5 things to know about the surprisingly competitive 5th District congressional race

We are now two weeks out from Election Day.

Based on historical trends, about 22% of the votes have already been cast. Even if this year turns out to be different, we have enough early votes cast that we can see some shapes emerging.

I am hesitant to make predictions, but I do feel confident in saying that the most fascinating congressional race in Virginia is in the 5^th District, where Democrat Tom Perriello is waging a spirited and well-funded challenge against Republican John McGuire.

Here’s my basis for saying that: We’ve always known that the 2^nd District in Hampton Roads (Democrat Elaine Luria vs. Republican incumbent Jen Kiggans) would be close; that’s a perpetually close district. We’ve also always known that the 1^st District (Democrat Shannon Taylor vs. Republican incumbent Rob Wittman) would be sharply contested — Democrat Abigail Spanberger won that district in last year’s governor’s race and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee long ago made it clear this would be a targeted race.

The 5^th always seemed to be just out of reach of Democrats — close enough to be tempting but still a steep climb. Perriello — and the overall political environment — have changed that. He’s got more money than McGuire — a lot more. The latest campaign finance reports show Perriello with a 2-1 edge in cash on hand. Other Democrats have outraised their Republican incumbents, but Perriello is the only Democratic challenger to enter the final month with more money available to spend.

More importantly, though, the early voting trends are exactly what Perriello would need to pull off an upset: the early vote up from last year in Democratic areas and down in some key Republican ones. That may still not be enough to tip the district to Perriello, but it’s what he’d need to do if he were going to win. The only public poll from a neutral source — The Washington Post/Schar School — shows a close race with McGuire slightly ahead.

Democratic groups have directed some money Perriello’s way, although not to the extent it’s flowing to the 1^st and the 2^nd, which suggests they see an opportunity but aren’t fully convinced yet. (The House Majority PAC, a key Democratic political action committee, currently has ads running in the 1^st and 2^nd districts but not the 5th.)

The key philosopher to cite in an instance such as this is the late Donald Rumsfeld: “There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.” We often overlook the rest of his quote, which is the most important. Of those “unknown unknowns” he said: “It is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.”

We have no way to know those “unknown unknowns” in the 5^th District race, but we know what we know (the early voting trends and campaign finance), and we also know there are some things we don’t know (what the Election Day turnout will be and what else might happen until then). With those in mind, here are five things that we know will influence the outcome, one way or another.

1. Can Democrats maintain (or even expand) these early voting trends?

We begin with basic math. We’ve had two congressional elections with the 5^th District in its current configuration. Republican Bob Good won with 57.6% in 2022, and McGuire (who ousted Good in a primary) won with 57.3% in 2024. That’s pretty darn consistent. In last year’s governor’s race, Republican Winsome Earle-Sears, who posted a weak performance statewide, won the 5^th with 53.7% of the vote.

Now we go on to history and more math: Early voting always trends Democratic because Democrats like early voting; Republicans just aren’t as enthusiastic about this innovation. State Navigate computes that last year Democrats won the early voting in the 5^th by 3.1 percentage points — then saw that margin erased by the day-of voting.

This year, the State Navigate political forecasting site says the early voting in the 5th is running bluer than last year, and Democrats are on track to win the early voting in the district by a margin of 8.1 percentage points.

What’s more important, though, is that there is 7.0% more early voting than last year this time — so the early vote is both bigger and more Democratic than before. (The only congressional district this year with more early voting is in that 1^st District race between Taylor and Wittman.) These early-voting numbers are the best ones out there for Perriello right now and the worst for McGuire. There are several things we don’t know, though, one of which is: Can Perriello keep this up?

When we look more closely, here’s what we see: Through Sunday, the early voting in Charlottesville is up 41.1% over last time this year; in Albemarle County, it’s up 24.6%, in Danville, it’s up 24.4%. All those are solid blue localities. The early vote is also up in swing areas that Democrats need to win if they’re going to carry the district: up 25.9% in Nelson County, up 7.3% in Prince Edward County. The challenge for Perriello is that the Democratic opportunities run thin in the rest of the district.

