Virginia Mega Thread: The Youngkin Administration

[kwabbit]

Jimmie and I made note of the consistent trend of underestimating the out party in these VA gubernatorial elections. That has been an average of 4 points. Polls have been underestimating the Dems in Dem states recently however. Altogether, the safest assumption should be not to expect polling error. VA is not that blue, the national environment is quickly becoming toxic to Dems, and Youngkin is a decent candidate. Those come together to a D+2 race, which is about where the race stands. Hedging expectations based on the 2017 error is faulty; for polling to have shown that race being within 3 points was suspect in the first place. Trump was deeply unpopular and he had lost VA by 5 points the year before. The expectation should've been a D+10 victory. Therefore saying 'well the polls were in the same place last time and Northam won by 9 so McAuliffe will win by 9' is misanalysing the race.

[Non Swing Voter]

https://twitter.com/kabir_here/status/1450830169460117506

What is a more typical PVI at this point? This sounds high.

Everyone is rushing. Really you only get useful data when you have turnout + makeup. In effect, if in 10 days we are at 950K+ and and perhaps 40%+ of the final electorate, we can begin to get minimums for things like turnout by education/race. But it is really early now.

Anything more is speculative. There is some stuff there but it is mostly

1. Appalachian post 2009 Rs do not care. Turnout in VA-9 and rural white areas is abysmal. Even by historic standards. Zero sign these Rs are engaged.
2. African American turnout seems to be "ok". By that I mean not good, but better than one would expect so far, and not falling back to 2010 or 2014 levels.
3. Hispanics arent voting at all

4. This looks to be a suburban election. By that, I mean the only people who seem particularly engaged are suburban voters.

#4 probably explains both campaigns. It is less they know what is happening specifically with those voters, and more they seem to be the only voters who care.

Also, I think Youngkin may have made a serious campaign blunder but it isn't the one everyone on this board thinks. I actually believe Youngkin has fallen victim to the desire of his DC based staffers to be lazy and not travel outside their comfort zone. They are running an NOVA campaign not because of some grand strategy, but because they don't want to travel too far or hang out in Appalachia and they have decided to come up with analysis about CRT etc to justify why NOVA is the key area. The thing is I am not sure it is. By that I mean even if the huge outpouring of effort makes a slight difference there, if they run no operation whatsoever in VA-9 no one else will. Those aren't historically GOP machine areas and if Youngkin isn't, Trump isn't on the ballot, CRT isn't going on in their schools, why are they going to vote?

Youngkin seems to be spending his whole campaign budget and GOTV operation on trying to turn 36%-45% Trump areas 44%-53%. He is spending from what I can see zero time or effort on turning out 75%+ Trump areas.

Or perhaps Youngkin isn't traveling to Appalachia because they don't want the people there to see that they have nothing in common with a bagillionaire from Great Falls who would never hang out with them prior to this campaign and doesn't even have the charisma of Donald Trump to fake it?

[Non Swing Voter]

Jimmie and I made note of the consistent trend of underestimating the out party in these VA gubernatorial elections. That has been an average of 4 points. Polls have been underestimating the Dems in Dem states recently however. Altogether, the safest assumption should be not to expect polling error. VA is not that blue, the national environment is quickly becoming toxic to Dems, and Youngkin is a decent candidate. Those come together to a D+2 race, which is about where the race stands. Hedging expectations based on the 2017 error is faulty; for polling to have shown that race being within 3 points was suspect in the first place. Trump was deeply unpopular and he had lost VA by 5 points the year before. The expectation should've been a D+10 victory. Therefore saying 'well the polls were in the same place last time and Northam won by 9 so McAuliffe will win by 9' is misanalysing the race.

It's pretty blue.  And the problem for the GOP is that the off year electorate tends to be more blue.  I doubt Youngkin can keep the margin down to 2.  The votes just aren't there.  But we'll see....

[kwabbit]

Jimmie and I made note of the consistent trend of underestimating the out party in these VA gubernatorial elections. That has been an average of 4 points. Polls have been underestimating the Dems in Dem states recently however. Altogether, the safest assumption should be not to expect polling error. VA is not that blue, the national environment is quickly becoming toxic to Dems, and Youngkin is a decent candidate. Those come together to a D+2 race, which is about where the race stands. Hedging expectations based on the 2017 error is faulty; for polling to have shown that race being within 3 points was suspect in the first place. Trump was deeply unpopular and he had lost VA by 5 points the year before. The expectation should've been a D+10 victory. Therefore saying 'well the polls were in the same place last time and Northam won by 9 so McAuliffe will win by 9' is misanalysing the race.

