MEMO: AB/EV Program Makes Significant Impact on Virginia State Elections
To: Interested Parties
From: RSLC President Dee Duncan
Date: November 9, 2023
RE: AB/EV Program Makes Significant Impact on Virginia State Elections
Washington D.C. – Following the 2022 midterm elections, the RSLC understood the need to implement an aggressive Absentee Ballot and Early Voting (AB/EV) program targeting low propensity voters in order to win more races on the margins. Now that the 2023 state elections have concluded in Virginia, I wanted to share our findings with you.
While last night wasn’t the night Republicans were hoping for, the good news is that our AB/EV program successfully prevented the Democrats from claiming more seats in the Commonwealth.
TARGETING LOW-PROPENSITY VOTERS
In 2022, Democrats nationwide were highly effective at turning out low-propensity voters, winning elections on the margins – many of them by less than a few hundred votes. That’s why in 2023, the RSLC targeted a universe that included low-propensity voters, lean-Republicans, and swing voters who favored Governor Youngkin and his agenda. From our target universe we generated a 26% increase in absentee ballot requests from 2021 and a 32% increase in absentee ballot returns. In total, between AB/EV, we secured 26% of our target universe turnout goal heading into Election Day and converted twice as many low-propensity voters as we had set out to do. With the help of Governor Youngkin and his Spirit of Virginia PAC, we successfully increased AB/EV by 5.5% when compared to 2021.
In the following districts, our efforts to these voters pushed our candidates over the finish line:
In HD-22, a seat that we won by 1,631 votes, our program produced nearly 1,900 absentee and early votes.
In HD-57, a seat that we won by 966 votes, our program produced 1,344 absentee and early votes.
In HD-82, a seat that we are currently winning by 173 votes, our program produced 1,071 absentee and early votes with 626 of those votes coming from low-propensity voters.
In HD-89, a seat that we won by 741 votes, our program produced 1,593 absentee and early votes.
In SD-24, a seat that we won by 1,022 votes, our program produced 3,725 absentee and early votes with 1,393 of those votes coming from low-propensity voters.
In SD-27, a seat that we won by 1,527 votes, our program produced 3,735 absentee and early votes with 1,613 of those votes coming from low-propensity voters.
Without our AB/EV efforts, Virginia Republicans would likely be sitting at a 45-55 House of Delegates and a 17-23 Senate. This is why we must continue to focus on an AB/EV program that expands our base and turns out voters.
THE REALITIES OF REDISTRICTING
Virginia's political landscape underwent a significant transformation through the redistricting process that introduced a set of new maps. These newly drawn boundaries resulted in a noteworthy shift, as they predominantly favored Democrat-leaning districts across the state. Out of the 20 most contested districts, a staggering 14 now favor Democrats by an average of 4.2%. The impact of these redrawn boundaries was undeniable, reflecting a political climate where the balance of power was visibly tilting. Notably, Joe Biden carried 19 out of those 20 target districts back in 2020, underscoring the significance of redistricting in shaping the electoral landscape and the influence it exerted on election night.
Even with this imbalance, Republicans overperformed the 2020 GOP ticket in every district by more than 5%, averaging 10.4% across the board. In the districts we lost, Republicans still over-performed the 2020 GOP ticket by an average of 11%. The implications of these newly defined districts, however, raise critical questions about the future direction and balance of power in the state.
DEMOCRAT INVESTMENT
Democrats flooded Virginia with money leading up to Election Day. The RSLC PAC was proud to make its largest investment in Virginia history by committing well over $7 million dollars to help our candidates get across the finish line. Despite our historic investment, Democrats still outspent Republicans by $6 million on television ads alone. Additionally, our entire investment in Virginia throughout the election cycle was dwarfed by national Democrat spending in one month’s time. Down the final stretch of the election in October, the States Project invested $4.5 million, Joe Biden instructed the DNC to invest $1.5 million, and the DLCC invested another $1 million. This is on top of billionaire Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s PAC investing $250,000 within the final weeks, and liberal megadonor Michael Bills and his wife Sonjia Smith collectively investing $16 million throughout the cycle in Virginia.
CONCLUSION
Heading into a pivotal 2024 election cycle, it is imperative that Republicans continue to utilize our AB/EV model to target low-propensity voters and get out the vote. We have proven that our model can stave off an onslaught of Democrat spending in increasingly favorable Democrat-leaning districts, but we are going to need all Republicans and our partners to join us in implementing our program so that we can win more down-ballot elections with razor thin margins. It is going to take a significant increase in investment in order to implement our AB/EV program at the statewide level nationwide.
