Virginia Mega Thread: The Youngkin Administration

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Iowa’s gubernatorial election WAS competitive in 2018.

And Virginia's gubernatorial election might've been about as close in 2017 had Clinton won in 2016. And a 3-point loss in a wave year doesn't exactly suggest that a state is still particularly competitive or winnable. Either way, it's 2021, though, and Virginia hasn't gotten any redder.

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

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

If 'Atlas' is treating this race as close/competitive (and it’s obviously not as unified on this as you make it out to be — the vast majority still thinks McAuliffe is favored, with many believing he’s heavily favored and only very few actually predicting a Youngkin win), then that is a sign that they’re considering VA a blue state because this race would already be over and McAuliffe burnt toast in any remotely competitive swing state. Everyone was (rightly) treating IA-GOV 2018 and OH-GOV 2018 as fairly competitive in a massive blue wave environment, but that didn’t mean that those states were still "swing states."

As you’ve pointed out before, close and competitive are not the same thing. Yes, the result could be somewhat close, but that doesn’t mean Youngkin has a realistic chance of winning, just like Hubbell  probably didn’t, either. Many things broke his way, and he still came up 3 points short. I could see McAuliffe having an embarrassingly close call if things get really, really bad for Democrats (I.e. the environment is looking worse than it was in 2010), but that doesn’t mean that this race is truly competitive in that Youngkin has a legitimately decent shot at winning. If Virginia had gone to Biden by 5-6% and weren’t trending Democratic, then considering this a very close and competitive race in which McAuliffe has a very narrow advantage would be warranted.

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Wow, what advice I've gotten in the Virginia threads.

-Read Twitter
-Gamble with actual money

Atlas isn't a good role model, children. Stay away.

That’s a fair point, but I don’t think it was that unreasonable to call IA-GOV 2018/OH-GOV 2018 legitimately competitive (or at least no worse than Lean R), if we’re using those two races as analogies to VA-GOV 2021. I would agree that calling VA competitive would be fairly unreasonable if this was a federal race, but I feel like it’s a little easier to gain those last 3-4 points in a gubernatorial race (although that may be changing, and VA gubernatorial races of course tend to be more nationalized than those in other states). I also think the VA-CA comparisons are misguided for a variety of reasons (Elder's conservative-talk-show-host campaign obviously ended any chance of attracting any crossover appeal and arguably turned him into a worse-than-generic-R candidate [a far cry from Youngkin's systematic, fairly professional campaign], the universal mail-in voting system in CA would always ensure that that election reflected the state's general partisan lean more closely [not applicable to VA], YES/NO is still different from D/R even when associated with two major-party candidates from different parties, there was a clear trend toward NO in the final CA polls even though NO's final margin was 'underestimated' [no such trend in VA; quite the opposite], said pro-D trend also coincided with an increased nationalization of the race [whereas VA has always been somewhat nationalized], etc.).

I’m sticking with my Lean D rating, with McAuliffe winning by a margin slightly under Clinton's 2016 result (+4-4.5), but I really don’t think he has anything other than the state's partisanship going in his favor.

I agree that McAuliffe is not a god-tier candidate and is basically relying on Virginia being a blue state (I would also argue that Reynolds/Ernst won because of Iowa becoming a red state more than anything else), but even if the race is nationalized, Virginia's partisan lean is just too much to overcome, and that's arguably more obvious now than it was for Iowa or Ohio in 2018 (though I'd have rated IA-GOV 2022 Likely R at best for Democrats if Trump had won re-election.) As you said, this race is increasingly nationalized, so I think the potential for Youngkin to win a significant number of Biden voters has diminished quite a bit, thus making it hard to imagine that he'll overcome those extra few points, and I'm not even sure that, assuming that the environment is about 6 points worse for Democrats than 2020, Virginia will vote 6 points to the right of the 2020 result. I think a smaller swing is definitely possible, thus why I'm guessing it'll be McAuliffe +6, though a smaller win is obviously possible as well. The recall in California also isn't a good comparison, since there were definitely some Democratic voters who voted to recall him, but would've preferred a different Democratic governor, and thus would've voted Democratic in a D vs. R race.

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This doomerism is getting utterly ridiculous.

Welcome to Atlas!

