The Final Countdown: Polls, Early Votes, and Vibes

Hi everyone, I’m Sam Shirazi and this is Federal Fall Out the 2025 Virginia Elections. This is the final countdown to election day. Tomorrow is the election in the Commonwealth of Virginia. This is the final countdown. We will see what’s going on yeah as voters get ready to head to the polls. We already have a lot of early voting going on.00:21.07Sam ShiraziTomorrow will be the last round of voting and at seven o’clock when the polls close we will start to get results. I did want to do this episode to go over a few things. So the first thing I will go over are some of the final polls that we’ve gotten in Virginia.00:34.78Sam ShiraziNow, honestly, I’m not going to go through every single poll because there’s been a lot. I will focus on maybe two polls that came out at the end that I thought would deserve a little bit extra attention. And then i will go through the early voting numbers because early voting ended on Saturday. And now we have the almost complete picture about early voting. And then we can talk about what that might mean for the election.00:55.75Sam ShiraziAnd then finally, i will spend a few minutes on the vibes, which are essentially kind of the non-data feelings that people are having about the election. And just to get a sense of where we are, because obviously this is the end. We’re going to find out who’s going to win on Tuesday evening, but I know people are interested in getting my thoughts before the election is over and I may kind of tip my hand in some of these races. I will not be giving like individual predictions in the House of Delegates or anything like that, but I will kind of give you my sense of where things are.01:27.03Sam ShiraziAll right. So to begin, let’s go over the polls. And, you know, there’s been a few different types of polls released. I think generally all the polls are showing that the top of the ticket, Abigail Sperenberger is leading and that she is going to win by a healthy margin.01:43.54Sam ShiraziLieutenant Governor, there’s been, you know, polls that have come... and shown different things, but generally, Gazella Hashmi is leaving and leading in the lieutenant governor spot. I think attorney general is the big question mark. Most of the polls at the end have shown Niara’s ahead, but interestingly, there have also been some polls that have showed Jay Jones ahead, so I’ll talk about that.02:02.30Sam ShiraziAnd so, The polls, I think in some elections, they’re really interesting. This one, because all the polls have consistently, at least the nonpartisan polls have consistently shown Spanberger up by about 10%.02:14.14Sam ShiraziI think it’s not as interesting, but I will go over a couple of the final polls that have come in. And, you know, I’ll just say from the start about the governor’s race, I think, you know, most observers and frankly, a lot of Republicans behind the scenes will tell you that,02:28.79Sam Shiraziyou know it is going to be very difficult for Winston Earl Sears to win. i mean, I don’t want to say it’s impossible. you know i think yeah you never you never want to say never, but I think unless something really, really crazy happens, in all likelihood, Abigail Spanberger is going to win the governor’s election. I think that’s not a huge leap to say that.02:46.74Sam ShiraziI think the reality is The margin is what’s going to matter. Is she going to win by 10 or more? Is she going to win closer to seven? i mean, obviously, there’s a range. It depends on turnout. there’s a you know It’s not a done deal, the final margin. so we’re just going have to wait and see what happens.03:02.46Sam ShiraziI will give you kind of some poll numbers that have come in at the end. and And I wanted to highlight two extra polls. So obviously, on Saturday, I had Chaz Nandy come on. He went over the State Navigate poll.03:13.15Sam ShiraziI thought that was really helpful. you know That poll, frankly, was better for the Democrats than a lot of other polls that had come out. And I think you know as Chaz kind of explained what went into that. And I think there’s been these two polls at the end that kind of confirm what Chaz has been finding, because I think There’s these two pollsters that, you know, they both got a lot of attention for various reasons. And I’ll go through that the final two polls that I want a spotlight on this podcast. Obviously, want to give a shout out to for... chat chazz for03:43.67Sam ShiraziDoing the House of Delegates polls and also the statewide polls. And it was really interesting to get to hear from him about that. But without further ado, I will first go over Atlas Intel. And the reason that this poll was really anticipated was Atlas Intel, you know, their claim to fame in 2024, they were very accurate.04:01.47Sam ShiraziAnd, you know, they just were able to get the numbers right. And almost every single swing state, they saw that Trump was going to win. That’s what their numbers showed and they were right in 2024.04:12.13Sam ShiraziAnd in this year, for example, in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, they were pretty close to the final resort that result. Their final poll had the Democrat