Two years past, Donald Trump and Republicans looked to be an unstoppable force. Trump not only won the Electoral College, but the popular vote. The party picked up four seats in the Senate. And they retained control of the House.
Two years on, and just under five weeks before Election Day, it’s increasingly looking like Republicans will be lucky to hold on to the Senate. It appears the House will be in Democratic hands, with the only question being by how many seats.
In short, welcome to divided government.
In Virginia, the tell-tale signs are showing up in the projections of long-time political prognosticators Larry Saboto and Charlie Cook.
House Races Tighten in Favor of Dems
This week, Crystal Ball moved three Virginia congressional races to the left. In the 2nd Congressional District, Saboto now has Democrat Elaine Luria slightly favored to defeat Republican incumbent Jen Kiggans.
The district is now rated “Leans Democratic,” and Trump’s approval rating, which is in freefall territory, has something to do with it. The 2nd was “one of the most evenly divided districts in the 2024 presidential election,” the Crystal Ball reports, as Trump won it in 2024 by the slimmest of margins – about 1,100 votes out of nearly 415,000 cast.
In the First Congressional District, the Crystal Ball is moving the race from “Leans Republican” to a “Toss-up.” Of Republican incumbent Rob Wittman, the Crystal says that he is “one of Republicans’ stronger incumbents, and a recent internal poll from his opponent, Henrico County Commonwealth’s Attorney Shannon Taylor (D), still gave him a 1-point lead, so Wittman probably is still leading, but perhaps not by that much.
The district is starting to move Democratic, however, based on Kamala Harris in 2024 outperforming Joe Biden in 2022 in the 1st. In short, it could be a late night for Wittman and Taylor both as they wait for the final tallies to come in.
Finally, in the 5th District, Democrat Tom Perriello is closing the gap on Republican incumbent John McGuire, leading the Crystal Ball to shift the race from “Likely Republican” to “Leans Republican.”
Speaking to CBS19, J. Miles Coleman with the Center for Politics said that McGuire is “going to get maybe 15% of the vote in Charlottesville proper. He’s probably going to get 30%, give or take, in Albemarle or so.” With numbers that low, Coleman said, McGuire is not trying to persuade people in those areas to vote for him, but rather turn out voters in the parts of the district that are reliably Republican.
Will Republicans Turn out?
In Virginia – and across the nation – whether Republicans turn out is the question pollsters and prognosticators are watching.
Charlie Cook with the Cook Political Report said it best. “A critical question in this election is whether disgruntled Republicans hold their noses and vote for the GOP candidates despite their dismay with President Trump about gas prices, the war in Iran, tariffs, ballrooms, reflecting pools, arches, vaccines, the Kennedy Center, and a myriad other factors. Or do they simply stay home?”
The extent to which early voting is an indicator suggests that Republicans are in a wait-and-see state of mind.
Across the nation, early voting is happening in about 30 states, and according to CNN the early turnout is showing more Democrats requesting a ballot this year than two years ago in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Maine, and North Carolina.
Here at home, early voting remains strong. The roughly 282,000 ballots cast to this point is more than double the roughly 131,000 cast at the same point in 2022. Whether that favors Democrats is harder to discern because voters don’t register by party.
However, wrote CNN, “there’s a clear relationship between how a locality voted in 2024 and its relative pace of early voting.” By the standard, Democrats are enjoying a decided advantage to this point.
It is worth noting that Republicans tend to turn out Election Day as opposed to early voting, though that trend has shifted some in recent years.
While things are looking good for the Dems in Virginia and across the country, Cook argues that the wave is not likely to be as large as historically has happened since World War II.
Cook projects a possible pick-up of 15 seats in the House.
Whether they exceed that number will depend in part on how things go in the 1st, 2nd, and 5th districts of Virginia.