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-Gamble with actual money

It's only a gamble, if you think, that Youngkin, if fact, does have  "realistic chance of winning". Otherwise, it's almost free money given the odds you have. Unless your definition of not having a"realistic chance of winning" is like 15-20%?

gam·ble
/ˈɡambəl/

verb
1.
play games of chance for money; bet.

Betting money is betting money. Even if I were to bet on Wyoming going Republican in 2024, something that I am absolutely positive will happen, I would still be betting and/or gambling, which is not an activity I will partake in, nor one I would recommend.

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Technically, yes, but gamble/betting usually involve some risk, which according to you almost doesn't exist in this case.

Betting for WY getting red would get you like 0.01% return, thus you have a risk of losing money on average despite high probability.
Betting for McAuliffe would give you like 20% returns, which given your claims (no real chance of winning) is almost free money. Stats 101.

Whatever, this leads nowhere.

My whole point is that encouraging any kind of betting is not good advice, for many reasons that are even more off-topic.

Anyway, I’ll be compiling a list of all the doomer posts to revisit on November 3rd. It’ll be fun, but naturally, no one will learn anything and we’ll still hear from some about how Virginia is totally still a swing state that Biden could totally lose in 2024.

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This race is giving me IA-SEN 2020 vibes. People exaggerate a bit how lopsided it will be initially, then drastically overestimate the competitiveness of it due to polling showing a close race (and people tend to believe polling when they like what it shows), only for it to be a decently comfortable win, though still somewhat of an underperformance and not a double-digit win. That's why I'm sticking with McAuliffe +6 as my prediction.

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The fact that Youngkin will most likely lose shows we live in a partisan hellhole now and we may be entering an era where even gubernatorial elections results are like federal race results .

To be fair, I think this has been true for a while. Outside of New England, the only states in 2018 to buck their partisan leaning in gubernatorial races were Kansas and Maryland, and I guess you could argue that South Dakota came close.

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The fact that Youngkin will most likely lose shows we live in a partisan hellhole now and we may be entering an era where even gubernatorial elections results are like federal race results .

To be fair, I think this has been true for a while. Outside of New England, the only states in 2018 to buck their partisan leaning in gubernatorial races were Kansas and Maryland, and I guess you could argue that South Dakota came close.

Well you had Kentucky and Louisiana in 2019, And Oregon was relatively close as well in 2018 given national conditions.

Right, but the best good Democratic candidates could do against horrible Republican candidates in KY and LA were razor-thin victories, and Buehler was the best Republicans could do and still didn't come that close. Overall, a far cry from 2006, when many states elected governors from the other party.

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Either 2022 really will make 2010 look like a blue wave in comparison, or this is the equivalent of Greenfield +12. Or a bit of both.

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Either 2022 really will make 2010 look like a blue wave in comparison, or this is the equivalent of Greenfield +12. Or a bit of both.

Republicans swept VA in a landslide and won NJ in 2009 and still lost several Senate races in states far less blue in 2010 (CO, NV, WV), with Democrats being competitive in WI/PA (the VA/NJ results wouldn’t have "suggested" that). It would be a devastating result for Democrats, but there’s also no need to overinterpret this — if Youngkin really does win or comes extremely close, I’d say this was a rejection of the VA Democratic Party and McAuliffe (who is objectively an awful candidate for anyone who’s not a hardcore Democrat) just as much if not more so than it was a rejection of Biden/national Dems (although the two aren’t that easy to separate at times).

Virginia is way more Democratic now and races are much more nationalized than in 2009. This would be like Republicans losing a highly nationalized race in Ohio. No way it doesn't spell trouble of biblical proportions for Democrats.

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The fact that the democrats in Virginia don’t want parents involved in their kid’s education is horrifying and I hope the voters of Virginia punish them for it

There’s a world of difference between parents being involved and letting them call all the shots and believing that they know better than teachers.

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The fact that the democrats in Virginia don’t want parents involved in their kid’s education is horrifying and I hope the voters of Virginia punish them for it

There’s a world of difference between parents being involved and letting them call all the shots and believing that they know better than teachers.

Exactly.  Parents being personally involved in their children's education is great.  Parents giving input to school boards and professional educators is great.  Parents overruling those professionals and defining the curriculum is a terrible idea.

Maybe if it comes to Math and Hard Science cause those things are 100% factual but not when it comes to social studies.