winning that race by 7%. The final margin was 10%.04:23.30Sam Shiraziso You know, again, they show pretty much what ended up happening, especially since most of the polls in that race were much closer. but So everyone was looking to see what would happen in the Atlas Intel poll.04:34.29Sam ShiraziIt was a little anticlimactic, to be honest, because it was basically what everyone thought it would be or is basically where the vibes were in Virginia. And we’ll talk about the vibes a little bit later. So quickly, I’ll go over the Atlas Intel poll.04:46.94Sam ShiraziFor Governor, it had Spanberger at 54% and it had Earl Sears at 45%. For Lieutenant Governor, it had Hashmi at 52% and it had Reed at 46%. And then for Attorney General, it had Meares 48% and jones at So governor number, Spanberger around 10%, which she usually gets in nonpartisan polls.05:08.78Sam ShiraziHash me, I think there’s less ticket splitting here. The 6% number, if Spanberger is winning by 9%, sounds about right. I think the AG race was interesting. You know, another close AG race. I think everyone expects their AG race to be close. So not a huge surprise there. It did show Miro is slightly up here.05:28.68Sam ShiraziSo before I move on to the next poll, I already talked about governor. Most people think Spanberger is going to win the governor’s race. I think for lieutenant governor, you know we can talk about the dynamics there.05:38.60Sam ShiraziSome of the polls have been pretty close where Hashmi is only up by like two or three. And a lot of people are like, oh why is the lieutenant governor a race so close? I think realistically, most of that is just name ID. People don’t really you know know the lieutenant governor candidates as well as they know the governor candidates.05:53.79Sam ShiraziI also think Spanberger, frankly, will be doing better at the top of the ticket. I do expect probably 2%, 3%, 4% max ticket splitting for lieutenant governor because I think Spanberger just appeals to certain voters that you know traditionally don’t vote Democratic, but they might vote for Spanberger.06:08.97Sam ShiraziSo Long story short, I think Hashmi definitely favored, especially if Spamburger is winning by around 10. I think you know it’s not a huge leap to say that unless something crazy happens, Ghazal Hashmi should win the Lieutenant Governor’s race.06:22.57Sam ShiraziAll right, I want to talk about one last poll before moving on. And that was the Emerson poll. So Emerson traditionally is not thought about as a super favorable pollster for Democrats. I think, you know, they’re nonpartisan.06:37.81Sam ShiraziMost of the time, they’re They’re pretty, you know, i don’t want to say favorable for the Republicans, but you don’t usually see these super great results for Democrats in Emerson polls. And the New Jersey poll this year was a good example. So Emerson came out with a poll in New Jersey and it found the Democrat, Mikey Sherrill, was only up, I think, one or two points in the New Jersey governor’s race.06:58.22Sam Shiraziwhich was kind of surprising. And that was a lot closer than other polls have found. And we’ll see if they’re right in in New Jersey. But I think it’s a good example just showing you why Emerson is not thought of as this, you know, super pro Democratic pollster.07:11.81Sam ShiraziI will go through their Virginia numbers, which I think was surprising and I think was a little bit of a reality check for the Republicans. so The Emerson poll for governor, it had Spanberger at 55% and Wintemarle Sears at 44%.07:25.95Sam ShiraziAnd then for attorney general, it had Jay Jones at 49% and it had Jason Meares at 47%. So the governor number in the Emerson poll, not super surprising. Again, in most nonpartisan polls, Smeanberger is around 10%. I think that wasn’t that big of a surprise. I think the big, bigger surprise in the Emerson poll was the attorney general number. So they found that Jay Jones was up 2%.07:47.37Sam ShiraziAnd as as I said, most other public polling, you know besides maybe the State Navigate, has found that Miara’s is ahead. And so when you’re thinking about Emerson not necessarily super favorable to Democrats, and then you’re seeing that Emerson is finding that Jay Jones is up 2%, you have to start thinking, okay, you know what are the odds that Jay Jones is able to win? And I think I have been flagging for a long time.08:12.50Sam ShiraziThis race is inherently unpredictable. I think there are a lot of different things you have to consider. You have to consider you know shy Jay Jones voters, people people not necessarily telling pollsters how they’re going vote. going to have to consider ticket splitting or lack thereof. You have to think about straight ticket voting. You have to think about undervoting.08:29.75Sam ShiraziThere’s just so many things that go into a race like this down ballot that I don’t think anyone confidently can say, I think you know this is definitely going to happen. Miara is going to win or Jones going to win. I just don’t think it’s one of those races you can really predict in that way.08:44.40Sam ShiraziAnd for that reason, I’m not necessarily going to make a prediction. in the attorney general race. I