Republicans May Have Found a Winning Election Strategy

Republicans may have struck gold on an election strategy that the party has typically given Democrats to chase.

Recent data in Virginia shows that Governor Glenn Youngkin's push for GOP voters to embrace early voting ahead of next Tuesday's statewide election may be working in Republicans' favor.

A Newsweek analysis of early voting data from Thursday shows that Republicans are making gains in the state's most competitive races. Of the seven House districts and four Senate districts that the Virginia Public Access Project ranks as being most competitive in their partisan lean, Republicans are performing better than their statewide average in 9 of those 12 districts.

While the GOP advantage is only 35 percent statewide, Republicans have more than 40 percent of the early vote in House District 97, House District 89, House District 22 and House District 21, as well as Senate District 12, Senate District 27 and Senate District 24, according to analytics firm L2 data. Republican support in House District 65 and House District 57 is just under 40 percent.

"The governor's efforts to get more Republicans to vote early seems to be narrowing the traditional gap favoring Democrats," Stephen Farnsworth, professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington, told Newsweek.

Democrats have long held the advantage in early and mail-in voting, but Youngkin has sought to change that this election cycle. The governor, who is not up for re-election this year, has been touring the state as part of his PAC Spirit of Virginia's "Secure Your Vote Virginia" campaign, which encourages people to vote early. Writing in an August op-ed about the state's new voting laws, the governor told Republicans they can "either continue complaining, or we can recognize reality, beat the left at their own game and win elections."

This year is the first time that a full General Assembly election in Virginia has had a 45-day early voting period and no-excuse absentee mail ballot rule since new voting laws were passed in 2021. Voters will have until Saturday to cast an early vote in what is widely viewed as a bellwether for the 2024 election. Every single seat in the state Legislature is up for re-election.

Because Virginia voters don't register by part, it may be difficult to understand the exact size of the impact of Youngkin's campaign. But Farnsworth said the early data makes it clear that the governor "has been able to undo some of the damage Trump has done by discouraging early voting among Republicans in the past."

Youngkin's decision to embrace early voting comes at odds with the position that the GOP's most influential figure has taken. In the weeks leading up to the 2020 election, former President Donald Trump began making unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, casting particular doubt over the security of early and mail-in voting. He continued to boast those claims after he lost to Joe Biden and in the years since.

Because Trump's message had deeply resonated among GOP voters across the country, Youngkin's latest campaign had to combat those ideas and persuade Republican voters otherwise.

After the governor made several media appearances on conservative networks, his team reported a doubling in visits to his early voting portal, as well as a significant jump in actual applications for mail ballots. A Politico analysis also showed that counties where Youngkin won with at least 60 percent in 2021 account for 34 percent of the in-person early vote this year, an uptick from the 29 percent seen in the same counties two years ago.

Democrats have also ramped up their efforts in the Commonwealth.

On Thursday, Politico reported that former President Barack Obama recorded two robocalls ahead of the election. The calls, which are being sent to over 100,000 in battleground districts, will encourage voters to cast their ballots early or go to the polls on Tuesday.

Virginia currently has a divided legislature, with Democrats controlling the state Senate and Republicans leading the House. Both majorities are narrow. If Republicans win both chambers, they will have unified control of the state for at least two years, during which Youngkin is expected to push through his agenda and move the purple state in a decidedly more conservative direction.