We’re at the point in the campaign when we start counting down days. After today, we have just two weekends of campaigning left. The polls are dropping almost as fast as the leaves and both candidates for governor, who until now have relied more on social media than actual events, have laid out extensive schedules through the last days of the campaigns. In these closing days, we’re going to see a more traditional campaign.
This seems a good time to offer a “state of the race” assessment. It breaks into two parts — what we know and what we don’t know. Spoiler alert: The latter is more interesting than the former. Here goes.
What we know
Since these are things we know, and in many cases have written about, I’m going to keep this part short.
Democrat Abigail Spanberger has consistently held a clear lead over Republican Earle-Sears in virtually all polls, although some polls — depending on their models — might show that lead tightening as Republican voters previously reluctant to back Earle-Sears are “coming home.” None of the polls suggest that the Jay Jones text message scandal is having any impact outside the attorney general’s race.
The polling in the lieutenant governor’s race has consistently shown Democrat Ghazala Hashmi leading Republican John Reid, although her margin has often been smaller and, in some cases, within the margin of error.
The one race in the most flux is the attorney general’s race. It was always assumed to be closer than the other three, simply because one of the candidates is the incumbent — Republican Jason Miyares. The recent revelations about Democrat Jay Jones — the sentencing deal he got for speeding 116 miles per hour, his text messages where he fantasized about shooting the then-Republican Speaker of the House — have dominated the political news for almost all of October. The Virginia Commonwealth University poll now shows Miyares ahead; State Navigate shows Jones in front — the difference is how they estimate what the electorate will look like. The Washington Post/Schar School had a new poll Thursday that showed Jones’ support has dropped, but it hasn’t gone to Miyares — it’s basically gone to some version of undecided or maybe not voting at all. The Post/Schar School says that has left the race tied. Big picture: The AG’s race definitely seems up for grabs.
Spanberger has a lot more money than Earle-Sears — 3.2 times as much more, at the end of September. Spanberger has also run a disciplined campaign that has focused, laser-like, on the vague topic of “affordability,” which matches what polls show is voters’ top concern. Earle-Sears has never stuck with a single theme, starting with right-to-work, eventually moving on to transgender issues and more recently hitting Spanberger for not calling on Jones to drop out.
All that is stuff we already know and, as the great political analyst William Shakespeare once wrote, “what’s past is prologue.” Now let’s get to the good parts.
What we don’t know
1. How will this new investigation into Jones’ sentencing deal play out?
In case you missed the news, a special prosecutor has been named to look into Jones’ speeding case — presumably his unusual sentencing where he was given 1,000 hours of community service but performed half of it for his own political action committee and the other half for the NAACP, which overlapped with when Jones was helping the NAACP sue Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
Cardinal’s Elizabeth Beyer examined New Kent County court records and found that seven other people were in court for speeding the same day Jones was — four of them had their licenses suspended and were given jail time, which was suspended, even though they were clocked going slower than Jones.
This was during the pandemic and judges were reluctant to send people to jail unless they really had to. Jones’ attorney negotiated a deal with the prosecutor for him to perform 1,000 of community service in lieu of jail time. This is an extraordinary amount of community service: At 8 hours a day, five days a week, that’s 25 weeks of community service — almost half a year.
Jones’ paperwork shows he performed half of that for his own political action committee. If the purpose of community service is to be some sort of punishment, this doesn’t seem like punishment — Jones was essentially sentenced to help his own political ambitions. That’s definitely a sweet deal; it’s unclear whether the court knew what “Meet Our Moment” — the name of Jones’ PAC — was. Did the court realize he was working for himself?
The other 12.5 weeks of community service was for the NAACP. During that time, Jones was one of the lawyers assisting the NAACP during its suit against the governor to seek access to a database of voters related to the restoration of civil rights to felons. Maybe it’s appropriate for a lawyer who is sentenced to community service to use his talents to help a group that needs legal help. On the other hand, this doesn’t sound like much punishment, not when other people performing community service are picking up trash.
The implication in all this is that Jones — the son of two judges and, at the time, a former state legislator — got a sentence that wouldn’t have been available to other defendants. It may look harsh on paper, but was it really? If I get popped for doing 116 mph on I-81, could I get sentenced to write columns for Cardinal for half a year, something I would be doing anyway?
A formal inquiry to document what Jones did — and what the court knew — seems appropriate to me. It also seems appropriate to appoint a special prosecutor, since part of the question here is how much, if anything, the New Kent County commonwealth’s attorney knew.
Unfortunately, the special prosecutor who was initially named was a Republican. Jones’ deal looks bad, but so does having the whole thing investigated by a Republican. Much of this case is about appearances — the appearance of favoritism — but the appearance of having a Republican leading the inquiry in the waning days of a campaign is not exactly a good one, either. Then late Thursday, WWBT-TV in Richmond reported that the Republican special prosecutor (Nathan Green of Williamsburg-James City County) had stepped aside, citing an unspecified conflict. There are many commonwealth’s attorneys who are elected as independents (such as the one in New Kent). Perhaps now the court can name of them to lead the probe.
In terms of how all this plays out in the campaign, whose side is the calendar on? Can this investigation really get done before Nov. 4? Who is helped most by it not being done? Does that give Jones a free pass because there’s no resolution, allowing him to say this is just a political stunt, even if it’s not? Or does it help Miyares, because he now has a new talking point: “It is not possible for Jay Jones to fulfill the duties of his office while under an open criminal investigation.”