will say this, you know, without making a formal prediction, I think, you obviously jy Jones has been dealing with the tech story for a while and that has hurt and heard him certainly compared to where he would have been had that story not happened or had not come out.09:04.54Sam ShiraziI do think, and we’ll get we’ll get to this in the vibe section of the podcast and also a little bit in the early vote section. I think the last, the late momentum in the campaign usually is what with one party or another. And I think here, most observers see the momentum being with the Democrats. And again, you see it in this polling where most of the polls at the end, Spanberger’s doing well.09:25.26Sam Shiraziand And so there’s a sense that the Democrats have some momentum. And I think momentum can carry you a long way in a close race. And so I think that’s just something to consider as much as Meares has these advantages, the momentum and the kind of national state environment is more with the Democrats.09:42.01Sam ShiraziAnd I’ve said this from the beginning, this is going to be a test of is is it going to be individual candidate specific determination in this race or is it going to be kind of the overall environment? I think if if people are making the decisions based on the individual candidates,09:55.05Sam ShiraziMeares has a better chance chance of winning. I think if people are making the decision based on the environment or they’re making it based on Trump, I think Jay Jones has a better chance of winning. So I’m not going to make the final prediction in this race. I think it’s very unpredictable. I think it’s very hard to predict. But I do think, you know, this narrative that...10:12.10Sam Shirazioh, this story came out, so there’s no way Jay Jones can win. you know Jason Meares has this in the bag. I think this final polling from Emerson, from State Navigate, and even the Atlas Intel poll showed that it was not necessarily a slam dunk for Jason Meares. I think this is going to be a very close race.10:28.62Sam ShiraziI don’t know if it could be called on... Election night, as I said, there’s a lot of things you have to consider. And you know I will do a podcast tomorrow when to kind of explain how results are going to come in.10:41.32Sam ShiraziAnd I think there are a lot of different votes that could be coming in later that might help Jay Jones. So I don’t know if this is a type of race that might be called on election night. Maybe if it’s not as close as we think it is, it will get called.10:53.50Sam ShiraziSo Long story short, Attorney General Race is the one that I think is the hardest to really get read on. But do keep in mind, as I’m going through the early vote and also the vibes, that those are generally favoring the Democrats. And so that’s maybe something that Jay Jones has in his corner in the final leg of the campaign.11:13.66Sam ShiraziOkay, so those are all the polls. i don’t want to dwell on the polls because, again, don’t think they’re super interesting given that Spamberger’s ahead in most of them. And there’s a lot of bunch lot of polls, and I don’t want to go through every single poll. I kind of highlighted the ones that I thought were more important.11:26.53Sam ShiraziObviously, if you’re interested, it you can go look at all the polls. but But yeah, that’s kind of where we are with the polling. I will shift over to early voting because early voting... I think is super interesting in its own way, tells us things that polling can’t necessarily tell us, but also has its limitations.11:43.88Sam ShiraziAnd so I had flagged all the way at the beginning, I’m not going to go crazy with early voting analysis. I’m not going to predict who’s going to win based on early voting. But I wanted to kind of just give people an update of where things are.11:55.96Sam ShiraziSo with the early vote, Saturday was the last day of early voting. It was the biggest day of early voting by far. And it was the biggest day of early voting in a state election in Virginia history.12:06.48Sam ShiraziThere were over 116,000 votes cast in virginia And the total early vote currently is about 1.43 million. I think there’s going to be some mail that is still going to come in and that still has to be processed. So I think we’re going to end up close to 1.5 million total early votes.12:25.100Sam ShiraziThat’s a record for a state election. I think that’s a very strong early vote turnout. As I flagged in my early vote podcast, Northern Virginia really picked up at the end, and I knew it was going to pick up at the end because the satellite loading voting locations were opened at the end.12:41.77Sam ShiraziAnd also just generally, Northern Virginia is a type of place that shows up. It just shows up later in the cycle. So Northern Virginia had a really good turnout on that Saturday for the Democrats. I think they picked up a lot of votes at the end of early voting.12:55.60Sam Shiraziyou know The Republicans, I think, in certain parts of Virginia are doing okay with early voting. They’re certainly getting their core base supporters out in areas but such as the Richmond suburbs, the outer Richmond suburbs like Goochland and Hanover.13:08.55Sam