President Donald Trump has lied for years that elections Republicans misplaced honest and sq. have been “rigged” by mail-in ballots. On Wednesday, he introduced his acquainted playbook to the aftermath of the Virginia redistricting referendum Republicans lost on Tuesday.
As with Trump’s many lies about the 2020 election he misplaced, his narrative about the Virginia defeat doesn’t maintain up to even probably the most fundamental of scrutiny.
Here’s a few of what Trump posted on his Truth Social platform Wednesday afternoon: “A RIGGED ELECTION TOOK PLACE LAST NIGHT IN THE GREAT COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA! All day long Republicans were winning, the Spirit was unbelievable, until the very end when, of course, there was a massive ‘Mail In Ballot Drop!’ Where have I heard that before — And the Democrats eked out another Crooked Victory!”
That is simply not what occurred.
It’s true that the “No” facet most well-liked by Trump and most different Republicans – the facet that wished to reject a brand new short-term gerrymandered congressional map that can doubtless imply Democrats win extra US House seats within the midterms – was main within the Virginia vote rely for a bit over an hour and a half after polls closed round 7 p.m. on Tuesday.
But that doesn’t imply it ever appeared to educated folks that the “No” facet was truly going to win.
Even when “No” had this early lead, elections analysts, The New York Times’ vote-tracking forecast model and plenty of observers stated “Yes” was extremely doubtless to prevail. That’s as a result of it was clear that the “No” facet was falling in need of the vote totals it wanted to rack up to counteract the anticipated “Yes” deluge from the populous Democratic-dominated counties – notably together with Fairfax County in Northern Virginia, probably the most populous within the state – that hadn’t absolutely reported their votes.
“Kind of reminds me of the old, more competitive days in VA when the Rs would lead before the Fairfax hammer dropped,” Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball on the University of Virginia, posted on X at 7:59 p.m., whereas “No” nonetheless had its lead earlier than Fairfax reported.
For “No” to win, there would have had to be a shift of greater than the 15.4 percentage points by which Democrat Abigail Spanberger gained Virginia’s race for governor in 2025. Even earlier than “Yes” took the lead within the rely, it was clear from varied counties that had reported most of their vote that “No” was falling in need of that tempo.
For instance, Roanoke County, one of many bigger counties that went for the “No” side, was over 90% reporting at about 8:10 p.m.; at that time, there had been a roughly 12-point shift from its margin within the 2025 gubernatorial race. That’s substantial, however nonetheless lower than what “No” wanted.
It’s doable some Republicans briefly had the optimistic “Spirit” Trump recommended they did, however the writing was on the wall for a lot of political operatives, too, even earlier than “Yes” pulled forward within the rely.
Marc Short, chair of former Vice President Mike Pence’s conservative group Advancing American Freedom and Pence’s chief of employees throughout the first Trump presidency, assumed a “Yes” victory in a 7:56 p.m. X post – wherein he stated the outcomes have been “tracking like” the 2025 Virginia legal professional basic race that was won by a Democrat, Jay Jones, who had been plagued by controversy.
On Wednesday, a decide in southern Virginia blocked the state from certifying the results of the referendum (on a number of grounds, together with that, in his view, state lawmakers didn’t comply with their very own guidelines in passing the referendum); Jones shortly stated he would enchantment. The state Supreme Court stayed a earlier ruling by the identical decide within the runup to the referendum and allowed Tuesday’s vote to proceed earlier than deciding the deserves of that case, which continues to be pending.
Regardless of the eventual end result of those authorized battles, there was exactly zero proof on Wednesday of outcome-changing fraud with mail-in ballots – both with the mail-in votes themselves or with counties’ reporting of them.
First, it’s normal for populous city counties with numerous voters to take longer to absolutely rely their votes than small rural counties with fewer voters – and even Virginia’s city counties counted fairly shortly on this one-question referendum. They reported early sufficient for quite a few media retailers to make projections of a “Yes” victory lower than two hours after the polls closed. (NCS’s projection got here at 8:51 p.m.)
“The fact that small towns count faster than huge counties is an impressively dumb reason to complain,” Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of employees to Democratic Rep. Don Beyer, who represents elements of Northern Virginia, wrote on X in response to Trump’s claims; Fritschner wrote that the Tuesday rely occurred at “light speed by Virginia counting standards.”
Second, there was nothing that appeared irregular about the vote totals in main Democratic-dominated counties that reported a bit later than others on Tuesday.
Fairfax County, home to tens of thousands of federal workers, went 69.5% for the “Yes” side on Tuesday; in Virginia’s 2025 election, it went 73.8% for Spanberger within the governor race and 68.4% for Jones within the legal professional basic race. The metropolis of Richmond went 82.8% for “Yes” on Tuesday; in 2025, it went 86.7% for Spanberger and 82.2% for Jones.
Third, Democratic-dominated counties together with Fairfax reported varied sorts of votes – mail-in votes, in-person early votes, Election Day votes – at varied instances all through the rely. It’s not clear what mail-specific late “drop” Trump may need been referring to.
Fourth, it stays apparent why Democratic candidates and initiatives in lots of states have a tendency to do a lot better with mail-in voters than in-person voters within the Trump period. Trump’s years of disparaging mail-in voting, which he continues this year to wrongly describe as inherently “corrupt,” has turned a lot of his personal supporters off of this completely official methodology of casting a poll.
His newest little bit of nonsense gained’t assist.
NCS’s Ethan Cohen, Jennifer Agiesta and Fredreka Schouten contributed to this text.