It's pretty blue.  And the problem for the GOP is that the off year electorate tends to be more blue.  I doubt Youngkin can keep the margin down to 2.  The votes just aren't there.  But we'll see....

It voted 6 points to the left of the nation in 2020. It's solidly blue and would never go R in a presidential year but it's not Maryland. It's been 7 years since a GOP environment, and states with VA's lean can become very close when the national environment shifts by 10 points as it often does in midterms from the presidential. VA is 5 more points to the left compared to 2014, but the popular Warner was almost caught sleeping by a low-key campaign.

The votes aren't there until they are. Dealing in absolutes is foolish in politics. The blue wall was insurmountable until it wasn't. The votes weren't there in GA until they were.

[cg41386]

Jimmie and I made note of the consistent trend of underestimating the out party in these VA gubernatorial elections. That has been an average of 4 points. Polls have been underestimating the Dems in Dem states recently however. Altogether, the safest assumption should be not to expect polling error. VA is not that blue, the national environment is quickly becoming toxic to Dems, and Youngkin is a decent candidate. Those come together to a D+2 race, which is about where the race stands. Hedging expectations based on the 2017 error is faulty; for polling to have shown that race being within 3 points was suspect in the first place. Trump was deeply unpopular and he had lost VA by 5 points the year before. The expectation should've been a D+10 victory. Therefore saying 'well the polls were in the same place last time and Northam won by 9 so McAuliffe will win by 9' is misanalysing the race.

Mmm, I don't know.

[KaiserDave]

Safe D before this poll, and Safe D after.




Nuff said

Not falling for the Virginia game

[kwabbit]

Jimmie and I made note of the consistent trend of underestimating the out party in these VA gubernatorial elections. That has been an average of 4 points. Polls have been underestimating the Dems in Dem states recently however. Altogether, the safest assumption should be not to expect polling error. VA is not that blue, the national environment is quickly becoming toxic to Dems, and Youngkin is a decent candidate. Those come together to a D+2 race, which is about where the race stands. Hedging expectations based on the 2017 error is faulty; for polling to have shown that race being within 3 points was suspect in the first place. Trump was deeply unpopular and he had lost VA by 5 points the year before. The expectation should've been a D+10 victory. Therefore saying 'well the polls were in the same place last time and Northam won by 9 so McAuliffe will win by 9' is misanalysing the race.

Mmm, I don't know.

Of course no Democrats will think Youngkin is a good candidate since he only says things they disagree with. But he's decidedly not toxic, which is enough to be decent.

[wbrocks67]

Obama has cut an ad for T-Mac. Same timing as CA race.

https://twitter.com/merica/status/1450877950941876229

[Devils30]

Can we all just accept there is a lot we don't know? It is the first post Trump-era large state election and one that did underestimate Dems in 2017 (albeit it did the same to GOP in 2013). Until we get actual numbers it is difficult to make predictions about 2022. So far special elections this year have shown little crossover from 2020 but these are small ones with low turnout. Accept the unknown and wait for the data in 13 days.

[Woody]

https://twitter.com/RudyGiuliani/status/1450588352093294592

[GeorgiaModerate]

Can we all just accept there is a lot we don't know? It is the first post Trump-era large state election and one that did underestimate Dems in 2017 (albeit it did the same to GOP in 2013). Until we get actual numbers it is difficult to make predictions about 2022. So far special elections this year have shown little crossover from 2020 but these are small ones with low turnout. Accept the unknown and wait for the data in 13 days.

I completely agree with your point about there being a lot of unknowns, but ISTR there was just a recent election in a pretty large state out west somewhere.

[Xing]

McAuliffe might not win by a lot, but my reaction to Atlas still acting as though Virginia is a swing state in 2021:

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Here are the interviews.

https://wjla.com/news/local/watch-7news-goes-one-on-one-with-virginia-gubernatorial-candidates-terry-mcauliffe-glenn-youngkin

McAuliffe answered yes when asked if he would mandate COVID vaccine for kids in schools.  Not sure why he thinks viewers wouldn't care about that, or crime, or education.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Here are the interviews.

https://wjla.com/news/local/watch-7news-goes-one-on-one-with-virginia-gubernatorial-candidates-terry-mcauliffe-glenn-youngkin

McAuliffe answered yes when asked if he would mandate COVID vaccine for kids in schools.  Not sure why he thinks viewers wouldn't care about that, or crime, or education.