ShiraziThose voters are coming out like they typically tend to come out. I think where the Republicans are struggling a little bit is in the more rural working class areas like Southwest Virginia. Turnout has not been great for the Republicans there.13:21.50Sam ShiraziGenerally, you know Democrats are doing okay in the suburbs, as I flagged. I had flagged at the very beginning that Democrats are going to struggle more in Hampton Roads with black voters. I think there is some evidence of that. Obviously, that could change with Election Day, those voters coming out on Election Day. There was a rally with President Obama in Norfolk that I’ll talk about a little bit.13:40.92Sam ShiraziThat obviously could motivate black voters to come out in Hampton Roads. So I think overall, like big picture, the early vote wasn’t super surprising, except that I think the Democrats at the end had a little bit of a surge that I think gave them more of an edge in the early vote.13:57.53Sam ShiraziAnd you know most neutral observers and also people on both sides or agree that the Democrats, particularly if you factor in the mail vote, are ahead. And the number that’s kind of floating out there that I think is pretty accurate is in terms of the early votes of these 1.5 million, Democrats have about a 60% to 40% advantage.14:17.22Sam ShiraziAnd so that means Democrats have roughly 900,000 early votes. The Republicans have about 600,000 early votes. Democrats have about a 300,000 early vote advantage.14:28.29Sam ShiraziThis is all just estimates because obviously there’s no way we know who these people are actually voting for. It could be Bigger Democratic lead. It could be a smaller Democratic lead. Virginia doesn’t have party registration. So these are just basically estimates based on people’s voting history and demographics and other factors.14:43.58Sam ShiraziBut it you know generally, it appears that Democrats right now have about a 60-40 advantage in the early vote. I think the question becomes... Who’s going to show up on election day and how many voters are going to show up There’s one universe where basically the early vote cannibalized election day vote. And so we’re going to get about the same amount of election day as we did in early votes. we get maybe 1.5 million election day votes for a total about 3 million total votes. I think that’s possible. I think it’s more likely that we’re going to get more election day votes. So personally, I think we’ll probably get around 2 million election day vote.15:17.06Sam Shiraziplus the 1.5 million early. So that means we’ll have 3.5 million early vote sorry total votes. you know And the question then becomes, okay, so you have these 3.5 million votes. you know what What is election day looking like?15:30.02Sam ShiraziTraditionally, Republicans tend to win election day. I still think probably they’re going to have an edge on election day, but... Frankly, because the Republicans have been pushing early votes so much, I just don’t know how much of advantage Republicans are going to have on Election Day. And frankly, i think both sides have kind of come to the conclusion that at least for the governor’s race, there’s really no way for the Republicans to make up the early vote lead the Democrats have on Election Day.15:54.28Sam ShiraziAttorney General, obviously different story. I’m not trying to pretend like Election Day doesn’t matter. It doesn’t. There’s a lot of things that are going to be decided on Election Day in the House of Delegates, and I haven’t really talked about the House of Delegates, but I think certainly In terms of overall votes, we’re going have a lot of turnout for a state election in Virginia.16:14.31Sam ShiraziEarly vote was pretty strong. I think Democrats had the edge. The question really just becomes like, who’s going to come out on election day? Are we going to have more of a blue surge? Because it seems like the blue areas are waking up at the end.16:27.16Sam ShiraziAs I said, Democrats have a little bit more enthusiasm at the end. Generally, if you’re winning, you’re doing well, you’re the polls are coming in and they’re looking good for you, you kind of have you Your supporters are more motivated to go vote. vote And I am curious to see what the rural turnout looks like for Republicans, the more white working class turnout for Republicans, because obviously if you’re if you’re not doing that well and the polls aren’t looking that good, maybe people aren’t going to be motivated to come out.16:53.06Sam ShiraziAnd yeah, I mean, election day is always this big wild card. And so I will add you know kind of one more prediction to the mix, and that’s House of Delegates. I think House Delegates, pretty clearly the Democrats are going to get a majority. I talked about that last weekend in my podcast.17:08.13Sam ShiraziI’m going to make a prediction how many seats the Democrats are going to pick up. I think so much of that depends on turnout, particularly with Black voters for Democrats in some of these districts that I just can’t predict the exact number the Democrats are going to pick up.17:19.43Sam ShiraziAgain, I will defer to Chaz Nuttikom on that, but I will you know go out on limb