Virginia Mega Thread: The Youngkin Administration

[Spectator]

Virginia has really turned into a pretty boring state politically. Biden still would have won the state by a few points even if you remove Fairfax County, Arlington, and Alexandria. Republicans are finished statewide here.

[Spectator]

Virginia voted 52D-47R for the House of Representatives in 2020, and that was frankly with a bunch of not-very-competent Republican candidates running (Bob Good, Nick Freitas) throughout the state. The state Democratic party has had a bunch of scandals over the past two years and Northam's approvals are weak; moreover, Youngkin will probably be able to outspend McAuliffe.

(Youngkin also fits the mold of the sort of Republican who wins or does well in gubernatorial elections in blue states -- big spender without much of a political record at all running at a Democrat highly affiliated with the state government -- but I don't know that that's actually necessary since VA is double-digits to the right of all of these places).

Anyway, I think D+5 -- which is treading water with 2020 -- would be a good outcome here for Democrats. I agree that McAuliffe is favored -- this is a Leans D state and Youngkin is unproven enough that you could see him crashing and burning -- but I'd put Youngkin's odds of winning at maybe 35-40%.

If Republicans are already on track for a 2010/2014 wave in 2022 by November, then Youngkin will need to win. The environment can change in a year -- in 2013, the reasons for the 2014 wave hadn't really congealed yet -- but Youngkin losing would mean the wave isn't there yet. A narrow loss for Youngkin would still mean they're on track to take the House/Senate, mind, they just wouldn't be doing it very impressively.

If Democrats are on track to hold the House, they should definitely improve off of D+5. Holding steady with Northam/Gillespie would be a very good sign. If McAuliffe wins by double-digits, like some have suggested, it would be a result characteristic of 2022 being a Democratic wave where they might hold the House. (But, again, a year is long enough for things to change).

Did you adjust for Morgan Griffith being unopposed in VA-09?

No, it doesn’t seem Vosem did. You can conservatively estimate the Dem there would have gotten 100,000 votes. That would bump the Democrats’ statewide margin to 300,000. The only big outlier in Comgressional performance relative to the Presidential results was in VA-01 where Wittman won 59 to 41, but Trump only won it by 4%. Everywhere else was about in line with what you would expect, except a small Democrat underperformance in NOVA.

[Spectator]

Virginia voted 52D-47R for the House of Representatives in 2020, and that was frankly with a bunch of not-very-competent Republican candidates running (Bob Good, Nick Freitas) throughout the state. The state Democratic party has had a bunch of scandals over the past two years and Northam's approvals are weak; moreover, Youngkin will probably be able to outspend McAuliffe.

(Youngkin also fits the mold of the sort of Republican who wins or does well in gubernatorial elections in blue states -- big spender without much of a political record at all running at a Democrat highly affiliated with the state government -- but I don't know that that's actually necessary since VA is double-digits to the right of all of these places).

Anyway, I think D+5 -- which is treading water with 2020 -- would be a good outcome here for Democrats. I agree that McAuliffe is favored -- this is a Leans D state and Youngkin is unproven enough that you could see him crashing and burning -- but I'd put Youngkin's odds of winning at maybe 35-40%.

If Republicans are already on track for a 2010/2014 wave in 2022 by November, then Youngkin will need to win. The environment can change in a year -- in 2013, the reasons for the 2014 wave hadn't really congealed yet -- but Youngkin losing would mean the wave isn't there yet. A narrow loss for Youngkin would still mean they're on track to take the House/Senate, mind, they just wouldn't be doing it very impressively.

If Democrats are on track to hold the House, they should definitely improve off of D+5. Holding steady with Northam/Gillespie would be a very good sign. If McAuliffe wins by double-digits, like some have suggested, it would be a result characteristic of 2022 being a Democratic wave where they might hold the House. (But, again, a year is long enough for things to change).

Did you adjust for Morgan Griffith being unopposed in VA-09?

No, but it doesn't change much since this is a seat where Democrats rarely break 1/3 and are poorly organized in. Assigning an appropriate fraction of Griffith's vote to the Democrats, whether by universal swing from 2018 or 2016, gets you to D+7, though if assume many of those were under-voters (Biden/no vote for House, rather than Biden/House R) it goes to D+6. (National House vote was D+3 -- not sure which side left more seats uncontested, though. By contrast, Virginia was D+10 presidentially while the nation was D+5).

(Basically, Virginia is somewhere 2-5 points left of the US, and getting further left over time. But that's still perfectly winnable for the GOP in a good year, and you'd expect them to take it in a wave. The opposite-side counterpart isn't OH/IA, but somewhere like NC. Which I guess Democrats have had a lot of trouble winning recently, but it isn't unwinnable.)