I suspect that yes is the winning side of that question in all but the most Republican states.

[LAB-LIB]

I've seen enough, Glenn Youngkin (R) has defeated Terry McAuliffe (D) in the Virginia Governor's Race.

[BoiseBoy]

Giuliani just posted cringe. Youngkin is going to loose voter.

[Matty]

https://mobile.twitter.com/HotlineJosh/status/1450939025561464842

[wbrocks67]

https://mobile.twitter.com/HotlineJosh/status/1450939025561464842

Well yes, this is a more favorable poll clearly for the GOP than they've gotten recently, so that's not a big surprise.

[Progressive Pessimist]

McAuliffe might not win by a lot, but my reaction to Atlas still acting as though Virginia is a swing state in 2021:

Tell that to the media too.

[Pericles]

Lol, even leaving aside whatever this is supposed to be, you don't want to have Rudy Giuliani's endorsement nowadays.

[Progressive Pessimist]

I thought this was irony at first until I saw the exclamation point and realized it was a Woodbury thread.

Yeah, I actually think this is a net negative for Youngkin. For someone who wants to present himself as someone just as appealing to moderates as to the Trump base, this is not really the endorsement that makes that case.

[DrScholl]

Mental illness is real.

[wbrocks67]

McAuliffe might not win by a lot, but my reaction to Atlas still acting as though Virginia is a swing state in 2021:

Tell that to the media too.

At this rate, I'm expecting Morning Joe to call it for Youngkin this year just like they did for Gillepsie in 2017.

[Non Swing Voter]

Jimmie and I made note of the consistent trend of underestimating the out party in these VA gubernatorial elections. That has been an average of 4 points. Polls have been underestimating the Dems in Dem states recently however. Altogether, the safest assumption should be not to expect polling error. VA is not that blue, the national environment is quickly becoming toxic to Dems, and Youngkin is a decent candidate. Those come together to a D+2 race, which is about where the race stands. Hedging expectations based on the 2017 error is faulty; for polling to have shown that race being within 3 points was suspect in the first place. Trump was deeply unpopular and he had lost VA by 5 points the year before. The expectation should've been a D+10 victory. Therefore saying 'well the polls were in the same place last time and Northam won by 9 so McAuliffe will win by 9' is misanalysing the race.

It's pretty blue.  And the problem for the GOP is that the off year electorate tends to be more blue.  I doubt Youngkin can keep the margin down to 2.  The votes just aren't there.  But we'll see....

It voted 6 points to the left of the nation in 2020. It's solidly blue and would never go R in a presidential year but it's not Maryland. It's been 7 years since a GOP environment, and states with VA's lean can become very close when the national environment shifts by 10 points as it often does in midterms from the presidential. VA is 5 more points to the left compared to 2014, but the popular Warner was almost caught sleeping by a low-key campaign.

The votes aren't there until they are. Dealing in absolutes is foolish in politics. The blue wall was insurmountable until it wasn't. The votes weren't there in GA until they were.

The difference is that GA was clearly trending blue.  Virginia is not trending red.  The votes aren't there for Youngkin to get to 50 and there's no evidence that anything has changed that since 2020.

[Non Swing Voter]

Jimmie and I made note of the consistent trend of underestimating the out party in these VA gubernatorial elections. That has been an average of 4 points. Polls have been underestimating the Dems in Dem states recently however. Altogether, the safest assumption should be not to expect polling error. VA is not that blue, the national environment is quickly becoming toxic to Dems, and Youngkin is a decent candidate. Those come together to a D+2 race, which is about where the race stands. Hedging expectations based on the 2017 error is faulty; for polling to have shown that race being within 3 points was suspect in the first place. Trump was deeply unpopular and he had lost VA by 5 points the year before. The expectation should've been a D+10 victory. Therefore saying 'well the polls were in the same place last time and Northam won by 9 so McAuliffe will win by 9' is misanalysing the race.

Mmm, I don't know.

Of course no Democrats will think Youngkin is a good candidate since he only says things they disagree with. But he's decidedly not toxic, which is enough to be decent.

He's fake AF which makes him decidedly toxic because he'll say or do anything to get or maintain power.  He'll lie about vaccine positions for instance and encourage supporters to baselessly refuse the vaccine and masks.  He's no different than a President who would lie about weapons of mass destruction rnd start a war if it serves his personal interests.