Virginia Mega Thread: The Youngkin Administration

[MT Treasurer]

For the record, many (read: far from all) blue avatars have said that Youngkin is running a good campaign and that he faces an uphill battle due to the state being very blue. These propositions aren’t mutually exclusive and this argument...

They will say that VA has been a blue state for at least a few years and therefore it didn't matter what campaign he ran as he was always doomed due to polarization partisanship no matter what.

...shouldn’t be mocked because it’s fundamentally true.

[MT Treasurer]

Yeah. I am wondering who these blue avatars, Non Swing Voter & Co keep ranting about, are. Are they just strawmen?

Strawmanning aside, it’s just incredibly lazy logic:

"The red avatars said Theresa Greenfield is running a good campaign.

If Greenfield loses by the typical IA margin what will the spin be?  You've said she's run a great campaign.  Or will they just ignore the results kind of like they did right after the [insert random special election in deeply Republican district] embarrassment?"

"The red avatars said Tommy Tuberville is running one of the laziest Senate campaigns ever.

If Jones loses by the typical AL margin what will the spin be?  You've said Tuberville's run a lazy campaign. Or will they just ignore the results kind of like they did right after the [insert random special election in deeply Republican district] embarrassment?"

"The blue avatars said John Hickenlooper is running one of the laziest Senate campaigns ever.

If Gardner loses by the typical CO margin what will the spin be?  You've said Hickenlooper's run a lazy campaign. Or will they just ignore the results kind of like they did right after the [insert random special election in deeply Democratic district] embarrassment?"

[MT Treasurer]

If Youngkin was winning right now there would be no need to ever bring up Ralph Northam because even if voters voter agreed with on him on the Dems hypocrisy over blackface, I still think most people do not care about this issue at all and others see it as old news that they have moved on from a long time ago

Ultimately it's simply not a good sign for Youngkin at all that he feels at this stage of the campaign that he needs to focus more on what Ralph Northam may have done 30 years ago than on actually convincing voters to support him and his policies

First of all, the point wasn’t "bring[ing] up Ralph Northam" so much as it was reinforcing the perception of McAuliffe as a hypocrite who loves to brand himself like the reasonable adult in the room while behaving just like Trump when it comes to protecting his own party and those in his circles (the ad highlighted McAuliffe's defense of Northam, not Northam's actions). McAuliffe has consistently been tying Youngkin to the racist appeals of Trump, a supposedly 'un-scientific' approach to COVID, stolen election rhetoric, cultural extremism, etc., and what those ads do is turn the tables on him, exposing his rhetoric as hypocritical and performative. McAuliffe has been staking everything on tying Youngkin to Trump, so it’s not surprising to see Youngkin trying undermine this line of attack.

Second, you paint the impression that this "blackface" thing is somehow the dominant theme of his campaign, which it clearly isn’t. It’s not accurate to say that he isn’t "convincing voters to support him and his policies," but given how incredibly negative the McAuliffe campaign has been from day one (you could just as well spin that as a sign that McAuliffe feels like he needs the race to be nationalized to really feel good about his chances), he obviously has to counter unless you expect him to unilaterally surrender in what is a full-fledged war (especially against a professional electoral hitman like McAuliffe).

The one impression (and maybe some others will agree) I’ve gotten is that if you just observed their demeanor and didn’t know their actual party labels/positions, you’d be tempted (especially after the Trump era) to think that McAuliffe is the Republican and Youngkin the Democrat in this race. Youngkin comes across as much more level-headed, less erratic and negative, more optimistic/forward-looking, and more 'soothing' than McAuliffe. It’s quite different from the Gillespie 2017 campaign, which was arguably easier to paint as an inauthentic and transparent attempt at demagoguery designed to stir up Trumpian fears about illegals and caravans. Also, it was easier for Northam to pull off the reasonable moderate shtick when Donald Trump was actually in the White House. You can tell just how much McAuliffe/Democrats depend on Trump in this race — we’ll see how it pays off for them in states that are actually competitive in 2022.