North Carolina is far from a good comparison to being the Republican version of Virginia. The best analogy would be Ohio where Democrats have a solid floor but can never win. Even that is not the best example since at least Ohio Democrats have won statewide elections occasionally in the past ten years. Virginia Republicans have not.

[Spectator]

Every Democrat in Virginia should unite and vote for TMac in the primary. We must do all we can to prevent Lee Carter from being the nominee. Lee Carter would be destroyed. Oh and of course.. our rapist Lt. Governor.

It would be nice if the other candidates dropped out today, and endorsed TMAC before Youngkin is able to blast the airwaves and build up an insurmountable lead. We’ll see how many of them actually value keeping the far-right out of power over continuing their divisive vanity campaigns though.

Basically I think the HoD is a toss up with McAufflie.

My predictions are:

Tmac by 3 over Youngkin

Jennifer Carol Foy or Jennifer Mcclellan would lose to Youngkin by 7 to 10.

Fairfax or Carter by atleast 15 points losing to Youngkin.

An underrated possibility is that R's snag LG and or AG if McAuliffe wins narrowly, but after seeing the 2020 results, there are now 51 HOD districts that are clearly left of the state.  Pretty easy to see them falling to exactly 51 on a bad night, though.  

Yes.. the redraw made seat 51 quite strong.

I would be interested to see if the GOP tries to contest VA in 2024 if they manage to win everything in November and retake the state senate in 2023.

Stop being melodramatic. If the GOP wins the governor’s race, it’s a fluke like Democrats winning a random race in Iowa.

[Spectator]

Every Democrat in Virginia should unite and vote for TMac in the primary. We must do all we can to prevent Lee Carter from being the nominee. Lee Carter would be destroyed. Oh and of course.. our rapist Lt. Governor.

It would be nice if the other candidates dropped out today, and endorsed TMAC before Youngkin is able to blast the airwaves and build up an insurmountable lead. We’ll see how many of them actually value keeping the far-right out of power over continuing their divisive vanity campaigns though.

Basically I think the HoD is a toss up with McAufflie.

My predictions are:

Tmac by 3 over Youngkin

Jennifer Carol Foy or Jennifer Mcclellan would lose to Youngkin by 7 to 10.

Fairfax or Carter by atleast 15 points losing to Youngkin.

An underrated possibility is that R's snag LG and or AG if McAuliffe wins narrowly, but after seeing the 2020 results, there are now 51 HOD districts that are clearly left of the state.  Pretty easy to see them falling to exactly 51 on a bad night, though.  

Yes.. the redraw made seat 51 quite strong.

I would be interested to see if the GOP tries to contest VA in 2024 if they manage to win everything in November and retake the state senate in 2023.

Stop being melodramatic. If the GOP wins the governor’s race, it’s a fluke like Democrats winning a random race in Iowa.

It is not being melodramatic. And contesting a state doesn't mean it will be successful. We all know how success Biden's appearances in Ohio were.

It is melodramatic to imply that you think Youngkin and the GOP will sweep the Virginia of 2021. You already made the outlandish suggestion that Youngkin would win easily over anyone not named Terry McAuliffe. Are Democrats gonna win Iowa if Rob Sand becomes the gubernatorial nominee there because he likes to put on his hunting outfit and put on a show for the rural voters there? No. So stop acting like the GOP is going to win here outside of an alleged rapist winning the Democrat nod.

[Spectator]

The big lesson here is: There is ZERO chance that Democrats will continue to perform as well as they have during the Trump era with college educated whites.

It would really help the signal to noise ratio of this entire thread if you didn’t post anything unless you had some hard facts or logic behind them.

[Spectator]

The big lesson here is: There is ZERO chance that Democrats will continue to perform as well as they have during the Trump era with college educated whites.

It would really help the signal to noise ratio of this entire thread if you didn’t post anything unless you had some hard facts or logic behind them.

Look at the results of the Georgia Special Elections in January. Oh and of course the result of VA HOD special election in district 2. A district is is nearly unanimously college educated white.

Then maybe articulate those points instead of spewing brain diarrhea like “Youngkin is going to win by double digits” and “TMAC will win by 3 now”  or “I predict this thread will have 100 pages” every other post. It’s not insightful at all, and really clutters up this thread while contributing nothing to it. It will probably have 100 pages of mostly useless drivel if this keeps up.

[Spectator]

https://www.npr.org/2021/05/10/995715076/virginia-gop-chooses-political-newcomer-youngkin-as-nominee-for-governor

This guy is wildly out of touch with the Virginia general electorate.  He's not diverse.  He does not have an appealing background.  He seems unlikable.  This race is Safe D.

Maybe up in Fake Virginia he is... but in the rest of the state, his policies are more in line with public & more helpful and attractive.

