NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — Despite a strong turnout in the first few weeks of early voting, the total for Virginia tails behind 2020’s pace by about 20%, according to data from the Virginia Public Access Project.
As of Monday, Virginia crept up with more than 1.6 million early votes. But by this point in the 2020 election, the Commonwealth already surpassed the 2 million mark. This is happening despite packed polling places, with long lines seen outside early voting sites like the Kempsville Area Library.
“It quickly went around the corner, to the end of the sidewalk, curved around there, and stayed like that for the rest of my shift,” volunteer Brittany Culbertson described.
On Monday alone, more than 1,681 people voted at the Kempsville Area Library. Staff told 10 On Your Side it was way more than expected, with hundreds more ballots cast than their 1,368 count on Saturday.
So how are we still not beating 2020? ODU Political Science Professor Jesse Richman attributes this to the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time, voters were not so keen on going to in-person voting sites due to health concerns. This had many people voting by mail.
But even with this factor, North Carolina is ahead of their 2020 early voting numbers. Richman said that is likely because of its swing state status.
“We’re not in the top tier of swing states, so we’re not getting the kind of high intensity, get out the vote efforts, and so forth that we saw a few cycles ago when Virginia was right in the crosshairs as one of the top tier swing states,” he explained.
Virginia could become what he calls a “sleeper” swing state. He believes we will not know for sure until election day, but statewide polls could give us a hint. Richman points to the 2nd Congressional District race between incumbent Jen Kiggans and Missy Cotter Smasal.
“Kiggans Cotter Smasal, I think actually the polling being as close as this is good news for Harris, which would suggest maybe Virginia is not as close as it might be,” Richman said.
Richman pointed out data showing Norfolk and Virginia Beach with more mail-in than in-person early voters. He said this reflects how the two cities open more polling places later in the early voting period. Overall, he still thinks Virginia can outpace the 2020 numbers before election day.
“We’re in what’s historically the heaviest period of time for that early in-person voting to take place,” Richman said. “So I think we’ll see some gains there.
Early voting ends in North Carolina and Virginia on Nov. 2nd. Polling places re-open for Nov. 5, on election day.