What Went Down During The 2021 Elections

According to preliminary exit poll data — so, again, these numbers will change — 33 percent of Virginia voters named the economy and jobs as the most important issue facing the commonwealth. Twenty-four percent named education, 16 percent named taxes, 13 percent named the pandemic and 9 percent named abortion. That pandemic number really caught my attention — it’s interesting that it’s slipped in salience so much since the California recall, when it was the most important issue. As others on this live blog have mentioned, that’s not good for McAuliffe, since Virginia voters told exit pollsters that they trusted McAuliffe more than Youngkin to handle the pandemic, 43 percent to 36 percent.

As for that top issue, the economy? Voters were roughly split, with 43 percent saying they trusted Youngkin more on it and 40 percent saying they trusted McAuliffe.

In a few minutes, we’ll have some preliminary exit poll numbers for you (you might already be seeing them circulate on Twitter), but we just want to remind you: These are early, preliminary numbers, and you should take them with a healthy grain of salt. Exit polls are polls just like any other, so they have a margin of error. Plus, these preliminary exit polls don’t account for folks who will vote between now and when polls close, and they haven’t yet been weighted to the final result of the election (which is the big advantage that exit polls have over regular old pre-election polls).

Although today is Election Day, voting has already been underway in Virginia for several weeks. According to The Virginia Public Access Project, 1,142,308 people had already voted (either early in person or by absentee ballot) as of Oct. 31. And according to Democratic data firm TargetSmart, approximately 53 percent of these voters are Democrats, 31 percent are Republicans and 16 percent are independents.

But don’t read too much into this early voting data. It does not tell us much about who is going to win.

First, while a sizable number of Virginians have voted early, a substantial number will vote on Election Day. In fact, a recent Washington Post-Schar School poll found that 56 percent of likely voters plan to vote in person on Election Day, with these voters favoring Youngkin by 19 points. So although Democrats have likely taken a strong lead with early votes, Republicans can easily close the gap with strong turnout on Election Day.

Second, early voting data tells us who has voted, but it does not tell us how they voted. Although “it all comes down to turnout” is a popular axiom, vote choice among swing voters matters. And a major reason the Washington Post poll found a competitive race was that independent voters favored Youngkin by 18 points, a turnaround from favoring Biden by double digits in 2020. It’s possible, too, that some of these voters voted early.

And finally, we don’t really have a good comparison point to benchmark this year’s early voting statistics. In the 2017 gubernatorial election, early voting was far more restricted, while in the 2020 presidential election, many voters who would normally vote in-person voted absentee because of the pandemic.

So while it is encouraging that many voters have already cast ballots, we’ll have to wait until election night to find out who’s going to win.