To some extent, it's affected by all the volatility – like how well you can actually take advantage of these conditions that we tend to see and, you know, how unpopular Trump really is and all that. But Trump is unpopular in Virginia. This continues to happen. And so I think it's going to be very difficult for Earl-Sears.
And on top of that, Spanberger raised some very impressive funds, did everything she needed to do to put herself in a position to win. And there was talk that Earl-Sears was not a particularly good candidate in terms of her work on the campaign trail. And, you know, again, what do these things mean?
I don't want to oversell them, but I think in a situation where you need to sort of change some fundamental dynamics in the electoral environment, you need to be a particularly special candidate, or you need your opponent to do a bunch of things wrong. And so far, it hasn't worked for Earl-Sears.
Bacon: So let's dig in here. I think just watching this from afar, my impression is that the Democrats have a strong candidate and the Republicans have a weak one. But if the difference is six or eight, it's something like… I think if Youngkin were competing with Spanberger, we think Spanberger would be ahead by four.
Because what are we looking at here? Does it look like Virginia is leaning slightly to the left?
Skelly: Yes, it's interesting. Youngkin, in polls of this race that asked about his approval or favorability, tended to be somewhat above water – in net positive territory – even as Trump scored a net negative, well, in terms of approval or favorability.
So in that sense, I think Yankin will definitely have a chance. I mean, I think the Spanberger-Youngkin race would be a really impressive event. That would be something.
At the same time, Spanberger might not have decided to run. She could have said, well, I'm just hanging out in my constituency…
Bacon: He's partly the sitting president, so it's not a fair question.
Like, I think – yeah, I think – Spanberger is better than the average Democrat, is what I'm trying to ask? Let me ask you this.
Skelly: Yeah. And I, I think, I think maybe… I mean, I think there's a good chance that she's going to… I mean, she's leading the ticket and would probably win by a large margin if the Democrats win the race for lieutenant governor.
Then we can talk about the attorney general race, if you like. Yes, because it really is the most exciting competition in Virginia right now. Uh, but Spanberger – all signs point to her being kind of in the lead in terms of her winning.
Ghazala Hashmi, the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, leads by about four percentage points in our polling average. And various polls have her ahead by either about three percentage points or maybe she's ahead by almost as much as Spanberger is ahead in some of these polls that have Spanberger ahead by 10 or so.
So I think the thing to remember in the case of Virginia is that in recent elections – basically since 2009 – you've almost always seen these three statewide races, three statewide offices in Virginia, the results generally being very close to each other.
So if Spanberger wins by 10 points at the top of the order, I'd expect Hashmi, for example, not to be too far away. I might not have expected Jay Jones to be so far away, who is the Democratic candidate for attorney general, running against – now officials in other positions in Virginia can seek re-election, which is a little confusing – but the incumbent attorney general, Jason Miyares, a Republican.
Here he is, seeking re-election, and perhaps because he was the incumbent and ahead of Jones, perhaps he was always going to run stronger than any other Republican on the ticket.
However, because of this text message scandal that Jay Jones was involved in, he had other things going on, but specifically the revelation that he had a series of messages and conversations in 2022 in which he spoke – I mean, it was hypothetical, but still – very openly in this conversation with a Republican state legislator. By the way, not the most brilliant move on his part.
I mean, beyond even the content – what, like, what are you doing, my boyfriend? Very stupid. He writes about a hypothetical case in which he shoots and kills the then-Republican speaker of the state House of Delegates. I mean, just, you know, really over the top stuff. It's just very, very unpleasant.
And at this particular moment, obviously after the murder of Charlie Kirk, political violence is a top priority for people as an issue. And the fact that all of this came out at this point, I think, was especially bad for Jones from a political point of view – and quite good for Miyares.
And after that we saw Miyares leading the polls in this race. Is this enough for him to win? Let's see. I think Jones definitely has a path to making it through a favorable Democratic environment. If, you know, Spanberger wins by, say, nine or ten points at the top of the ticket, I could see Jones winning by one or two points. It absolutely could happen. Miyares simply doesn't have enough ticket splitting to be successful these days.
