Redistricting referendum: Democrats have work to do to get ‘Yes’ to the finish line

Final early-voting numbers for the April 21 redistricting referendum are telling me the pollsters are right – this one is going to be closer certainly than the November statewide elections conducted just five months ago.

Early-vote tallies in the six congressional districts represented by Democrats totaled 682,272, a smidge more than the 675,348 early votes cast in the five congressional districts represented by Republicans.

The numbers are available on the Virginia Public Access Project website.

That works out to 50.3 percent of the early votes having been cast in the six D districts.

Looking back at the early voting in the November 2025 elections, there were 780,402 early votes cast in the six D districts, to 705,011 in the five R districts.

The partisan split there, percentage-wise: 52.5 percent.

This isn’t exact science, or science at all – just reading tea leaves.

Basically, the Rs seem to have done a better job getting their voters to the polls early than the Ds have, again, just a smidge.

Abigail Spanberger led a statewide sweep for Democrats in November, getting 57.6 percent of the vote at the top of the state ticket.

The polls going into Tuesday have the “Yes” side of the redistricting referendum polling in the +4 to +5 range, which would end up at 52 percent to 52.5 percent-ish.