yesterday was a comparatively very bad day for turnout, I imagine because of the weather
just about every county lost ground relative to 2025
(Richmond is still missing a day fwict)
Yesterday was an insanely strong day
Fairfax, Loudoun, Chesterfield, PWC, Arlington, Henrico, etc all approached 100% or more of 2025's Day 4
Some rural SWVA counties continue to do very well but the rest of the state is almost running even now, R^2 down to .047
Here's county-level day 1 and day 2 in isolation, % of the same day in 2025 vs Harris 2024 margin
Rural turnout still high on day 2 but less lopsided
r^2 was .22 for Day 1, and .11 for Day 2
Fairfax, Arlington (really NoVa collectively) sitting around 80% of 2025 atp
Cumulative through day 2
Through Day 2, bluer counties gained a bit on 2025, turnout still very high
I can check precinct data when we have more of it, but for now it’s only two days
It’s definitely boosted VB a little, and it probably will keep doing that until the election happens on March 17
In 2022, Russia had invaded Ukraine
But this year, Trump started his own vanity war
Entirely self-inflicted and entirely pointless
This is not tenable even in the short term
😐
Normally I’d say that supermajorities of the Dem early vote will come after satellites open, but satellite access is so reduced for this election that it’s really gonna be a wait until Election Day for a true sense of D turnout
So I’d not sweat the early vote at all, esp not this early 🤪
Nah this is just a product of small numbers and many places having a ballot with a single question on it
No one will be exceeding 2025 numbers, but turnout overall looked good day 1
But it’s relatively much easier to exceed your 2025 day 1 total if that total was 15 votes compared to if it was 2k
45 day window
March 6-Apr 18
rural turnout was very high day 1, many above 100% of 2025's first day (i'm obviously not expecting localities to exceed 2025/2024 turnout)
Here are the localities that did best as a % of 2025, and we'll see how they hold up over the next few weeks
here's day 1 EV in the ten biggest localities, + 5 biggest R localities + a few blue small cities
i'm guessing Chesapeake is an error, nothing from Richmond yet
Fairfax had EV on the first Sat in 2025, but not yesterday so I'll adjust out the Sat going forward
Gonna do my best to try and keep all the VA EV posts in this thread, so feel free to mute this thread if you're not interested
Best thing to keep in mind is that the EV window is super long, and that this election is going to be very EDay heavy compared to both 2025 and 2024
The election is still 8 months away, and like, look around!
I have no clue what the environment (or country/world) will look like then. I’m happy with broad strokes or relative comparisons, but I’m not going to fret general elex concerns or the performances candidates need atp
Relatively speaking the bad payroll numbers are kind of a nothingburger in the sense that labor market weakness is not a surprise & in isolation could spur more rate cuts
But it’s not great that there’s a large global supply shock happening very quickly and the labor market is not well supported
Oil price charts are kinda just mental right now. Nearly unprecedented supply shock, WTI up nearly 50% from mid Feb
And politics aside the real-world cascading effects could get miserable very quickly
the way this was so prescient and it just gets worse for them
- Iran war could be a significant price shock & some underlying inflation signals were already accelerating
—> Worst jobs report since covid🗿
Uh, jobs report came in at -92k vs +50k expected
December and was revised down by 65k from +48k to -17k
Jan revised down by 4k, 130–>126k
If you live in Virginia, early voting starts tomorrow!
Go vote yes on the referendum 🤠
(also I love when Ds get to control the ballot language 🥰)
Somehow, gas price politics returned
“Trump calls affordability a hoax while you literally pay the price of him sending your children to fight a pointless war he promised he’d never start”
He really has been spoonfeeding midterm messages for Ds
Incredible the extent to which Trump’s courses of action seem lab-designed to maximally damage R midterm chances
I think Trump endorsing Cornyn is a precondition for a Cornyn win, but I’m not sure how much the net effect is
Typical runoff effects benefit Paxton, so if the race is still close, it’s probably worthwhile for D PACs to put money in
Especially in the Houston DMA
I think some of the worst reporting from this primary was from ostensibly serious publications saying Crockett was drawn out of her district
Of all TX Dems, she had one of the most in-tact CDs after redistricting (there’s no residency requirement if you thought that was why)
I regret to inform you that satellite locations in the big (blue) counties have been nuked from orbit compared to 2025 and it’s once again likely going to lead to bad EV takes
Because the EV window is so long the posting will be thankfully light for a while
First thing I’m gonna do is run through the satellite situation and see if anything’s different from Nov
If not it’ll be nice to have a very recent apples to apples comparison
EV starts on Friday for VA’s referendums 🤪 and I’ll talk about it similarly to how I did for the Gov race
I’m big time manifesting a Stratton win in IL, but don’t think I’m familiar enough with the state to offer anything worthwhile there
Seeing people post betting market odds using “____% chance this happens” and taking it as anything but speculative kinda makes my eye twitch