2. How much will the Jones scandal matter?
This has consumed those of us who follow politics but, strange as it may seem, there are many people who don’t pay much attention to politics — yet vote anyway. Think of it as my grocery shopping habits: I don’t pay attention to the ads, but at some point I get hungry so I go to the store and grab a can of beans based on whatever mood I’m in that day. Those negative ads about the Jolly Green Giant? Never saw ’em. That scandal he was in? Never heard about it. But that can is five cents cheaper, so I’m stocking up. Likewise, I know people who don’t follow politics. I’ve been quizzing them about the attorney general’s race —all intend to vote, none could even name who Jones was and hadn’t heard anything text messages or speeding or anything else.
We have lots of voters who are such hardened partisans that no information, no matter how bad, will change their votes. And then we have lots of low-information voters who are blissfully unaware of any of these controversies. If their first introduction is in the form of a negative TV ad, how much of that are they going to believe and how much of that will just be background noise they ignore anyway?
3. Will we see the Democrats campaign together?
Before Jones’ text messages broke, this would have been an absurd question: Of course the Democrats would campaign together. Now, we’re not so sure. Spanberger may not want to invite further criticism for not calling on Jones to drop out. On the other hand, both Spanberger and Jones may need each other. If Spanberger is headed to victory, then Jones needs her voters. Meanwhile, Spanberger has long been thought to be potentially weak with Black voters. It may not help her to distance herself too much from the only Black candidate on the Democratic ticket. That brings us to this:
4. How enthusiastic are certain Democratic constituencies?
No matter what Republicans say, Spanberger is, by Democratic standards, something of a centrist. Her campaign has been designed to appeal to middle-of-the-road voters. The trade-off there is she may not be exciting some Democratic constituencies in a way that a more fire-breathing “progressive” might. She also began the campaign with some tension with key Black legislators — most notably Senate Finance Chair Louise Lucas of Portsmouth, who flirted with trying to lure Rep. Bobby Scott into the race. In the close of the campaign, we’re seeing the Spanberger campaign bring in some big-name surrogates. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was in Charlottesville. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is going to Hampton Roads this weekend. Former President Barack Obama is headed to Norfolk on Nov. 1.
Are these just normal visits, or do they suggest some weakness with turnout among young voters and Black voters? Buttigieg and Shapiro certainly benefit because they’re likely exploring presidential bids so this is what potential candidates do, but what could be notable are the venues. Those visitors could go anywhere; are they going to Charlottesville and Hampton Roads because the Spanberger campaign sees some softness there? The Obama visit will be noteworthy for another reason: He’ll be in Jones’ hometown, so one big question will be whether Jones is there and what, if anything, Obama says about him.
5. Early voting is up but why? And who does that benefit?
We really only know one thing for certain: Early voting this year is up 51.1% from where it was this time four years ago.
We don’t know yet whether this signifies a genuine increase in turnout, or whether more people who previously voted on Election Day are now voting early. Both are possible. That means we don’t know yet what percentage of the final electorate has already cast ballots. However, at this point in the 2021 campaign, 15.9% of those who eventually voted had already done so. If that percentage holds, that means about 84% of the vote have yet to be cast. We still have a long way yet to go.
We also don’t know who this increased early voting benefits. Virginia doesn’t register voters by party, so we all have to guess at who voters are. Sometimes that’s easy — the early voters in Buchanan County, an 80%-plus Republican county, are probably Republican. The early voters in Petersburg, an 80%-plus Democratic city, are probably Democrat. But what about a swing locality such as Chesapeake or Montgomery County? We really don’t know.
An analysis by the marketing firm L2 Data says early voters so far appear to be 56.6% Democratic, 38.6% Republican with 4.7% eluding analysis.
That’s in line with last year’s presidential election in Virginia, where 56.8% of early voters went for Kamala Harris and 41.7% went for Donald Trump. The final results saw Harris carry Virginia with 51.83% for Harris, 46.05% for Trump, with the rest going to third party candidates (which we don’t have on this year’s ballot).
6. What impact will the federal shutdown have?
I can’t imagine this would help Republicans, but the question is whether it will help Democrats as much as they think it will?
7. What impact will a special session on redistricting have?
This is the latest wild card: Virginia Democrats, who control both chambers of the General Assembly, have called a snap special session for next week. Among the issues they want to take up a week before the election is the potentially explosive of redistricting. This is driven by the mid-census redistricting spree that Texas set off. The goal here appears to be to get Virginia to pass a constitutional amendment to repeal the 2020 constitutional amendment that took the power of redistricting away from the General Assembly and gave it to a bipartisan commission. Now, as Republican legislatures elsewhere set about redrawing their maps to create more Republican seats, Democrats are looking to do the same — and that search now comes to Virginia.
Virginia’s constitutional amendment requires a multi-year process — but the special session makes that possible. This special session could pass a repeal amendment, then it could pass again in the new session in January, then go to voters perhaps as soon as April, according to an estimate from the Virginia Scope.
Many Democratic partisans seem to think this is a grand idea — we’ll show Trump! — but I have to wonder if a platform of “make gerrymandering great again” is really helpful with ordinary voters. Is this an issue that Republican House candidates can use in final days? “Vote for me to stop gerrymandering!” This seems a real gamble to me. Voters hate the idea of gerrymandering, no matter which way it goes.
8. What else will happen?
Two of these items — the special prosecutor in the Jones case, the special session — have popped up just in the past day or so. We have no idea what else might happen, in Virginia or in the world. Let’s go back to one of the early voting figures I cited above: At this point four years ago, only 15.9% of total ballots had been cast. Maybe that will be higher this year; we don’t know yet. The point is, even with a higher rate of early voting, most votes have yet to be cast — so these final days may well be decisive for some of those voters.
For those who haven’t made up your minds yet, here’s my chance to chat up our Voter Guide: All six statewide candidates, along with many House and local candidates, have answered our issues questionnaire. And if you want even more political news, sign up for West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter.