Why? Social studies teachers have to have at least some level of expertise in their field to be endorsed in the subject, as is the case with any subject.

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The fact that the democrats in Virginia don’t want parents involved in their kid’s education is horrifying and I hope the voters of Virginia punish them for it

There’s a world of difference between parents being involved and letting them call all the shots and believing that they know better than teachers.

Exactly.  Parents being personally involved in their children's education is great.  Parents giving input to school boards and professional educators is great.  Parents overruling those professionals and defining the curriculum is a terrible idea.

Maybe if it comes to Math and Hard Science cause those things are 100% factual but not when it comes to social studies.

Why? Social studies teachers have to have at least some level of expertise in their field to be endorsed in the subject, as is the case with any subject.

cause Social Studies is the subject that can be potentially used for propaganda. Things like the 1619 project and making our founding to be evil should not be taught in public schools

I live in a district that is called “loony” all the time, and not one social studies teacher here I know is doing this. There’s a state curriculum and there are specific state standards which they have to follow.

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This thread was a mistake

Atlas was a mistake.

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This race has taught me what a short-term memory the average voter really does have. The idea that Republicans are the champions of Education after spending the last 30 years mocking the idea that teachers deserve a raise or that Public Schools deserve more funding. It's just laughable that they are about to make this a winning issue and I'm not sure if it's reflective of how fickle voters are or how truly abysmal the Democratic party is at messaging.

I hate it whenever education becomes political. Most politicians quickly show how shallow their understanding of it is, and how little they know about what actually happens in classrooms. Either way, both parts of your last sentence are true.

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This race has taught me what a short-term memory the average voter really does have. The idea that Republicans are the champions of Education after spending the last 30 years mocking the idea that teachers deserve a raise or that Public Schools deserve more funding. It's just laughable that they are about to make this a winning issue and I'm not sure if it's reflective of how fickle voters are or how truly abysmal the Democratic party is at messaging.

I hate it whenever education becomes political. Most politicians quickly show how shallow their understanding of it is, and how little they know about what actually happens in classrooms. Either way, both parts of your last sentence are true.

You teachers were just hiding behind a zoom camera for over a year while millions of Americans had to work and face to virus directly. From health care to retail.

There is a reason you teachers are not looking good now.

Forget about the critical race theory that is fake news, literally...  There are substantial problems with educators and teachers unions now that are probably going to cost Democrats another state.

I’ve generally tried to be understanding, since I know you’re not happy about how this race is going right not, but that’s an extremely unfair thing to say to teachers. “Hiding behind a zoom camera”? I had to work my butt off to create entirely new curriculum to make it work for remote education, knowing that it was no substitute for in-person learning but was the best that we could do. It was extremely stressful, disheartening, and was overall more work than the previous year. It was not a vacation, not at all.

There are legitimate problems with our education system, yes, and we almost always have to bear the brunt of public opinion despite the fact that our hands are often tied, but most educators are very overworked, care deeply about their students, and are trying their hardest to deal with unprecedented times. The least you can offer is a bit of empathy.

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Youngkin’s final ad is about raising teacher pay and ending grocery taxes

I come on here and see NSV claim youngkin is the most dangerous gubernatorial candidate in history

It’s beyond laughable

This is incredibly dangerous

Endorsing T-mac

I know this is at least slightly ironic/exaggerated, but how exactly is that dangerous? (CC’ing those who recommended this)

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Not predicting this to happen, but one has to wonder what the narrative will be if McAuliffe winds up winning by a Northam/Biden 2020-esque margin. Seems like the possibility of such a result has been so decisively dismissed that there isn't a coherent agreement on what it would "mean."

It will mean whatever people want it to mean.

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How is it any different than thinking the most pressing issue is an unemployed ex president?

CRT doesn't have complete control of a political party, and people know what Trump is.

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Early turnout reports are fantastic and accurate when they support my narrative/what I want to happen, and completely anecdotal and not trustworthy when they don't.

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The real question that has me at the edge of my seat... is when this thread will hit 200 pages.

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RED ALERT RED ALERT RED ALERT! THERE IS RAIN IN NOVA NOW FOR REAL!!! THIS IS NOT A DRILL.

I guess Davison is inevitable in Seattle as well, since it's supposed to rain this afternoon.