and say Democrats are going to retain their majority in the Virginia House of Delegates. I’m kind of kidding about that because obviously the Democrats are probably very heavily favored in the House of Delegates.17:35.28Sam ShiraziBut I don’t want to pretend like you know the exact dynamics on Election Day aren’t important. I think specific districts, Election Day turnout is going to be very important. Some of those races in the House Delegates going to be decided by you know a few hundred votes.17:48.36Sam ShiraziAnd you know who shows up is really going to decide those races. Same thing with the Attorney General, like, we just don’t know how close it’s going to be. And so, you know, even though the governor’s race is a little bit of an anticlimax, and we kind of have a sense of how that’s going to turn out.18:02.60Sam ShiraziI am curious to see what the turnout looks like on election day and If the Democrats are getting a surge of maybe younger voters and black voters, I think that’s going to be a good sign for Jay Jones.18:13.56Sam ShiraziWe’ll see if maybe the opposite happens and Miárez is able to bring out a bunch of rural voters. that That might help save him. And so we’re just going to have to wait and see. In terms of one last thing about early vote, you know I had flagged in the beginning, there’d be all this kind of speculation about the early vote and overanalyzing the early vote. It’s kind of interesting that that it happened at the beginning, but I think towards the end, it just became kind of obvious that the The traditional Democratic early vote advantage was going to be there again this year. And we didn’t really see this dynamic where the Republicans made these huge gains in early vote.18:47.05Sam ShiraziAnd for that reason, I mean, i think that’s one of the factors you have to consider that things are going the Democrats way. i mean, obviously, if the polls at the top of the ticket that are looking good for the Democrats, I think the early vote.18:57.70Sam ShiraziI don’t love you know doing this early vote analysis, but I think to the extent you’re trying to read the tea leaves, I think generally the early vote is looking pretty good for the Democrats. Not to say that Republicans can’t make up some of that on Election Day, so I don’t want to pretend like the early vote is going to tell us exactly who’s going to win, but I do think...19:15.23Sam ShiraziIf you’re trying to read some tea leaves in the early vote, generally it’s been better, I would say, for the Democrats than for the Republicans. Again, that’s traditionally the case in Virginia, so it’s not like a huge surprise. I just don’t think that the Republicans made any sort of huge breakthrough in the early vote this time.19:31.33Sam ShiraziAll right, and one last thing I want to talk about before we close out, and that is the vibes. And what what do I mean by the vibes? It’s kind of the intangibles. You can’t really see it in the polling data. You can’t really see it in the early vote data. It’s just kind of the gut feeling you have or it’s kind of you know it when you see it kind of thing. And the problem with this is it’s very speculative.19:55.21Sam ShiraziAnd obviously people’s guts can be wrong. And so I don’t want to necessarily go too crazy with the vibe analysis. But I do think it’s important because I think it shapes kind of the narrative.20:06.74Sam ShiraziAnd, yeah you know, I wanted to talk about a few things that I’ve seen in the closing days of the campaign. So on Saturday, there was a campaign in a campaign rally in Norfolk with former President Barack Obama.20:19.40Sam ShiraziIt seemed like that was pretty well attended. It seemed like that was you know he he was able to bring out decent amount a decent crowd, and they were pretty enthusiastic to see the former president. He gave his speech. I think one thing that was also note noteworthy at that event was that earlier, before Spanberger and Obama spoke, there were a decent amount of speakers. And one of them was Jay Jones, which normally is not a huge deal that the attorney general candidate speaks at a big campaign event.20:45.63Sam ShiraziI think this time it was seen as a bit of a message that the Democrats are sticking with Jay Jones. So I thought it was interesting that Jay Jones was able to speak at that event. He’s from Norfolk, so I think it makes sense that he was on stage in in in the sense of it’s his hometown and If he wasn’t on stage, then obviously the media would talk about Jay Jones not being there.21:04.63Sam ShiraziInstead, the media was talking about how Jay Jones was there. and And, you know, the Republicans used it to attack the Democrats, which you would expect them to do. But the reality is, i think at this stage, given what the governor’s race is looking like, the Democrats also understand that the attorney general race is the closest race and that, you know,21:21.63Sam ShiraziIf Jay Jones is going to win, he will need a good turnout. He’ll need turnout in Norfolk with black voters. So I think that was part of the reason President Obama was in Norfolk. And, you know, the you know it got a good amount of media coverage.21:34.36Sam ShiraziThe same day, there