[MT Treasurer]

Given Fairfax is nearly 70% D at this point, and indications are that about 40% statewide are going to vote early, Dems need to shoot above that in Fairfax. We have a lot more questions to fill in before we can claim something is "not lining up with polls". Besides Idk what polls you're talking about claiming lower turnout in NoVA.

Also, polls by definition cannot show low turnout in a particular area. Maybe he’s confusing it with enthusiasm or crosstabs on the "Have you already voted?" question (extremely unreliable and not worth reading into), but who knows?

[MT Treasurer]

Spent a bit of time with all the polling I could get my hands on (both public and private) and reconciled it with early voting indicators, some voter file analysis, roughshod modeling, and general observations of fundamentals. Came down with the takeaway that Youngkin can win, but he'll need one/both of a) a Democratic turnout collapse that early voting indicates is not happening and b) a sizeable improvement with independent and softer Democratic voters that polling indicates is possible but a tall order.

One thing that struck me is that Youngkin's best polls aren't actually showing this improvement. Rather, they're showing him gaining among Black voters and non-college whites. Its easy to dismiss this (Black voters being historically inelastic and non-college whites already supporting Republicans in massive numbers) and I certainly think it's much more likely that these polls are flawed, but there are also some explanations that are quite plausible:
    

• The increasing educational/religious polarization is starting to take hold of Black voters in a manner similar to Hispanic voters last cycle.
• Educational polarization is superseding urban/rural polarization among white voters, and non-college whites in urban areas (there are quite a few in VA) are abandoning Democrats.
• The remaining Democratic non-college white voters are planning to sit this election out.

Again, think it's much more likely these polls are just highly flawed and that McAuliffe/Youngkin's coalitions will be par for the course and unremarkable. But on the off chance they're actually just ahead of the curve and picking up on a burgeoning realignment, think it could have fascinating implications for the rest of the decade and could certainly lead to some hilarious dummymanders down the line.

Any insight on Hispanic/Asian patterns of support/voting preferences? (assuming subsamples are representative and not too small to be analyzed)

Has Youngkin actually made some noticeable progress (compared to past Republican performances) among them or is it more of a mirage?

[MT Treasurer]

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).

[MT Treasurer]

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.

It does spell big trouble for them, but if VA is their only notable underperformance and they hold up relatively well in NJ/PA, I don’t think it would suggest a wave worse than (or even on par with) 2010. It would be a damning indictment of the VA Democratic Party and McAuliffe's campaign, though.

Doug Jones flipping AL did not foreshadow Democratic wins in TN/TX/FL/ND/IN/MO, so I wouldn’t extrapolate a "biblical wave" based on "uniform swing." Gubernatorial races might have become more nationalized, but they’re still not nearly as nationalized as Senate/presidential races.

[MT Treasurer]

Doug Jones flipping Alabama had nothing to do with the National environment in Alabama of all places and had everything to do with the fact he was running against a probably child predator.

It’s definitely inaccurate to claim that Jones's win had nothing to do with the environment (and anyone working on the Jones or even Moore campaign will tell you that).

[MT Treasurer]

If Terry does lose, does it indicate more of a bad State and National environment for Dems or is Terry legitimately a horrible candidate?

"Both" is probably the safe answer here unless Democrats seriously outperform expectations in NJ (with Murphy winning by close to Biden 2020 margins)/PA or Ayala and Herring dramatically outperform McAuliffe.

[MT Treasurer]

Youngkin should turn this disgusting episode into a nice final ad.

[MT Treasurer]

Youngkin should turn this disgusting episode into a nice final ad.

Did they not have a plan to attack him on any other issue than this?  Was it not obvious from day 1 that Youngkin isn't Corey Stewart or Trump? 

Well, McAuliffe has always reveled in character-assassination-based campaigns because he’s about the last guy who could convincingly make a case for him or plausibly present himself as overly trustworthy, authentic, in touch, relatable, etc.

I do think that the CA Recall has only emboldened their obsession with tying every single Republican to Trump/Trump-era grievances and/or acting like Trump is still in the White House and/or outright employing Trumpian tactics like these. They probably learned all the wrong lessons from that race.

