CHESAPEAKE, Va. — After months of political ads, campaign mailers, yard signs and text messages, some Chesapeake voters heading to the polls on Election Day said they have one thing in common: They’re ready for election season to be over.
News 3 Chesapeake reporter Erin Holly spoke with voters in Deep Creek about voter fatigue and the messages they have seen throughout the campaign.
For several voters, one word kept coming up when describing the tone of the election: negative.
“I think mostly negative,” Chesapeake voter Jeff Short said.
“All negative. It’s like you just want us to hate the other person,” voter Derimia Smith said.
“Well most of them have been negative, you know,” voter Alton Hodges said.
Negative campaigning, particularly when voters are exposed to large amounts of it, can affect how people feel about an election.
News 3 spoke with Old Dominion University political science professor Jesse Richman about voter fatigue during last year’s election cycle.
“Negative advertising, especially when negative advertising is at a really high intensity, can turn off some voters, can lead some people to just be ready for Election Day to be over,” Richman said.
That feeling was familiar to some of the voters News 3 spoke with Tuesday.
Short said the volume of political mail he's received contributed to his frustration.
“Just so many flyers in the mail, I mean I’ve been really just throwing them away,” Short said. “Just inundated with that stuff. I see it enough on TV. I don’t need 800 flyers a day coming into my mailbox.”
Smith said she is also tired of hearing candidates and campaigns focus on their opponents.
“All the different, ‘I don’t like this person,’ ‘this person did this,’ and ‘this person is for this,'—I’m over it,” Smith said. “I’m tired. I’m ready for all of this to be over with.”
Despite those feelings of election fatigue, early voting increased significantly across Virginia compared with the 2022 midterm.
According to data provided by the Virginia Public Access Project, 1,648,468 early ballots had been cast in Virginia as of Nov. 2. That's 671,910 more than the 976,558 early ballots cast during the entire 2022 midterm, an increase of nearly 69%.
The comparison does not necessarily mean overall voter turnout will be 69% higher. It shows that substantially more Virginia voters chose to cast their ballots early this year than during the 2022 midterm. Final turnout numbers will include votes cast on Election Day.
For Short, the frustration comes down not only to how many campaign messages voters receive, but also what those messages say.
“No one ever focuses on what the candidate can do for you, but why you shouldn’t vote for the other candidate,” Short said. “I wish they would just tell me what they can do for me, more.”
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