From EPEC Voter Data Newsletter:
More chose to vote on a machine and by mail during EV than in 2021. By mail is up only slightly (1.2%) and way down with overseas voters. Our take on it all before Election Day.
Early voting ended Saturday, Nov. 1 that showed 1,127,365 individuals who cast 2025 General Election ballots on machine during the 45-day early voting stretch.
Add in by-mail ballots (301,025) and other types and we see the “countable” early vote tally at 1,433,427 for early voting in Virginia’s 45-day stretch before Election Day on Tues. Nov. 4th.
That’s a 22% overall difference from 2021, the last time Virginia elected a Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General along with many local races.
No question. This early vote election has shown a much higher level of participation than 2021.
Some 150,000 mail-in absentee ballots are “still out” which is about the same or slightly above 2021. They must be postmarked by Election Day and received by General Registrars by noon Friday to be processed. Many are choosing to drop them off by Election Day.
EPEC Team does some modeling but we mostly study process, voting patterns and how elections are managed.
We can say this: polling for the 2025 election has been all over the map, largely due to outdated and unbalanced models that do not reflect the current Virginia electorate.
We see reports of ticket-splitting, and turnout is making many races competitive. This has become more pronounced in the Attorney General race since the texting scandal of Democrat AG candidate Jay Jones, who sent texts wishing for the death of his political rival’s children, upended all of the campaigns.
In addition, Virginia assembly Democrats who are rushing a partisan re-districting of Virginia’s 11 congressional seats before the 2026 midterms are likely to see litigation before they conclude the process. We are watching to see if the sudden announcement in the middle of early voting will impact votes still out for House of Delegate races.
Speaking of House races, as of Nov. 1, we see 659,227 ballots cast in House of Delegate races, some of which are competitive but many that are considered “lean” or safe Republican House races. That’s compared to 601,324 ballots cast in House Delegate races considered competitive, “lean” Democrat or safe Democrat seats. Many are on-machine ballots.
Looking at localities, turnout is up by 30% in many areas.
Check out our Turnout Tracker to see how your locality is faring here:
https://epec.info/tracking-turnout-in-vas-general-election-early-voting
Tues., Nov. 4th Election Day is the real poll.
In the meantime, EPEC Team’s digital poll watchers are monitoring it all.
EPEC Team’s Senior Analyst and board member, Rick Naigle, has been monitoring all of the races throughout the 2025 Early Voting stretch.
See his analysis in the slide show below or download the PDF version here.