Clinton would have beaten Trump in Virginia even if no votes were counted in Arlington, Alexandria, and the "inside the beltway" portion of Fairfax. Biden would have defeated Trump in Virginia even if no votes were counted in Arlington, Alexandria, all of Fairfax, and Prince William. It looks like "Fake Virginia" is growing ever larger each election cycle. Soon there won't be any "Real Virginia" left east of the mountains.

And that’s exactly why I can’t think of a path to victory for the GOP. They’d have to turn those 25-30 point losses in Loudoun, PWC, and Henrico County to about single digits, and I don’t see how that’s possible unless Democrats forget to show up. Youngkin can’t squeeze any more than Trump already did out of the rural vote, so to make up the 10 point margin in the state, it has to come from Ivan and suburban Dem-leaning voters being won over.

[Spectator]

https://www.npr.org/2021/05/10/995715076/virginia-gop-chooses-political-newcomer-youngkin-as-nominee-for-governor

This guy is wildly out of touch with the Virginia general electorate.  He's not diverse.  He does not have an appealing background.  He seems unlikable.  This race is Safe D.

Maybe up in Fake Virginia he is... but in the rest of the state, his policies are more in line with public & more helpful and attractive.

Well, but so called "Fake Virginia" makes up a larger share of the population. And that's how elections are won.

Republicans like SirWoodbury don't actually believe in democracy.

especially when you call a region of the state fake.

Literally no Republican unironically uses terms like "libs" or "Fake Virginia" (certainly, the vast majority of Republicans don’t). You people should know better than to fall for his lame, lame act because your replies to him are far more annoying than his shtick (which is easy to ignore).

I don’t know. I hear “radical leftists” and “SJW’s” from people occasionally  in my everyday life. I don’t think it’s uncommon.

[Spectator]

https://www.npr.org/2021/05/10/995715076/virginia-gop-chooses-political-newcomer-youngkin-as-nominee-for-governor

This guy is wildly out of touch with the Virginia general electorate.  He's not diverse.  He does not have an appealing background.  He seems unlikable.  This race is Safe D.

Maybe up in Fake Virginia he is... but in the rest of the state, his policies are more in line with public & more helpful and attractive.

Clinton would have beaten Trump in Virginia even if no votes were counted in Arlington, Alexandria, and the "inside the beltway" portion of Fairfax. Biden would have defeated Trump in Virginia even if no votes were counted in Arlington, Alexandria, all of Fairfax, and Prince William. It looks like "Fake Virginia" is growing ever larger each election cycle. Soon there won't be any "Real Virginia" left east of the mountains.

Warner would have still won last year without any votes from Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax County, Fairfax City, PWC, Loudoun County, Manassas, Fredericksburg, Falls Church, and Stafford County. People fail to see it’s not just NOVA that has taken a sharp left turn the past 10 years. It’s the fact that Republicans are struggling in Chesterfield County, Henrico County, Lynchburg, Virginia Beach, and Chesapeake that is the real death knell for the VA GOP. They need to be winning these places by good margins to win statewide.

[Spectator]

I put it Lean D as well.  It's easy to see Youngkin cutting the margin to McAuliffe +2-4, but he needs everything to go right to get beyond that.

Wouldn't it be more Likely D then? I'm not sure if folks are rating based on margins or likelihood

Margins.

That’s dumb. If we’re rating based on margins, Florida and Nevada would always be Tossup, but when one party wins 90% of races in those states, that’s not really a Tossup.

[Spectator]

Before the Glenn Youngkin nomination, I had this election as Lean Democrat. After the Glenn Youngkin nomination, I still have this race as Lean D. It has been wildly amusing to see people on twitter go from saying VA GOV is Safe D to now saying its Lean R or even Safe R pick up.

One take I have is that this nomination has woken the Virginia Democratic Party up and now they will not take this race for granted. I could have easily seen a nominee like Kirk Cox quietly win the governors race with a complacent Democratic base. That will not happen now.

Funny, you were one of those people on here having those changes of heart every post.

[Spectator]

There are no “national implications” to be gleaned from a state that is 6 points to the left of the country besides the fact that if Democrats somehow lose this, we’re looking at a tsunami next year.

[Spectator]

Honestly if VA dems get smart they could carve Carroll-Foy a seat in the House and kick out Rob Wittman, she really deserves it.

They unilaterally disarmed their gerrymandering powers.

[Spectator]

Okay, we are at 41 pages now. My goal is to hit 100 pages by end of election night. Let's do this!

Just not with maps that have Virginia Beach going Democratic.

If you continue rambling and asserting things without any evidence and telling us what ignorant PredictIt people think even when we didn’t ask for it, 100 pages should be really easy.

[Spectator]

Question:

In 2020, did gop congressional candidates significantly outrun Trump in VA?

Biden beat T by 10+ in VA

What was the house margin in va?

Significantly.

