I think McAuliffe will win, but the margins in NOVA will decide this thing and I could easily see the race being much closer than it should be due to some folks there who would otherwise be reliable safe-ticket Dem voters just sitting the election out entirely. Then again, suburbia often has far more reliable turnout than other areas, so maybe this will turn out to be much ado about nothing. I really hope I’m wrong and there’s nothing to worry about here, but I think we probably only win this race by 2-3%.
I’ve never been a doomer, I just don’t see much value in whistling past a graveyard.
There is no reason that we shouldn’t be winning this race by double-digits. Trying to pretend it was never going to be a blowout is just sticking your head in the sand. Denial won’t change the fact that the current political environment is absolutely horrible for the Democrats.
Youngkin wasn't a top-tier candidate, but he may have been the best candidate against a career politician like T-Mac, in that he provides a contrast. The other thing I believe is that T-Mac isn't a personally popular candidate. He only beat Cuccinelli by 1.5 points or so in 2013, and he's taken a hit by standing against parents involving themselves in school board issues (a stance he should have seen would not play well). T-Mac may still win. He's a slight fave still, as much as it pains me to say. Youngkin hasn't quite closed the deal, and he well may not be able to. But there's NOTHING I can think of that T-Mac can do at this point to boost his standing. For him to be assured victory, he needs a BIG unforced error by Youngkin, and Younkin is a guy that's avoided this so far.
Strongly disagree, T-Mac really turned around perceptions of him since winning in 2013 (when I’d have agreed no one particularly liked him). However, IIRC McAuliffe was a pretty popular Governor and from everything I’ve read did a very good job by all accounts (from a Democratic perspective, I’m sure you’d disagree with that assessment). He was arguably the best recruit we were going to get for this race and has run a perfectly good, if unremarkable campaign. What’s hurting him is the environment.
Youngkin’s campaign has been a dumpster fire. Virginia is not Alabama and it certainly isn’t a QAnon FaceBook group, but Youngkin doesn’t seem to realize that. Short of campaigning with Trump, he’s done everything he could to piss off the type of suburban voter he needed to flip in order to actually win. His only shot now is if enough Democrats sit this out entirely due to frustration with the seeming inability of National Dems to pass anything despite having a nominal trifecta (hence the big push this week to make folks thing we’re on the cusp of figuring everything out Re: reconciliation and passing the infrastructure bill this week when that clearly wasn’t the case). If Youngkin wins, then it’ll be despite himself in a race Democrats were never going to win in the current political climate.
The good news for Democrats is that there a lot of the support they’ve lost is low-hanging fruit (frustrated Democrats), but the ground Democrats in general and Biden in particular have lost with Independents won’t be so easy to recover this cycle. However, that last part shouldn’t matter in Virginia. Virginia is all about base enthusiasm or lack thereof among hardline, anti-Trump suburban Democrats.