But if it's more of a Spanberger-type environment at seven or six, then maybe Miyares will actually stick it out, handle it, and actually get a ticket-splitting result—something that hasn't happened in Virginia in three statewide races since 2005.
So the attorney general race is actually the one that I think people are watching most closely because of the Jones text message scandal and the opportunity that it gave Miyares.
Bacon: Let me close by talking about redistricting in Virginia. Virginia's Democratic-controlled Legislature have taken some first steps to possibly follow referendums or use them as gerrymandered districts. In some ways, Virginia's current delegation consists of six Democrats and five Republicans. Potentially they're looking at making it, essentially, nine to two, eight to three.
However, I want to ask you about the bigger picture. I'm having a hard time understanding where we are because I don't think I've seen a good analysis of where we are overall. Like, under normal conditions—Trump's approval is somewhere around forty—I think the Democrats will have an advantage in winning the House.
Has redistricting changed enough that we can no longer say that? Are Republicans the favorites? Or do we have a good idea of how many seats the Republicans gained from redistricting right now, or how much of an advantage they gained from redistricting?
Skelly: So the two big stories right now are California and Texas. And they could roughly negate – assuming, I mean, it looks like California voters are likely to pass Proposition 50. And if they do, the Democrats will get the map that they wanted, and that will allow them to possibly negate the gains that the Republicans are going to make in Texas.
In general, four or five places. From here, you know, Missouri, they'll have to see if this map is stopped by the referendum campaign, which is also possible. I would say right now the Republicans are positioning themselves to maybe get a little bit more. And it looks like Indiana may also pursue redistricting.
And North Carolina just made a move that will win them a seat – Republicans have one seat there. So at this point, I think the Republicans have made some progress in terms of the net benefit they could get from this process. However, I don't think this is enough at this point to guarantee their continued control of the House of Representatives at all.
You know, if you think about where things stand now, based on the current makeup of the districts, I think about 20 districts would automatically be in the conversation because Democrats could target them. And this seems like a conservative estimate – where the estimate may seem too far in one direction, but maybe, however, ideal conditions arise, you know, for example, in 2018, Democrats flipped Oklahoma City. Yes, you know?
Like, it was a little bit further than I think people expected, even in pro-democracy circles.
But if you think about the 20 or so seats where either they leaned slightly to the left relative to the 2024 presidential election in the country, but the Republicans held them – so, for example, Harris got it, but a little less than the overall margin – or, sorry, Trump got it, but a little less than his national margin of a point and a half, or Trump carried it narrowly, and it was just a hair to the right of the country.
These are the places that will be used in an environment where I would expect Democrats, in terms of the overall environment, to have at least some advantage. We don't know what that advantage will be yet, but it will at least be some kind of advantage, just as Republicans had at least a slight advantage in 2022.
Maybe not as big as we might have expected, but there was a lot that went into it – obviously the Supreme Court and the ruling regarding Roe v. Wade– this, I think, has shifted the balance of the electoral environment. But Republicans still had at least something, a slight advantage in the overall political environment in 2022.
So if Democrats have a slight—at least a small—environment policy advantage in 2026, I would expect Democrats to win at least some of those seats. And you only need three of them. Obviously this will change with the inclusion of math on redistricting or whatever, but if you're talking about a situation where the Democrats can get 15 to 20 seats, I think you'll need to make more changes to really guarantee the Republicans a chance to hold on.
And that doesn't mean it won't happen – because it definitely could happen. Like, especially after all this talk about the Voting Rights Act and the Court ruling on it. If he were to make a decision on this, it could indeed open the door to a much larger set of changes.
Perry Bacon: Okay, interesting. I think we'll end here. That's good because I think that's what I'm looking for is this next one. If they rewrite the Voting Rights Act, then we're talking about a lot of seats. Fine. This, this is a good thing. So, Geoffrey Skellythanks for joining me.
Skelly: Hello Perry. Thank you so much for having me. Nice to see you.
