A close reading of the results in Virginia-Gov suggest that the Northam route is not the path forward for national Democrats. While it's true Northam won by a larger margin than Terry McAuliffe, more counties actually swung Republican. This is extremely unusual when the statewide margin is swinging Democratic. Northam was able to win by more than McAuliffe because he racked up big margins in NoVa and in urban areas, like Hillary Clinton.
However, the 2016 election proved that racking up big margins in areas like NoVa do not win you enough states, Congressional districts, or Senate seats nationally. The rural vote remains crucial due to the distribution of constituencies in American politics. Most states do not have nearly two dozen state Assembly seats in semi-urban areas like Prince William county or the Richmond suburbs to win. In order to win the state legislature in most states, you must win rural areas. In these areas, Northam did not do as well as McAuliffe, and he barely did better than Hillary Clinton, running against Gillespie (who is not as good a candidate as Trump for these areas to begin with). IceSpear is right that the results do not bode well for Joe Manchin.
This post seems to have been lost in the excitement, and is pretty important. Bodes ill not just for Manchin, but presumably also for Heitkamp. Dems may find they need way more help with that impeachment effort than they do even now.
