Democratic Persuasion and Turnout in Key VA State Senate and House of Delegates Seats
Now that the primaries are over, the parties have their nominees and the focus shifts to this fall’s General Election. Only a handful of seats will decide control of the State Senate and House of Delegates.
There is an old adage “it all comes down to turnout,” but 2022 showed Democrats can win with persuasion even with lower turnout. In reality, both (turning out the base and persuading swing voters) are needed, but depending on the district, either persuasion or turnout will be more important.
It is an open question what turnout will look like this year in Virginia because this is an “off-off” year election with no statewide or federal races. Historically, turnout has been very low in these elections, with just 30% turnout in 2007, 29% in 2011, and 29% in 2015 – before bumping up to 42% in 2019. The higher 2019 number is almost certainly due to Trump being in the White House, with Democrats energized to fight him. This year, we will see if there is a similar turnout number to 2019, or whether it will fall back closer to the pre-Trump numbers.
Given the historically low turnout in this year of the four-year cycle, it is important for Virginia Democrats to work on turning out their voters this fall – but also to make efforts at persuading voters in case voter turnout is lower. For instance, while 2022 didn’t seem like relatively high turnout for a midterm, Democrats still performed well, in part because of persuasion.
https://bluevirginia.us/2023/06/democratic-persuasion-and-turnout-in-key-va-state-senate-and-house-of-delegates-seats