[MT Treasurer]

Lol.  We already know the people work for the VA Dems. They’ve literally been identified.  I guess the Lincoln Project is going to try and fall on the sword though, they have much less to lose.  The screenshots identifying them as VA DEM employees ON THEIR OWN SOCIAL MEDIA aren’t going away.

No, it was obviously just a few LP staffers coordinating with the Princess Blanding campaign, not VA DEM employees.

[MT Treasurer]

The only people worse than boring, tedious, and extremely predictable trolls are those who don’t put boring, tedious, and extremely predictable trolls on ignore (permanently) and instead allow them to derail the entire thread/board by engaging them in the 'quarrel' that they had always so obsessively sought. He’s not even good at what he does, it’s just that those of you responding to him (especially with this embarrassment of a quote chain) are even more pathetic.

[MT Treasurer]

I think this is the first time I've engaged with the individual in question on the forum.. so how exactly I'm I going to be aware he's a supposed troll.

If you want to call me pathetic.. feel free and quote me, don't hide your criticism behind a holier than thou post such as this.

"Pathetic" was a strong word (and admittedly my first reaction to this thread more so than to any particular poster's response), but you’re smart enough to know that there’s no point in this and that it’s so obviously counterproductive. You’re really only playing into his hands with this, especially if he thinks he’s gotten under your skin.

I agree with your overall opinion on this issue, but I’d recommend not engaging him and just making your point in a separate post.

[MT Treasurer]

^'Losing' these people was the best thing to happen to the Republican Party in a very long time. One of the few lasting accomplishments of the Trump presidency.

[MT Treasurer]

Yoú have to be a serious D hack to spin this as "this doesn’t tell us anything about 2022." If Republicans lost a high-profile, high-turnout, nationalized gubernatorial campaign in Iowa (as well as all of their statewide offices, one of which was held by an incumbent) and were only three points away from an embarrassment in Tennessee, no one would pretend that this somehow wouldn’t foreshadow a disastrous environment for them in next year's midterm elections. Obviously federal races aren’t gubernatorial races, but there was a very clear pattern in those elections, and it’s very, very bad for Democrats across the board. You can maybe explain away the PA races (but even that would require letting the "D base turns out at a far higher rate than the GOP base, especially without Trump on the ballot" theory go), but if you had told anyone in January 2021 that Northern Virginia and New Jersey of all places would have such sizable swings to the Republicans, you would have been laughed off the forum and mocked relentlessly.

[MT Treasurer]

There’s an interesting article on POLITICO which says that a lot of McAuliffe’s attacks actually helped ramp up turnout in the western part of the state.

It is often forgotten but Mark Warner very nearly lost in 2014 and I believe that he only managed to hold onto due to his historic links and over performance in the western edge.

Yes, I think the abortion issue had a lot to do with this (voters who cited it as their most important issue broke for Youngkin 60-40). In spite of NSV's and others' assertions to the contrary, McAuliffe's pro-choice-with-zero-exceptions position was not perceived as less extreme than Youngkin's standard pro-life-with-the-usual-exceptions position, and the Youngkin campaign had a few really good ads up about the whole issue before the whole school/CRT thing broke.

McAuliffe's extremist abortion position almost certainly further galvanized the evangelical / rural, small-town GOP base and was a big reason why Youngkin outperformed even Trump in most of these counties.

[MT Treasurer]

If Republicans can only manage a less than 2 point victory against the tmac campaign in 2021 I am not optimistic for the GOP future in Virginia.

Yes, it’s pretty obvious that the Youngkin coalition won’t be enough for the VA GOP by 2029, maybe not even by 2025 (especially against a far less damaged, more competent, 'fresh' D candidate) — there’s very little rural/small-town vote left to max/turn out, and the R shift in the big three D-trending areas was rather underwhelming when you consider how much Republicans had going in their favor in this election. Barring significant inroads with non-white voters, this will probably remain the GOP's (resounding) last hurrah in VA.

