Early voting starts today; here are 6 things shaping the election

Of all the political books I’ve ever read, the best might be Theodore White’s “The Making of the President 1960.” It starts off with a description of what was happening on Election Day 1960. With the voting patterns of that era, Republicans likely led the election throughout the day as white-collar voters went to the polls. If the Democrats — and John Kennedy — were going to win, it would be in the last hours and last minutes of the day as factory workers got off their jobs and went to the polls. White laid out all those dynamics in a much more dramatic way than I just did.

Virginians begin voting today in this year’s elections, and, given the voting patterns of our time, Democrats will likely lead unless Republicans are able to make a big turnout on what we used to call “Election Day” but now is more like the final day of voting — this year, Nov. 4.

The start of early voting today marks the official launch of a historic election. Virginians have been proclaiming a “new dominion” in the Old Dominion for a long time now. Virginius Dabney wrote a famous history of Virginia by that name more than a half-century ago. Gerald Baliles ran for governor (and won) on that theme 40 years ago. This year, it becomes demographically true in our election choices: There are no straight, white, non-Hispanic men on the statewide ballot. No matter who wins, Virginians will elect their first female governor. In the lieutenant governor’s race, we’ll elect either our first Indian-born and first Muslim statewide officeholder (Ghazala Hashmi) or our first openly gay statewide officeholder (John Reid). In the third spot, we’ll either reelect our first Hispanic attorney general (Jason Miyares’ mother was Cuban) or elect our first Black attorney general (Jay Jones).

As the first votes get cast today, here’s the state of the race — and some of the things we need to look for as the campaign continues to unfold.

This is a (mostly) issueless campaign

The next governor, whoever she is, will face some challenging times. An economic forecast from the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service warns that the state will lose jobs this year and see virtually no job growth next year and very little the year after that — a consequence of federal job cuts and the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. If that’s so, our next governor will spend half her term dealing with a bleak economy. New census data also shows that the number of young adults moving to the state’s two biggest metro areas (Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads) has dramatically slowed, raising questions about what kind of future labor pool they will have to power their economies. The next governor will also have to deal with a rising demand for energy in a state that already imports more electricity than any other state, but one where many localities have become resistant to approving energy projects.

You wouldn’t know any of that from listening to the campaigns, though. Republican Winsome Earle-Sears has focused most recently on transgender issues, while Democrat Abigail Spanberger has pushed the issue of “affordability.” Compared to candidates in previous years, neither Earle-Sears nor Spanberger has been very specific about what they’ll do in office. Earle-Sears doesn’t even have an “issues” page on her website. Once, it was the tradition for candidates to visit the state’s top newspapers to talk issues in detail. In an attempt to replicate that in the digital era, Cardinal News invited both candidates to meet separately, and virtually, with our staff. Both campaigns said that couldn’t be scheduled, but they agreed to take questions in writing. We’ve sent 25 issue-related questions to both campaigns and now await their answers. In the meantime, you can see how they’ve previously addressed 10 fairly broad questions in our Voter Guide, as well as separate interviews with Earle-Sears and Spanberger on energy and economic development.

Here are the challenges each candidate faces

Spanberger is in the most enviable position. She’s got far more money than Earle-Sears, what seems to be a favorable political environment and a consistent lead in the public polls. She’s like a sports team that’s ahead and just wants to run out the clock — but can’t yet start taking the snap and kneeling. She’s got to play out the game. Her challenge is simply not to make a mistake. Democrats in general need to guard against overconfidence. Leading in the polls doesn’t mean a thing if supporters don’t actually cast those votes.

Earle-Sears is in the most difficult position. She’s got a lot less money and what seems an unfavorable climate for a Republican. Both the recent polls from Virginia Commonwealth University and Christopher Newport University found her particularly weak with independents, but very little of her campaign so far seems designed to reach out to those voters. 

In the lieutenant governor’s race, it’s the Democratic candidate (Hashmi) who polls show as weak with independents. Reid has been trying to paint her as too far left for Virginia, but he’s got less money than some House of Delegates candidates. (He’s got $316,991 cash on hand; both candidates in the Jessica Anderson-Amanda Batten House race in the Williamsburg area have more. So do Republican incumbents Carrie Coyner and David Owens, who both have competitive races in the Richmond suburbs. Ditto some other House incumbents in secure districts.) Hashmi needs to reassure those independents and hope for a Democratic tide; Reid needs more money to get his message out.

In the attorney general’s race, it’s Republican incumbent Miyares with the most money. As the last name on the Republican statewide ticket, he just needs to hope there’s not a Democratic tide that swamps everything in sight. If there is, it doesn’t matter how strong his argument for reelection as a fentanyl-fighter is. For Jones, the Democratic challenger, he’s got to hope that Miyares’ attacks on “Jay Jones, soft on crime” don’t take hold — and that money continues to roll into his campaign from people who’d like to see Virginia’s attorney general going after the Trump administration. 

Trump looms large

Democrats have framed a lot of their campaigns around their opposition to Trump, and no wonder; the Christopher Newport University poll that came out Thursday found that 58% of Virginians disapprove of Trump’s handling of the presidency. Trump is certainly a powerful motivator for many Democratic voters and not just Democrats; the CNU poll found that 67% of independents in Virginia don’t like Trump, either. (See my separate analysis of that poll.)

