By Edward Wu

(CNN) — Early voting data from Virginia suggests Democrats have an advantage in their push to enact a gerrymander that could net them as many as four US House seats in this fall’s midterms.

Groups backing the redistricting measure in an April 21 special election had long pointed to Saturday, April 11, as a date to watch, when many counties opened additional early voting sites. This included several population-heavy, Democratic-leaning counties in the Washington, DC, suburbs of Northern Virginia.

Next week’s referendum has major stakes for this fall’s midterms given the razor-thin House majority and the national redistricting battle launched at President Donald Trump’s behest last year.

House Speaker Mike Johnson campaigned this weekend with several Virginia Republicans whose seats would be sharply redrawn if the referendum succeeds. A day later, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries rallied supporters in Richmond, a sign of how both he and Johnson are aggressively fighting for a handful of seats that could help tip the House majority.

Nearly 63,000 early in-person votes were cast on Saturday, according to data from L2, slightly higher than the equivalent day ahead of last fall’s election in which Democrats swept all three statewide offices.

This year’s vote appeared more Democratic-leaning and more concentrated in Northern Virginia. Turnout in Northern Virginia was about 46% higher than the equivalent date last year, and roughly 57% of the statewide vote was cast in the region, up from 41% last year.

The early vote data overall finds that Saturday ended with partisan turnout across voting methods throughout the state basically unchanged from the equivalent point last year, when Democrat Abigail Spanberger cruised to victory by 15 points in the state’s gubernatorial race.

Partisan turnout is measured by comparing counts of voters who participated in only one party’s primaries over the last five major ones, since Virginia does not have party registration. Both last year and this year, Democratic primary participants had an 8-point lead in turnout early in-person or by mail over Republican primary participants.

There are some geographic differences. Despite the strong turnout in Northern Virginia on Saturday itself, the entirety of the shortfall in early votes relative to this point in 2025 comes from Northern Virginia. While the rest of the state had cast about 5,000 more votes through Saturday than it had in 2025 at this point, Northern Virginia still lags behind its 2025 turnout by about 39,000 votes.

CNN’s analysis found that this difference largely coincided with changes to access in early voting relative to last year.

Early voting access in Northern Virginia for much of the final three weeks before Election Day has been pared down compared with 2025, and it appears to be dampening pre-election turnout in the region. Prince William County, for example, had just one voting location open in the week ahead of April 11, compared with six locations during the same week last year. And Fairfax County, Virginia’s most populous county, expanded from three voting locations to 16 voting locations two days earlier last year than this year.

Northern Virginia voters who missed out on early voting due to access changes could shift to Election Day. But even if that area falls short of last year’s vote totals, opponents of redistricting face an uphill battle.

It would not be enough for the anti-redistricting side to simply outperform Republicans in last year’s election. A considerable improvement would be required to erase the 15-point statewide deficit notched by Republican gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears.

National headwinds for the ‘No’ campaign

The “No” campaign has been heavily outspent and faces an electoral environment that has decidedly favored Democratic-aligned causes. A win or even a close loss would buck national trends.

A strongly motivated Democratic base and persuasion among independent and Republican voters have led to consistently strong Democratic performances in elections since Donald Trump’s return to the White House. A similar redistricting push in California won by 29 points last November, nine points ahead of Democratic candidate Kamala Harris’ 2024 margin in the state.

A recent poll from the Washington Post and George Mason University’s Schar School on the ballot measure found Republicans with a considerable advantage in motivation to vote, with Republicans about 7 points likelier than Democrats to describe themselves as certain to vote. Even with that advantage, likely voters in the poll supported the amendment to redraw the state’s districts by a 5-point margin.

Aside from turnout shifts, another path to success for those who oppose the redistricting ballot measure could come via persuasion. But the Post-Schar poll found political independents in favor of the measure, with few defections among partisans and partisan-leaners.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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