[MT Treasurer]

Blue state red governors are almost always either enormously popular or enormously unpopular. I have a feeling Youngkin is going to be the latter of the two by the end of his term.

Why do you say so? It's certainly clear that Youngkin is governing, or will be governing, to the right of Baker, Hogan, and Scott.

Yes, and Youngkin never ran as a "Baker" or "Scott," nor is VA as Democratic as MA or VT, nor is the R base in VA (which turned out in unprecedented numbers/margins for him) as liberal as in those New England states, nor did Youngkin receive significant crossover support from Democrats in the GE the way those aforementioned Republicans did. Youngkin also promised to reverse some of the radical D policies of the last eight years, so I don’t see what the big deal here is.

[MT Treasurer]

All of this is true, but Democrats (at least on this forum) see Youngkin as an "extremist" and as no different than more ardently conservative Republicans. They take particular issue with his measures regarding CRT and school mask mandates.

The Democrats you are talking about paint virtually any Republican as "extremist", "irrational", a "Trumpist", a member of a "cult", someone only interested in "triggering the other side" and "preventing Americans from voting" but devoid of any coherent ideology otherwise, etc., so yeah... not sure what reactions you were expecting from an ardently Democratic/liberal forum that was rooting for McAuliffe in overwhelming numbers and never seemed to care much about (in fact, rather welcomed) Northam's "extremism" as governor after labeling Northam himself a "moderate."

I really don’t think there’s any point in arguing these things with well-known and unyielding partisans — not only are you entertaining their silly caricatures/tabloid talking points (which they use to frame the premise of the argument) but, more importantly, wasting precious time because you will never persuade any of these people. Better to just state your point in a separate post without (as you tend to do) always replying to other users who will never change their mind, which then also leads to endless and pointless quote chains — that way, you can still offer your point of view/criticism without addressing specific users. It’s nice that you’re interested in discourse, but often it’s better not to go down that road. You can usually tell how likely it is that a particular user can even be "reached" before you think about replying to them, and I suggest keeping that in mind. It’s rare enough to get a person to reconsider their views or habits in daily life (outside of this forum), it’s even rarer on a forum like this.

[MT Treasurer]

Except that Youngkin didn’t win because of crossover support from Democrats - McAuliffe won Democrats 96/4 according to the exit poll! (not that one needs an exit poll to come to that conclusion, a county map will suffice...)

https://edition.cnn.com/election/2021/november/exit-polls/virginia/governor/0

Also, literally no one is arguing that Virginia is "going to become a safe GOP state" - you’re (once again) just making things up here. As you said...

Let's see...

I know it was obviously Trumpkin would win. Terry Mcauliffe running a joke of a campaign, Ayala and Herring not being visible, Virginia being more sensitive and opposed to covid measures compared to other blue states, Youngkin running one of the most disciplined campaigns I have ever seen and campaigning on the right issues. All this while the state Democrats went to far left. 

The Democrats still ended up doing a bit better in VA-Gov 2021 compared to MD-Gov 2014.

...the fact that a two-point win was the best Republicans could manage in this environment against this candidate is hardly a reassuring sign for their long-term prospects in VA.

[MT Treasurer]

What do you all make of Youngkin's underwhelming showing among Hispanic and Asian voters? According to the exit poll, he underperformed Trump with both grups — obviously these should be taken with a grain of salt given the small sample size, but it’s fairly obvious that the race wouldn’t have been this close if he had done better with non-white voters. Should this be a potential cause for concern for NV/GA Republicans and could it be a data point in favor of the theory that 2012->2016 trends will be a stronger force than 2016->2020 trends in the 2022 elections (which may also be a bad sign for Democrats in the Midwest and New England)?

Obviously one shouldn’t extrapolate too much from one race, but GOP gains in VA were distributed extremely evenly across the state, mostly fueled by gains with white voters (who made up a larger proportion of the electorate than in 2020) and slight inroads into the black vote. I think (please correct me if I’m wrong) precinct analysis confirmed that dramatic Republican gains with Hispanic and Asian voters failed to materialize, which may also explain why Prince William County voted 4 points to the left of Loudoun (after voting 1 point to its left in 2020).

