This article has been updated since it first appeared in print.
Illustration by Kyle Talley
On paper, Virginia’s statewide elections on Nov. 4 would appear to be a lock for the Democratic Party.
It’s the first major vote (along with elections in New Jersey) to be held during President Donald Trump’s second term, and many of the federal workers and contractors affected by the administration’s sweeping cuts may seize the opportunity to vote for Democrats, including former CIA officer and congresswoman Abigail Spanberger as governor.
Meanwhile, the Republican ticket has been in relative disarray: Trump has avoided giving gubernatorial candidate Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears his so-called “full and total endorsement,” and term-limited Gov. Glenn Youngkin has been making amends with conservative commentator John Reid after suggesting earlier this year Reid should withdraw from the lieutenant governor’s race over alleged explicit social media content.
Despite those rumblings, polling suggests the results will be competitive. Both Virginia Commonwealth University’s Wilder School Commonwealth Poll from September and a Roanoke College survey from August found Spanberger holding leads just under 10 percentage points over Earle-Sears. Both polls note many voters hadn’t yet made up their minds. Regardless, the results — and Spanberger’s significant fundraising efforts — have been enough for the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics to shift its rating for the gubernatorial race from “leans Democratic” to “likely Democratic.”
And while the projections tilt blue, the Roanoke College results for both the lieutenant governor’s race between Reid and state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi and the attorney general’s race, in which former Del. Jay Jones is challenging incumbent Jason Miyares, are within the poll’s margin of error (the poll took place before the release earlier this month of controversial past text messages from Jones; more recent polling shows support for the Democrat has slipped). VCU poll results were only slightly better for Dems.
All this adds up to an election that feels like it should be more one-sided than it is. VCU associate political science professor Alex Keena says it could be due to a lack of interest or, more specifically, excitement. One need look no farther than Monroe Park near VCU campus to see how things are playing out.
“This is the least engaged generation that I’ve ever taught, having taught now for almost 15 years in higher ed. There’s always this passion that comes from students, this activism, and we did see that a little bit with the Gaza protests, but the crushing response from the university basically silenced it,” Keena says, referring to the school’s handling of pro-Palestinian protests, which included temporarily withholding the diplomas of three participating students. “This generation [as a whole] is not really trying to get in trouble. ... They just want to try to do the best they can to succeed and get a decent salary so they can live a semicomfortable life.”
VCU’s own polling bears out this financial struggle, with 59% of July’s Commonwealth Poll respondents ages 18 to 34 saying the current cost of an in-state four-year college degree is not worth it. Plus, Keena says, there’s a disconnect between what is important to the Democrats and what college students — historically an influential voting bloc for the party — see as important.
“I feel like [young people are] so idealistic that if they don’t see that there’s basic moral integrity, then they don't vote at all,” Keena says. “That’s the big concern I have for democracy right now: Young people don’t seem to be too invested in it because they see it as so corrupted that, by engaging in it, they’re actually contributing to that corruption.
“At the end of the day,” he continues, “Spanberger will probably win by a pretty comfortable margin. But my question is what role will younger people have and how low will turnout be?”
