What does Tuesday’s high primary turnout mean for the November elections? 

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- Virginia voters turned out in relatively large numbers to choose the Democratic nominees for lieutenant governor and attorney general on Tuesday, June 17.

In fact, as of the morning of Friday, June 20, more people voted in this year’s Democratic lieutenant governor primary than in 2021, when Democrats also had a gubernatorial primary on the ballot. 

As of Friday morning, 485,441 votes were cast in Tuesday’s primary to choose the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor. That’s compared to 485,365 votes cast in the same race in 2021. 

“As usual with anything in politics, there’s a number of overlapping factors here,” said Randolph-Macon Political Science Professor Rich Meagher.

Meagher added that the high turnout could be attributed to a number of things. First, the fact that six different candidates from different parts of Virginia sought the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor.

“I think people in the Tidewater region, for example, were motivated to vote for Aaron Rouse. I think people in Central Virginia were motivated to vote for Ghazala Hashmi,” Meagher said.

Second, the fact that the Democrats really dislike President Donald Trump. 

“The argument about the first blue wave that we had in 2017 here in Virginia was that Trump so angered Democrats in Virginia that they rushed to the polls to vote for Democrats because that’s the only thing they could do. They couldn’t vote directly against Trump, but they could repudiate his party,” Meagher said. 

Despite that, Meagher said turnout in one party’s primary election doesn’t tell us much about who will win in November. 

“It suggests I think the Democrats, that whatever they’ve been doing is working, and they should continue to do it, but for Republicans, I think they haven’t had a test yet. They haven’t had a big primary that would show them what they’re doing is working or not, whether they have to change their strategies,” Meagher told 8News. 

It’s important to note that there could still be provisional and mail-in ballots outstanding, so turnout numbers could change slightly before the results are finalized.