VA Early Voting #s

[Spectator]

9th Cong. turnout continues to seriously lag in terms of overall voted in person/voted by mail/ballot requests.  It's sitting at just 25,000.  For context.  The 8th congressional district is closing in on 49,000.  People can argue that this doesn't matter all they want because people will vote on Election Day, but the reality is this is not going to have Presidential or even midterm level turnout so they better get in gear soon because Dems are banking a lot of votes and the GOP can only win if they solidly outperform Dem base areas.

Maybe, but the VRA district is the 2nd lowest after VA-09.  Given the election day propensity in downscale R areas, that is arguably more concerning. 

The big question is VA-07 and VA-01.  Whether or not they (and to a lesser extent, VA-10) have reverted to pre-Trump voting patterns should be what decides the race. 

VA-01 and VA-07 will decide whether this resembles the Virginia of 2016 or the Virginia of 2020. They won’t decide who “wins” this race.

[Spectator]

9th Cong. turnout continues to seriously lag in terms of overall voted in person/voted by mail/ballot requests.  It's sitting at just 25,000.  For context.  The 8th congressional district is closing in on 49,000.  People can argue that this doesn't matter all they want because people will vote on Election Day, but the reality is this is not going to have Presidential or even midterm level turnout so they better get in gear soon because Dems are banking a lot of votes and the GOP can only win if they solidly outperform Dem base areas.

Maybe, but the VRA district is the 2nd lowest after VA-09.  Given the election day propensity in downscale R areas, that is arguably more concerning. 

The big question is VA-07 and VA-01.  Whether or not they (and to a lesser extent, VA-10) have reverted to pre-Trump voting patterns should be what decides the race. 

VA-01 and VA-07 will decide whether this resembles the Virginia of 2016 or the Virginia of 2020. They won’t decide who “wins” this race.

This.  Dems certainly don't need Trump era voting patterns in those two districts to win.  As long as NOVA turnout is typical off year level (i.e., at or above the state avg.) then Dems will win.  Virginia isn't a 50/50 state and thus Dems don't need to win the swingier parts of it.  They just need to maintain their base and base turnout. 

Yes, but a 2008/12 style near tie in VA-10 would certainly put the statewide result in doubt given how the rest of the state has moved since then. 

You said VA-01 in your original post and that’s what I went off of.

I have no doubt in my mind that McAuliffe will easily win VA-10

[Spectator]

The problem with analyzing or overinterpreting this (other than relying too much on what was always going to be an obvious D advantage in early voting that could also just be a cannibalization of D voters) is that it tells us nothing about whether Youngkin has made dramatic inroads into Democratic communities/rapidly D-trending areas. "High turnout in Richmond metro/outer NoVA" doesn’t mean much if McAuliffe's doing 15 points worse than Biden in these counties. "High turnout" in D/R areas isn’t good per se if the new/energized voters are likely to turn out against your party (also what happened in 2020 in IA/MT/Miami-Dade/etc.).

True, but beyond the Fox poll there isn’t any indication that Youngkin has done this