However, the problem for McGuire is that the early vote for Republicans is down in many places. Within the past week, we’ve seen early voting tick up in some Republican counties (such as Campbell County and Pittsylvania County). However, in McGuire’s home county of Goochland, it’s still down by 7.9%. Next door in Powhatan County, it’s down by 11.8%. We’ve seen polling in the 2^nd District that shows Republican voters are lethargic; that certainly seems to be the case in the 5^th, as well. Perriello certainly seems on track to expand the traditional Democratic advantage in early voting, but will it be enough? That depends on several things, including …

2. How big will the Election Day turnout be?

This is definitely one of those “known unknowns.” We simply have no way to know. Maybe these early voting trends mean nothing: Maybe Democrats have simply cannibalized their day-of vote. Maybe Republicans are holding back and will turn out in force on Nov. 3. On the other hand, maybe Democrats will turn out a lot of student voters on Election Day — Virginia allows same-day voter registration, and the 5^th has a lot of colleges. And maybe Republicans won’t be any more excited than they are now. We simply don’t know. We just know there will be some voters on Nov. 3, so the early vote doesn’t tell the whole story.

3. How much will local elections drive turnout in some places and who will benefit?

Just because I’m focused on the congressional race doesn’t mean voters will be. First of all, not everyone votes. Right now, early voting suggests we’re on pace to have slightly more turnout than we did last year, when 54.3% of registered voters across the state cast ballots. Turnout is never even, though. It’s always “lumpy,” higher in some places and lower in others. This year there are some local races that might drive turnout in some communities, and that might help one side or another.

Amherst County has a referendum on off-track betting, aka a Rosie’s Gaming Emporium. Five years ago, Amherst voted this down. If there’s a big “no” turnout on off-track betting in Amherst, that would drive up turnout in a locality where McGuire won 67.5% of the vote last time. A big “no” vote on Rosie’s is likely a big vote for McGuire, too. All we know so far is that the early vote in Amherst County is up 18.8% over last year this time; that’s a trend that runs counter to other Republican counties in the district, where early voting tends to be down. If this vote surge in Amherst continues, it will benefit somebody in the congressional race; we just don’t know who yet.

Lynchburg, the district’s second-most populous locality and home to nearly 1 of 10 voters, has a wild nine-way race for three city council seats. Lynchburg trends Republican but every now and then goes Democratic. Perriello held an event last week in Lynchburg to boost the Democratic ticket for the city council and was back in Lynchburg on Sunday for the first day of Sunday early voting. Party loyalty aside, Perriello surely knows that a big Democratic vote for the council in Lynchburg likely means a big vote for him, too. So far, early voting in Lynchburg is up 22.8% over last year. As with Amherst, that will benefit somebody; we just don’t know who.

Another thing to look at in Lynchburg: How many Liberty University students will vote? In most places, same-day registration by college students benefits Democrats. In Lynchburg, particularly in the Third Ward, Second Precinct, it works the other way. On Election Day, we’ll be looking to see how heavy (or not) the voting here is.

Eight localities in the district are holding referendums on whether to enact a 1% local sales tax for school construction and renovation. Two of those (Albemarle and Charlottesville) are in strongly Democratic localities, so if the “yes” side on the referendum turns out “extra” voters there, they are likely Democratic voters. Three others (Fluvanna County, Nelson County, Prince Edward County) are all localities that were close last year, with Spanberger winning Nelson and Prince Edward and losing Fluvanna by just six votes. The other three (Amelia, Nottoway and Powhatan) are all Republican counties. I don’t pretend to know the dynamics in each of those counties on the sales tax questions, just that the referendum might inspire some voters who otherwise wouldn’t normally vote in a congressional midterm — those become wild-card voters.

To see who (or what) is on your ballot, see our Voter Guide. We have separate pages for all 133 counties and cities in Virginia.

4. How many former Good supporters will sit this one out?

The Republican primary two years ago was a bitter one, and the wounds do not appear to be fully healed. How many former Good supporters might still be nursing resentment toward McGuire and decide just not to vote for him? They could rationalize that two years of a Democrat is a worthwhile price to pay to rid themselves of McGuire and get a different Republican two years from now.

I looked at the vote split in the Good-McGuire primary of 2024 and then the early voting this year in the localities each carried; I did not see any clear trends. If early voting was way down in the Good counties and better in the McGuire counties, that might have said something, but that’s not what I saw. Some Good counties were up, some were down. Ditto with the McGuire counties. It’s still possible some Good supporters might sit this out, but I can find no mathematical way to determine that right now. Democrats should not count on this happening.

