Tuesday is Election Day in Virginia, but thousands of voters have already cast ballots for the 140 House and Senate seats up for grabs.
Here’s a look at some of the early voting turnout and the amount of money raised by some candidates this year:
Early voting began Sept. 22 and ended Saturday. During that time, 776,931 people cast ballots in Virginia, according to the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project. That’s compared to 1,194,185 people who voted early in the 2021 elections. A little more than a third of the 3.2 million votes cast in Virginia’s 2021 general elections were cast through early voting or absentee ballot.
Early voting turnout appears down compared to 2021, when the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and House of Delegates seats were on the ballot. Here are the number of ballots cast during early voting in Hampton Roads cities, according to VPAP:
- Chesapeake: 21,939, compared to 39,904 in 2021
- Hampton: 9,081, compared to 16,437 in 2021
- Newport News: 10,286, compared to 16,395 in 2021
- Norfolk: 11,897, compared to 20,026 in 2021
- Portsmouth: 5,753, compared to 8,366 in 2021
- Suffolk: 10,273, compared to 12,262 in 2021
- Virginia Beach: 38,489, compared to 56,045 in 2021
The popularity of early and absentee voting grew during the pandemic, when Virginia eased restrictions on the practice. Democrats at the national and state level have traditionally promoted early and mail-in voting as a secure process that makes it easier to cast ballots. But this year, Republicans launched their own initiative to encourage early voting.
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Campaign finance reports due Oct. 30 detail the most recent donations and expenditures by state Senate and House campaigns. Here’s how much was raised in political campaigns across the state from Oct. 1 through Oct. 26, according to analysis by VPAP.
- Democratic Senate campaigns raised $12.7 million.
- Republican Senate campaigns raised $10.6 million.
- Democratic House campaigns raised $14.2 million.
- Republican House campaigns raised $8.4 million.
In Hampton Roads, some campaigns have raked in millions of dollars over the course of the election season. The Senate District 24 race on the Peninsula, between Sen. Monty Mason and retired York-Poquoson sheriff Danny Diggs, is shaping up to be one of the most expensive. Here’s what the candidates’ campaigns raised in 2023, according to the latest Oct. 30 campaign finance reports:
- Diggs, a Republican, raised $3.56 million.
- Mason, a Democrat, raised $4.46 million.
Fundraising in another closely contested Hampton Roads race, House District 97 in Virginia Beach, also appears notable. As of Oct. 30, campaign finance reports from 2023 show:
- Democrat Michael Feggans raised $3.18 million.
- Republican Del. Karen Greenhalgh raised $2.73 million.
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In Virginia, politicians can legally spend campaign donations on essentially anything, and there’s no limit on who can donate or how much they can give. The lax rules make the commonwealth an outlier when it comes to laws on campaign spending.
Spending on statehouse campaigns has trended upward in recent years.
In the Senate, where 40 seats are up for election every four years, about $56.2 million was spent on elections in 2019, according to data from VPAP. That’s up from $52.5 million from 2015 and $42.6 million in 2011. The uptick was more notable in the House, where 100 seats are up for grabs every two years. Campaign spending totaled $81.4 million in 2021, up from $68.1 million in 2019 and $47 million from 2017.
Andrea Noble, andrea.noble@virginiamedia.com
