:17.16Sam ShiraziAnd 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.25:30.02Sam ShiraziThe 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.25:46.64Sam Shirazithere 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.26:05.51Sam ShiraziAnd, 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.26:30.37Sam ShiraziGoing 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