was another event. And, you know, Winsorne Sears, she’s been doing her events around the state as well. Obviously, when you have a foreign president come, it’s going to be a big event and it’s going to overshadow any other campaign event.21:47.93Sam ShiraziAnd, you know, I’m not trying to say that Winston Merle Sears isn’t running her campaign, but there was an event in Loudoun. And, you know, to be perfectly honest, it just was not a huge event. There weren’t that many people at it. Now you could say like, look, it was in the evening on a Saturday at a small college in Loudoun County.22:06.54Sam ShiraziI’m not trying to say that that means, you know, Winston Earl Sears campaign is definitely going to lose by a huge margin. But it was kind of a striking contrast where you had the Democrats in Norfolk with a lot of thousands of people.22:17.94Sam ShiraziAnd, you know, you had the Winston Earl Sears campaign in Loudoun with, you know, maybe max like a few hundred people. And, you know, just kind of gives you a sense of what it feels like. And and a lot of people have been posting how,22:30.52Sam ShiraziFor the Republicans, this feels so much different than 2021, where 2021, there was all this momentum, people were excited on the Republican side, and the Democrats were demoralized, and they weren’t really that excited about their ticket. And I think, you know, you could argue the roles have been reversed in 2025.22:46.27Sam ShiraziA lot of that, frankly, is just the environment. I mean, I think we’ve talked about this before. The party out of the White House almost always does well in the Virginia elections because people are upset about what’s going on in D.C. with the incumbent administration.22:59.84Sam ShiraziAnd so it’s just such a, you know, you could have flagged this weeks and months ago that this was likely going to be the vibes at the end of the campaign. And I don’t really think it’s necessarily Winston-Marcel Sears’ fault or the Republicans’ fault who are running this year in Virginia.23:16.12Sam ShiraziIt’s just the reality that it is very difficult to run when you are the party in the White House in Virginia. it’s just it’s And I don’t think this year is going to be the exception. I think this year, at least at the top of the ticket, the tradition will continue that the party that is out of the White House will win the Virginia governor’s election. And it’s just very difficult to overcome those types of vibes.23:39.22Sam ShiraziI did just want to talk about one thing that I did personally. So I live in Arlington, pretty close to the border border with Falls Church and Falls Church is not too far from me. And I saw that the Spanberger campaign was doing an event in Falls Church on Sunday evening.23:53.18Sam ShiraziSo I decided to go there and this was the first event I was credentialed as a member of the press for federal fallout. I wanted to just go see what it was like, what the energy was like, what the candidate had to say.24:04.100Sam ShiraziTo be perfectly honest, it was a smaller venue. So this is a state theater in Falls Church. There was a good crowd, probably, I had to guess, a few hundred people. i think they filled the theater because it’s not a big theater.24:19.80Sam ShiraziIt was pretty packed. I think the people there were enthusiastic. Makes sense. Falls Church, very blue part of Virginia. And so that was not super surprising to me. You had Senators Kane and Warner speak for Abigail Spanberger and then Spanberger was there.24:36.15Sam ShiraziI mean, to be perfectly honest, to just give you the mechanics of how a campaign works, like, given this was a smaller venue, I mean, I don’t think the real purpose of this was to have, you know, some sort of huge rally in Virginia and Northern Virginia to get all these people motivated.24:50.09Sam Shirazii think the reality is this was more for the local press coverage to just get some press on the 11 o’clock news in in the DC media market before the election. And to that extent, I think it was successful.25:02.93Sam ShiraziYou know, it it was interesting going there. i definitely feel like the Democrats were confident. They felt like they were going to win the election, least the governor’s level.25:12.75Sam ShiraziAnd I will play you a quick clip of the Democratic nominee, Abigail Spanberger, speaking in Falls Church at the State Theater.25:32.51Sam ShiraziAll right, so that was in Falls Church, and I will just plug Falls Church for anyone who has not been there. It is a small little city in Northern Virginia, but likes to keep kind of a small town vibe, even though it’s pretty suburban and surrounded by a lot of development.25:47.11Sam ShiraziBut it’s it’s a great little city, and and even though I live on the Arlington side, I often go to Falls Church. So just a plug for Falls Church which as as a nice little city in Northern Virginia if you’re ever in the area.25:58.79Sam ShiraziAnd, you know, you heard from Congresswoman Spanberger, former Congresswoman Spanberger. She is definitely, you know, talking about this election in Virginia in some in kind of a national context.26:10.46Sam ShiraziAnd, you know, the reality is. People are going to be looking at Virginia and New Jersey and New York and California to get a sense of what’s going on. But really, Virginia and New Jersey are going to be the big ones. you know Potentially, New Jersey might be the bigger story depending on the outcome. and It’s closer. It’s possible the Republicans could win the governor’s race in New Jersey, although I still think The Democrats have the advantage in the New Jersey the governor’s race.26:33.89Sam ShiraziI think the thing with Virginia, particularly at the governor’s level, is what is the margin going to be? And I think increasingly the Democrats are feeling more and more confident that it could be a bigger win than 2017. 