51.99% D to 47.23% R

Bear in mind that Griffith in VA-09 was unopposed, while the GOP ran candidates in every district, skewing numbers slightly.

If you adjust for that, what does the margin look like?

It makes so much more sense to compare the 2021 gov result to the 2020 house results

Around 7-8%. All the NOVA Democrats ran behind Biden by small to significant amounts (Wittman’s opponent). However, Luria and Spanberger were nominally ahead of Biden.

[Spectator]

Question:

In 2020, did gop congressional candidates significantly outrun Trump in VA?

Biden beat T by 10+ in VA

What was the house margin in va?

Significantly.

51.99% D to 47.23% R

Bear in mind that Griffith in VA-09 was unopposed, while the GOP ran candidates in every district, skewing numbers slightly.

If you adjust for that, what does the margin look like?

It makes so much more sense to compare the 2021 gov result to the 2020 house results

If you adjust for Griffith running unopposed, the margin is similar to Biden/Trump, but slightly better for the GOP. The improvement is solely the result of Biden keeping VA-01 close (4 point loss) while Wittman crushed his opponent (a twitter progressive with a muslim name). All races besides 01/09 had extremely close margins to the presidential.

Wexton did poorly compared to Biden, too. No one noticed though since she still won by double digits.

[Spectator]

Question:

In 2020, did gop congressional candidates significantly outrun Trump in VA?

Biden beat T by 10+ in VA

What was the house margin in va?

Significantly.

51.99% D to 47.23% R

Bear in mind that Griffith in VA-09 was unopposed, while the GOP ran candidates in every district, skewing numbers slightly.

If you adjust for that, what does the margin look like?

It makes so much more sense to compare the 2021 gov result to the 2020 house results

If you adjust for Griffith running unopposed, the margin is similar to Biden/Trump, but slightly better for the GOP. The improvement is solely the result of Biden keeping VA-01 close (4 point loss) while Wittman crushed his opponent (a twitter progressive with a muslim name). All races besides 01/09 had extremely close margins to the presidential.

Wexton did poorly compared to Biden, too. No one noticed though since she still won by double digits.

That's because she's significantly more liberal than the district.  She's my congresswoman.  She basically runs like she's in one of the other 2 NOVA districts even though this one is a bit less liberal.  Not too liberal to win easily though.

Or because there’s still a big bloc of voters that still haven’t shifted their voting habits downballot yet. She isn’t much more liberal than Biden is. It’s normal for there to be a lag in voting patterns. You can see this in Democrats doing better than Biden in many rural Midwestern House seats, or in Republicans doing a lot better than Trump in newly blue suburban seats in California, Georgia, Texas, and Virginia.

[Spectator]

Why are we pretending that VA-10 is even theoretically competitive? It’s not.

[Spectator]

Im worried that youngkin will win by 5 to 10 points and convince some Democratic state senators to become Republicans and flipping the state senate as well.

First thing they will do is abolish medicaid expansion and make abortion illegal.

No one serious thinks Youngkin will win, let alone by 5-10 points.

[Spectator]

I have seen this same pattern many times. Which is why I am convinced youngkin will win unfortunately

If there’s any discernible “pattern” in Virginia, it will be another boring Democratic win. Republicans haven’t won a statewide race in 12 years when turnout was 40% of what it was in 2020.

[Spectator]

Fairfax will report very late as will the rest of Nova.

But look to Hampton Roads.. if Youngkin is dominating there hard I may be able to call it for him early.

Youngkin….dominating in…Hampton Roads…

You are the most delusional person in this thread

[Spectator]

The worst part about all this is that everyone is still going to treat Virginia like a swing state every gubernatorial election just by virtue of it being slightly less blue than New Jersey, and the media wants to sell a horse race. And again and again idiots will fall for it despite Virginia delivering the same boring, predictable moderate sized Democrat win.

[Spectator]

It’s getting worse in loudon. This isn’t daily wire anymore reporting it

It’s actual local news

I honestly hope the school board members sleep in absolute terror tonight and even urinate in their beds thinking about how bad it is going to get for them in the coming days

https://mobile.twitter.com/WTOP/status/1451338174328881160

This is an awful story and everyone that is involved should probably lose their job, but I don't understand how this is a state-wide issue.

The school board is non-partisan (and I have no idea what their beliefs are), the Sheriff is a Republican, and I have no idea what the principal is.  Maybe I'm missing something but is there any reason why this relates to the gubernatorial election?

Scratching my head as to how this post by Matty pertains to McAuliffe or Youngkin.

[Spectator]

Scratching my head as to how this post by Matty pertains to McAuliffe or Youngkin.

Well, a major part of American elections is politicians taking bad things that happen in society and trying to pin it on their political opponents as if they were the sole reason for it, and vice versa for good things.

I know why he posted it, my comment was merely rhetorical.