Trump’s first term led to big Democratic gains in the General Assembly, big enough for the party to take control. Once Trump left office, Republicans swept the statewide races in 2021 and took back the House of Delegates (only to lose it again in the 2023 elections). Virginians have a history of voting against the party in the White House. If that tradition holds, this will be a Democratic year — and the question is simply how big the Democratic wins will be.

Earle-Sears has not been helped by her response to federal job cutbacks, saying, “It’s not a huge, huge thing.” This week, she’s campaigning with Vivek Ramaswamy, who, with Elon Musk, ran the Department of Government Efficiency that instituted those cuts. Democrats have jumped on that appearance, set for today in Chesterfield County. The risk for Earle-Sears is that her comments and her choice of celebrity appearances rile up potential Democratic voters in Northern Virginia more than they will inspire Republican voters. 

Outside events roil the campaign 

Candidates can control what they do, and they can predict what the other side will do. The wild card is always what else happens in the world that changes the dynamics of the campaign.

Republicans got a boost when five school boards in Northern Virginia found themselves in conflict with the Trump administration over transgender policies — which created a backdrop for Earle-Sears to start focusing on those issues. Republicans got an even bigger boost from the woman who showed up at an Arlington County School Board meeting to protest the Trump administration policies — and brought a sign that proclaimed “Hey Winsome, if trans can’t share your bathroom, then Blacks can’t share my water fountain.” That sign is now featured in one of Earle-Sears’ ads and has become one of her talking points; I’m wondering how that sign-holder feels now about supplying Republicans with campaign material?

The assassination of Charlie Kirk may also enrage some conservatives into action. Most years, not even half the registered voters in Virginia cast ballots in a governor’s race, so much of the campaign is simply a turnout exercise. Will Kirk’s killing pump up the Republican turnout?

On the other hand, other events play into Democratic hands. The most recent is the decision by the Augusta Medical Group to shutter three clinics — in Buena Vista, Churchville and Weyers Cave — and cite the One Big Beautiful Bill as part of the reason. Augusta’s chief medical officer told the News-Gazette in Lexington: “Augusta Medical Group was already considering whether to consolidate our primary care and urgent care network in rural areas of the valley, but the OBBBA and its cuts to Medicaid and reimbursement to health care providers made our decision very clear,” she said. “Augusta Health is facing an estimated $40 million loss in operating revenue when the law is fully implemented in 2027, and we must prepare for that impact so we can sustain our mission to serve the community.” 

Democrats have been warning that the bill will hurt rural health care, but it’s hard to get people’s attention about something that might happen. Here’s something that has happened, and that Democrats can use to validate their opposition to the measure. 

Lost in the commotion: The News-Gazette reported that no medical personnel are losing jobs, they’ve simply been moved to a different office. So the real impact seems to be that patients will have to travel further for care.

Still to come: A possible federal government shutdown. Each party will blame the other if that happens, but voters may simply blame the party in power, which right now is the Republican Party. 

We won’t see many debates

We’ll have just one apiece in the governor’s race (Oct. 9) and the attorney general’s race (Oct. 16). None are scheduled in the lieutenant governor’s race, and it seems unlikely there will be, much to the annoyance of Reid, who keeps pushing for one. Hashmi recently told WTKR-TV in Norfolk she has no interest in debating Reid: “It’s much more valuable and productive to me to hear directly from our voters to understand the issues and then be able to address the concerns and then start formulating policy responses. That’s a better use of my time.”

Debates are a strategic decision for campaigns. The candidates who feel they’re behind want one; the candidates who are ahead don’t, and agree only reluctantly out of a sense of duty. 

If no more debates are scheduled — and I’d rate the odds almost nonexistent — that means we’ll break a three-campaign tradition of the gubernatorial candidates debating in Southwest Virginia. This year, the Appalachian School of Law (which sponsored a 2021 debate) joined with Cardinal News and PBS Appalachia to propose a debate from the new PBS Appalachia studio in Bristol. Neither campaign accepted the offer. Why does it matter where a debate is? If this debate had happened, we’d have used it to focus on regional issues that likely won’t come up in that Oct. 9 debate at Norfolk State University. 

By the way, our debate offer still stands.

Republicans need a big turnout in rural Virginia 

Turnout is never even. It’s as lumpy as those mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving the year that Uncle Joe paid more attention to the football game on the TV than he did to his cooking assignment. Four years ago, 54.9% of those registered to vote cast ballots in the governor’s race — and that was the only time since voter registration laws changed in the late 1990s that the figure was above 50%. 

It wasn’t 54.9% everywhere, though. It ranged from 38% in Petersburg to 71% in Goochland County. More importantly, the biggest changes from 2017 came in Republican-voting rural areas, where turnout surged. In Powhatan County, it jumped from 55% to 70%; in Russell County, from 37% to 52%. That’s how the Republican ticket eked out a narrow sweep — and it’s what they need to do again this year. That’s why Miyares has made an appearance somewhere in the Roanoke media market for four weeks in a row now. 

Republicans, in general, aren’t keen on early voting, but they’d be better off if they embraced it, because that seems the best way to gin up more turnout in rural areas. Even with higher turnout, most counties in Southwest Virginia were still below the state average four years ago. If Republicans could get rural voters in Southwest Virginia to vote at just an average level instead of a below-average one, we wouldn’t be writing about how early voting begins with Spanberger as the favorite.