2017, Northam won by And this time, I do think there’s a possibility that the Democrats could win by more than 9%.26:54.93Sam ShiraziI think particularly if there’s a Democratic sweep where Democrats win by 9%, more than 9% at the top of the ticket, they win the lieutenant governor’s race. Jay Jones pulls it out in the ut attorney general race. And then the House of Delegates, Democrats pick up a bunch of seats. I think their goal is to maybe get up to 60 seats.27:12.55Sam ShiraziWe’ll see if they do that. But even if they get close to 60 seats, I think that’s going to be a good night for them House of Delegates. So if there is this kind of Democratic blue wave sweep, a big one, I think that will potentially have some ramifications.27:25.60Sam ShiraziAnd I guess the last thing I should talk about In terms of federal fallout, I mean, honestly, there’s been so much going on, we haven’t even really had time to talk about it, is the shutdown. The shutdown is still going on.27:36.42Sam ShiraziBy all indications, it will still be going on election day. So this will be a historic Virginia election, where on election day, there will be a shutdown of the federal government. I know it doesn’t get that much attention in the national news, but it is, especially in Northern Virginia, still a big story. And I don’t think you can underestimate the impact of the shutdown, even if people don’t necessarily like make their choice for governor just purely based on the shutdown.28:01.47Sam ShiraziIt is definitely in the background of the Virginia elections, particularly in Northern Virginia. a lot of the economy is influenced by what’s going on in D.C. So even if there’s a shutdown, it’s going to impact the Virginia economy in the short term, even if it eventually gets resolved. And I do think there’s a universe where, let’s say the Democrats do well in Virginia, there is the possibility that after that, perhaps the Republicans will say, like, look, we got to change course a little bit.28:28.96Sam ShiraziMaybe we’ve got to figure out what to do with the shutdown. Maybe we need to figure out what to do with these Obamacare subsidies. It’s possible. It’s possible that could happen. I’m also realistic about the way things are going in D.C. And it’s also possible the Republicans just say, like, look,28:42.56Sam ShiraziWe don’t care, we don’t wanna give the Democrats a win. And maybe the Democrats will say like, we we we we stood up, we did we fought the good fight, but we can’t keep the government close forever. So we have to figure out a solution where the government is reopened.28:55.17Sam ShiraziAnd so long story short, I do think after the election, in sometime in November, there’s a decent chance the government shutdown ends. Obviously, the Virginia elections will be long gone by that point, but it’s interesting to think about how the shutdown has also kind of been an influence in the background in this election. And yeah, I haven’t really even had time to talk about it, but that is kind of a crazy thing to think about that the government shutdown has been going on so long and it will be still happening on Election Day when voters go in to cast the ballots at the polling locations.29:26.57Sam ShiraziAll right. Well, I appreciate everyone who’s listened to Federal Fallout this whole time. i don’t plan to end the podcast after the election, at least not in the short term. I will do a bunch of follow ups after the election to kind of analyze everything.29:37.98Sam ShiraziI will release one more podcast tomorrow morning, which will be more just kind of what to expect on Election Day and election night, not so much the analysis of who’s up, who’s down.29:48.81Sam ShiraziThat was more the point of this podcast. I’ve really enjoyed doing this. I appreciate everyone who’s given me good feedback. As you can tell, it’s a bit of a labor of love for me doing this podcast. I will you know give you kind of my final thoughts tomorrow in terms of what to look for.30:04.94Sam ShiraziElection night, you can obviously follow me and see what I’m doing online and on social media. And then I will continue to be doing the podcast to analyze the results, whatever they may be. And yeah, it’s This is it. This is the final countdown. We are here. The election is just a day away. And, you know, i appreciate everyone who’s been listening. If you haven’t voted, obviously, I’d encourage you to go vote. And yeah, that this has been Federal Fallout and I’ll join you 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