[MT Treasurer]

Thanks to everyone for the detailed answers!

I'm not exactly sure that's true or if we can trust the exit polls. But maybe it's the case that Youngkin did better than Trump but still did worse relative to the overall statewide vote. The exit polls claim in 2020 that Biden won 65% of Hispanics and 87% of blacks. In reality, based on precinct data, it's likely Biden did worse with Hispanics but better with blacks than those numbers say.

I remember seeing an analysis of Fairfax County precincts where the parts that swung most to the left were the whitest, and the ones that swung the least or swung right were more heavily non-white. In 2022, the electorate is likelier to be whiter and older anyway, so that'll help Republicans, but there definitely is a small portion of Hispanics that will vote for Trump but don't like traditional Republicans. In the RGV for instance, Trump did better than Cornyn, despite doing 4 points worse in the state overall. In 2022 I suspect we'll see a rightward trend with Hispanics (2016/2018-2022) which will be a large swing, but relative to the national vote a smaller trend than in 2020.

This does make sense and is in line with what I am expecting. While I am unsure about other states (VA, NM, NV, etc.), I do expect Hispanic trends in FL/TX to continue in 2022. My hypothesis is that the Hispanic trend may be predicted by two cultural factors and will first materialize in two types of areas: (a) places with high levels of religiosity and/or a strong aversion to cultural liberalism (incl. 'wokeism' and state-imposed 'authoritarianism,' e.g. in the form of certain COVID policies like mask or vaccine mandates, lockdowns, etc.), mostly in rural/small-town and 'frontier' areas where the rural-urban divide hasn’t yet caught up to voting patterns of Hispanic (and black) voters the way it has with the white vote (esp. in the Midwest); (b) places where there already exists a cohesive or R-friendly Latino community (ideally living in close geographic proximity to each other) and where the individual can "blend in" with the rest of the community by switching parties or derive his ideological identity from his surroundings/community — both of these apply to the RGV; and even in South FL, the GOP & Trump campaign aggressively courted Hispanics via social media (which is arguably an underrated predictor of voting patterns). Neither of these factors was present in VA, where Hispanics largely live in the least religious and most urban/suburban parts of the state (I think we would have seen marked pro-R swings among Hispanics in SWVA if that area were meaningfully Hispanic) and you have no bloc of (formerly) R-leaning migrant communities/minorities, esp. in close geographic proximity to each other or with high levels of social cohesion (I think VA being surprisingly desegregated probably works against the GOP) — compare this to, for instance, the Lumbee tribe in NC right across the VA border, where there are actual signs of a long-term R shift.

If this hypothesis is true, it would make predicting trends in NM and NV more difficult — the "common identity/heritage" and small-town/cultural conservatism & frontier mentality aspects do apply to large parts of NM, but the state is also more urban than people realize (with the caveat that rural/small-town areas in NM do actually make a difference and could make the state genuinely competitive, unlike in CO), and while NV is certainly very urban and largely irreligious, the working-class-identity angle might be strong enough to at least make a dent in D margins with Hispanics (although it’s just as possible that GOP potential in NV has been overstated). In any case, it’s not that hard to understand why FL/TX might be unique when it comes to the extent of the pro-R Hispanic shift.

[MT Treasurer]

The 2021 elections completely led people (including me) on the wrong track for their 2022 predictions — so many interpreted them as a sign of a red wave environment when, in reality, they were not the harbinger but the one outlier among the post-2020 elections.

e: And before anyone entertains the "we were headed for a red wave before Dobbs" narrative, there is absolutely no evidence for that. Dobbs allowed Democrats to overperform even more, but it was not the difference between a red wave and a blue ripple.

[MT Treasurer]

Similar to some of the national polls for 2024 showing the GOP winning ~20% of the black vote and splitting young voters evenly. I guess we’ll see.

I’m really just interested in seeing if there’s a general pro-R and pro-D pattern emerging in these races. Consistent overperformances by one side will tell us more about 2024 than a single gubernatorial or state legislative contest.