VA-Gov 2021: Herring for AG after submitting to resident political overlord T-MAC

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This far out, I see this coming down to McAuliffe (money, institutional backing) and Carroll-Foy (next generation, grassroots support) with Carroll-Foy having the edge due to gender, racial, and geographic advantages.

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Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy files paperwork to run for governor

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Can we merge this with the other VA Gov thread?

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Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy files paperwork to run for governor

How do you think she would do as a candidate?

I would guess very well. Virginia isn't a state I work in (though it will probably be assigned to me if I move there, which I'm currently planning on) so I haven't seen any numbers on her. But I imagine that her becoming the first Black female governor in America would be an appealing point to many Dem primary voters, especially given the complications with Northam and Herring, and her youthfulness/likely generational change message would do well for her against McAuliffe if he gets in.

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Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy files paperwork to run for governor

How do you think she would do as a candidate?

I would guess very well. Virginia isn't a state I work in (though it will probably be assigned to me if I move there, which I'm currently planning on) so I haven't seen any numbers on her. But I imagine that her becoming the first Black female governor in America would be an appealing point to many Dem primary voters, especially given the complications with Northam and Herring, and her youthfulness/likely generational change message would do well for her against McAuliffe if he gets in.

VA in 2020/2021 is different than the VA I grew up and voted in but I'd guess that while Foy would be a compelling candidate in a general she'd still probably lose to T-Mac. VA isn't a machine state but Dems there have a lot of party loyalty; there aren't very many Dems in leadership outside of the party mainstream or who haven't been in the party for a while. With gov experience McAuliffe would still be a heavy favorite in that race and I think he'd actually be able to negate some of Foy's possible advantage with AAs if you discount Richmond.

This.  Progressive vaguely outsider candidates have almost always flopped in VA Dem primaries.  See Tom Perriello 2017, also Aneesh Chopra and Justin Fairfax running as the progressive alternatives to establishment Northam and Herring in 2013.

Also, while it's not quite Tammany Hall, the one (consecutive) term governor system with unlimited terms for LG and AG definitely encourages "you'll get your turn" machine politics and staying quiet about scandals/corruption.  That's a big part of how Northam and Fairfax got as far as they did without their scandals coming out until years after they already won statewide.

T Mac was assumed to be a scandal machine at the time he ran, but he was probably the best governor of VA in recent times.

I agree with both of you - and a lot of this has to do as well with the sheer number of party insiders who live in Arlington and work in DC. McAuliffe likely the favorite if he runs, but probably not prohibitively so.