Early voting knowledge from Virginia suggests Democrats have an benefit of their push to enact a gerrymander that could internet them as many as four US House seats on this fall’s midterms.
Groups backing the redistricting measure in an April 21 particular election had lengthy pointed to Saturday, April 11, as a date to watch, when many counties opened extra early voting websites. This included a number of population-heavy, Democratic-leaning counties within the Washington, DC, suburbs of Northern Virginia.
Next week’s referendum has main stakes for this fall’s midterms given the razor-thin House majority and the nationwide redistricting battle launched at President Donald Trump’s behest final 12 months. House Speaker Mike Johnson campaigned this weekend with a number of Virginia Republicans whose seats can be sharply redrawn if the referendum succeeds.
Nearly 63,000 early in-person votes had been forged on Saturday, in accordance to knowledge from L2, barely greater than the equal day forward of final fall’s election through which Democrats swept all three statewide places of work.
This 12 months’s vote appeared extra Democratic-leaning and extra concentrated in Northern Virginia. Turnout in Northern Virginia was about 46% greater than the equal date final 12 months, and roughly 57% of the statewide vote was forged within the area, up from 41% final 12 months.
The early vote knowledge general finds that Saturday ended with partisan turnout throughout voting strategies all through the state mainly unchanged from the equal level final 12 months, when Democrat Abigail Spanberger cruised to victory by 15 points within the state’s gubernatorial race.
Partisan turnout is measured by evaluating counts of voters who participated in just one occasion’s primaries during the last 5 main ones, since Virginia doesn’t have occasion registration. Both final 12 months and this 12 months, Democratic main individuals had an 8-point lead in turnout early in-person or by mail over Republican main individuals.
There are some geographic variations. Despite the sturdy turnout in Northern Virginia on Saturday itself, the whole thing of the shortfall in early votes relative to this level in 2025 comes from Northern Virginia. While the remainder of the state had forged about 5,000 extra votes by way of Saturday than it had in 2025 at this level, Northern Virginia nonetheless lags behind its 2025 turnout by about 39,000 votes.
NCS’s evaluation discovered that this distinction largely coincided with modifications to entry in early voting relative to final 12 months.
Early voting entry in Northern Virginia for a lot of the ultimate three weeks earlier than Election Day has been pared down in contrast with 2025, and it seems to be dampening pre-election turnout within the area. Prince William County, for instance, had only one voting location open within the week forward of April 11, in contrast with six places throughout the identical week final 12 months. And Fairfax County, Virginia’s most populous county, expanded from three voting places to 16 voting places two days earlier final 12 months than this 12 months.
Northern Virginia voters who missed out on early voting due to entry modifications could shift to Election Day. But even when that space falls wanting final 12 months’s vote totals, opponents of redistricting face an uphill battle.
It wouldn’t be sufficient for the anti-redistricting facet to merely outperform Republicans in final 12 months’s election. A substantial enchancment can be required to erase the 15-point statewide deficit notched by Republican gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears.
The “No” marketing campaign has been closely outspent and faces an electoral setting that has decidedly favored Democratic-aligned causes. A win and even a shut loss would buck nationwide developments.
A strongly motivated Democratic base and persuasion among independent and Republican voters have led to consistently strong Democratic performances in elections since Donald Trump’s return to the White House. An analogous redistricting push in California received by 29 points final November, 9 points forward of Democratic candidate Kamala Harris’ 2024 margin within the state.
A current ballot from the Washington Post and George Mason University’s Schar School on the poll measure discovered Republicans with a appreciable benefit in motivation to vote, with Republicans about 7 points likelier than Democrats to describe themselves as sure to vote. Even with that benefit, seemingly voters within the ballot supported the modification to redraw the state’s districts by a 5-point margin.
Aside from turnout shifts, one other path to success for those that oppose the redistricting poll measure could come by way of persuasion. But the Post-Schar ballot discovered political independents in favor of the measure, with few defections amongst partisans and partisan-leaners.