5. What else will happen that we don’t know about?

Now we head into the truly unknowns. At any given moment, something could happen in Iran or the Ukraine-Russia war or somewhere else that might jar public opinion. Since the ultimate question here is about turnout — who shows up, who doesn’t — we need to focus on that. Does something happen to push Republican voters out of their apparent lethargy? McGuire lacks funds but does not lack for connections to the Trump administration: He’s been bringing in a steady stream of high-ranking officials to hold events for him. Last week, he had two Cabinet secretaries and the FBI director. The Trump administration can’t be accused of abandoning the most Trump-aligned congressman in Virginia.

There are also large parts of the campaign that we have to acknowledge we simply can’t see. We can see the ads and the social media posts; we can’t really see the below-the-surface get-out-the-vote efforts underway. There are enough latent Republican votes in the district for McGuire to win if he can get them out. Likewise, there are enough Democratic votes available in the district for Perriello to win if Republicans can’t match his effort.

In 2024, Kamala Harris won 44,279 votes in Albemarle County. Last year, Spanberger won 39,322 votes there.

By contrast, Donald Trump won 21,513 votes in Albemarle, while last year Winsome Earle-Sears, the Republican candidate, won 16,480.

For the sake of argument, let’s say those are the maximum number of votes available to Democrats and Republicans in Albemarle (they’re not, but in practical terms, they may be the ceiling).

Spanberger did a better job of maximizing her potential than Earle-Sears did. Spanberger took 88.8% of the Harris totals in Albemarle while Earle-Sears took 76.6% of the Trump totals. That shortfall — which was replicated statewide — explains why Earle-Sears got blown out statewide while Trump came reasonably close. More Republican votes than Democratic votes went uncast last year.

How close can Perriello come to maximizing his potential and how close can McGuire come? For Perriello to win, he’s really going to need to maximize his potential in a handful of Democratic strongholds in the district — Charlottesville, Albemarle, Danville — and then win over some swing localities such as Lynchburg, Nelson County and Prince Edward County. After those places, the Democratic vote in the district starts to run pretty thin.

That’s why I look at Perriello’s 2-1 cash advantage and wonder how much of that will be spent on things we can’t see, such as phone banks and other efforts to get out the vote to maximize his potential vote. That’s an unknown. So is the potential for a quiet Republican surge at the polls on Election Day that wipes out Perriello’s presumed advantage in the early vote.

This is why politics is so much fun: We only know enough to be intrigued but not enough to really know the outcome until it’s over.

The 6^th District trends look different than the 5^th District

On the surface, these two districts look similar: Both are historically Republican; both also have well-funded Democratic challengers who are running energetic campaigns. Perriello has outraised McGuire; in the 6^th, Democrat Beth Macy has outraised Republican incumbent Ben Cline. Their campaigns are also hitting similar themes: “corruption,” Republican support for H.R. 1, data centers. Those similarities end once we get to the early voting trends, though.

State Navigate has analyzed the early voting and concluded that every congressional district in Virginia is seeing early voting run more Democratic than it did a year ago, but those trends aren’t even. The strongest to-the-left trends are in the 10^th District in Northern Virginia, where the early voting is running 6.2 percentage points bluer than a year ago. In the 5^th District, the trend is 5.0 percentage points bluer. The 6^th District, though, is tied with the 7^th District for the weakest Democratic trend; the early voting there is believed to be just 2.6 percentage points more Democratic than a year ago.

Based on that, State Navigate believes Republicans will win the early voting in the 6^th District. Last year, Republicans took that by 3.6 percentage points; this year, State Navigate sees Republicans taking the early voting in the 6^th by 1.0 percentage point. Since Republicans traditionally win the day-of voting, that is not good news for Democrats.

The good news for Democrats in the 6^th: Their early voting numbers have picked up in Roanoke. That’s the biggest source of Democratic votes in the district, and early in the city was running below last year’s tally. Through Sunday, Roanoke is now 3.5% higher than a year ago, but that’s quite different from the double-digit growth in the Democratic cities in the 5^th. However, the early voting is also up 2.5% in Rockingham County, the biggest source of Republican votes, and up 5.4% in Frederick County, which rivals Rockingham for the biggest source of Republican votes.

In the 5^th District, we see big jumps in early voting in Democratic localities and big drops in some, but not all, Republican localities. We don’t see that in the 6^th, where the trends are more consistent across the district. Given the voting history of that district, those are discouraging trends for Democrats. It’s certainly possible that the 6^th may have lots of Republicans in Frederick and Rockingham and elsewhere switching to vote for Democrats; that’s not something that would turn up until the votes are counted. Still, these are very different trends than we see next door in the 5th District.

I’ll revisit the early voting trends again in this Friday’s edition of West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter. You can sign up here: