Virginia Mega Thread: The Youngkin Administration

[Kamala's side hoe]

I just drove through some heavily Korean neighborhoods in Annandale (Fairfax County) on the way to a restaurant.

I have never seen such a high concentration of political signs in one place - literally every house had Youngkin signs up. My anecdotal conclusion is that NoVA Asians are breaking hard for Youngkin. It also feels like the Youngkin campaign is very well organized in the community.

TBH this is one of the more interesting anecdotal pieces of information. Asian voters strike me as a group where the test of global realignment versus campaign messaging will matter most. Looking at Canada and California, Asian voters, especially with degrees, seem to have moved strongly against parties perceived as weak on covid restrictions. Youngkin, for all his efforts to downplay it represents a party which cannot be described as anything other than "weak" on covid restrictions.

So if we have meta forces they should be trending left.

If they trend right, however, it indicates the Republican narrative that CRT/Education etc is resonating with them. That they dislike BLM activism and perceived Democratic weakness on the police.

It is also possible everyone on this thread is both right and wrong. There can be meta trends.

Korean ethnoburbs in NoVA aren't necessarily representative of VA Asian Americans as a whole- the most recent ACS data from 2019 says that the 3 largest Asian groups in the state are Indian (24%), Filipino (16%), and Chinese (14%). I wouldn't be too surprised if they're somewhat more R than other Asian groups, as Vietnamese Americans (which there are also a fair number of in NoVA) are known to be.

I don't think this anecdote contradicts my and Forumlurker's trend predictions for East/Southeast Asians though. It's entirely possible that said neighborhoods were R-leaning to begin with back in the Obama era.

[Kamala's side hoe]

I just drove through some heavily Korean neighborhoods in Annandale (Fairfax County) on the way to a restaurant.

I have never seen such a high concentration of political signs in one place - literally every house had Youngkin signs up. My anecdotal conclusion is that NoVA Asians are breaking hard for Youngkin. It also feels like the Youngkin campaign is very well organized in the community.

I've noticed many Asians and Latinos at his rallies and events.  There are actually a few Korean videos that I saw expressing support for Youngkin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hPgq55iuLc

The video you linked is in Chinese, not Korean.

Also, you did not describe the TJ admissions changes accurately. There are no "quotas', although the Asian % did drop. The new system is a random lottery for those who meet a certain GPA threshold.

Interestingly enough the video title is written in Traditional Chinese characters. But yeah, I wouldn't expect any less from a Trumpist who doesn't necessarily have skin in the game.

[Kamala's side hoe]

I just drove through some heavily Korean neighborhoods in Annandale (Fairfax County) on the way to a restaurant.

I have never seen such a high concentration of political signs in one place - literally every house had Youngkin signs up. My anecdotal conclusion is that NoVA Asians are breaking hard for Youngkin. It also feels like the Youngkin campaign is very well organized in the community.

I've noticed many Asians and Latinos at his rallies and events.  There are actually a few Korean videos that I saw expressing support for Youngkin.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hPgq55iuLc

The video you linked is in Chinese, not Korean.

Also, you did not describe the TJ admissions changes accurately. There are no "quotas', although the Asian % did drop. The new system is a random lottery for those who meet a certain GPA threshold.

Interestingly enough the video title is written in Traditional Chinese characters. But yeah, I wouldn't expect any less from a Trumpist who doesn't necessarily have skin in the game.

I’m sensing Taiwanese misinfo media.

Yeah I listened to the first few seconds of that and the voice sounded a bit robotic.

Interestingly enough the video title is written in Traditional Chinese characters. But yeah, I wouldn't expect any less from a Trumpist who doesn't necessarily have skin in the game.

Yeah.  Cause every Democrat can tell the difference between Korean and Chinese letters, right?   I speak three languages, but I suppose you expected that too.  

Probably more common among marginal D voters than marginal R voters. Good on you for being multilingual though.

These posts assume that asians are concentrated in certain areas of Fairfax.  While there are some, they are also very geographically dispersed even in areas of McLean, Great Falls, Vienna, Mt. Vernon, etc.

Quoting this post for special emphasis. I wouldn't be surprised if NoVA Asians swing/trend R from 2020 tbh; that would be consistent with what little I've heard about the race from 538 and this megathread. But I just can't see VA Asians voting to the right of the overall vote no matter what happens.

There is a reason why reddit election subforums and twitter users do not hold this forum in high regard. It's a wretched hive of far left grad students and hackery.

Isn't that also true for most political subreddits and political Twitter? Not active in either but I remember r/politics was a huge (if warranted) circlejerk of "orange man bad" 3-4 years ago.

[Kamala's side hoe]

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?

In the absence of actual polling data, the anecdotes I’ve seen in this thread seem to reflect pre-existing, baseline levels of R support among adult Asian immigrants.

FWIW it seems like NoVA Latinos are mostly not of Mexican heritage, but rather Salvadoran and Peruvian. 

[Kamala's side hoe]

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.

The idea that favoring improvements to education requires favoring increased funding or increased pay for existing substandard teachers has been completely debunked by decades of research. Funding and outcomes are not correlated, let alone causal, but parental involvement and outcomes are.

In any case, a year of Zoom school showed many parents that the existing model of education has passed its usefulness.

I agree with your overall point on parental involvement, but that doesn’t mean individual teachers don’t have legitimate complaints about working conditions or administrative decisions from their districts and school boards. Teaching is arguably more stressful and demanding than other, better compensated occupations, and I don’t think certain demands from teachers are that unreasonable- with the caveats that I 1) do not work in education but have many peers who do, and 2) attended public schools in a suburban West Coast district that faced periodic budget issues at times. So I don’t have a good grasp on what the education situation is like in the lower Acela corridor.  

[Kamala's side hoe]

Don't freak out about anecdotal turnout reports and exit polls. Focus on losing virginity instead of losing Virginia.

Obviously only one of these things are possible tonight and its certainly not anyone here losing their virginity

Can’t lose what you never had while being registered here  

Governor-elect RoboWop’s decisive mandate bodes well for #PineappleBelongsOnPizza going into 2022.

[Kamala's side hoe]

One thing I remember Youngkin saying on his last rally in Loudoun was not only a pledge to ban CRT but also keep advanced mathematics.

The (sane, normal) D counter to that is "why not keep advanced mathematics and ban glorified white chauvinism in our history books"?

[Kamala's side hoe]

I would be curious to see if Glenn's victory is thanks to Asian Americans. As a Asian American myself, especially a Vietnamese American, I am one of the few democrat Asian Americans that I know of.

In the more working class Asian communities, it's actually cultural conservativism. Obedience, respect your parents, working hard. Perhaps Glenn played into that.

FWIW it's also a thing in more bougie Asian households. We'll have to wait until the NoVA results are fully in, but 1) VA's Asian percentage is too low and 2) Youngkin/GOP seem to be winning by too much for Asians to be the deciding factor like they might've been in GA 2020.

[Kamala's side hoe]

I would be curious to see if Glenn's victory is thanks to Asian Americans. As a Asian American myself, especially a Vietnamese American, I am one of the few democrat Asian Americans that I know of.

In the more working class Asian communities, it's actually cultural conservativism. Obedience, respect your parents, working hard. Perhaps Glenn played into that.

It's interesting: most of the Republican Indian-Americans that I've encountered come from upper-class suburban families (I'm an example of one).  By contrast, the working-class Indian-Americans I know skew heavily Democratic.  

2020 may have changed that cause while this is anecdotel the working class family members I have were much more likely to vote Trump than the more upper middle class types even though they used to be much more solidly democratic

Nope, this was largely the case in 2020 (at least in my own social experiences) -- though I understand that this runs counter-intuitive to wholesale 2020 trends.  

As a whole, though, we're still a relatively Democratic-voting group.  I've always found this interesting considering the stereotype of cultural conservatism that surrounds us.  Hell, I still can't wear leggings-as-pants around my grandma haha. 

I will say that the (mostly age 18-35 and US-raised) Indian Americans on Atlas seem more right-wing than the ones I knew growing up and from college.

Indian Americans are definitely the most "white-adjacent" major Asian group. It makes total sense that they (would if they don't already) vote like Jewish Americans given the broad similarities on cultural values and class/occupational profile.

Indians are also the largest single Asian group in VA, so if there was a significant R swing among Asian American voters we should expect major R shifts in Indian-heavy areas, along with Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Filipino-heavy areas in NoVA and maybe Hampton Roads + Richmond.

[Kamala's side hoe]

What's shocking about this election is that it's like 8 years of Obama and 4 years of Trump didnt happen at all.

We're back to 2004. Hispanics and Asian Americans being much more favorable to the Republicans.

I don't even know if the GOP has clawed its way back to McCain 2008 margins with Vietnamese Americans. And I can't imagine any other Asian group would outright favor the GOP over Dems now, even in Virginia. But the comments about uniform swing suggest that the GOP has made steady gains with black voters there. And who know what happened with Latinos.

[Kamala's side hoe]

Regardless of what the margin ends up being, the fact that Republicans were able to improve upon the GOP baseline here by running against teaching Toni Morrison books is really all that any of us needs to know.

lol this is hackish. Parents dont want their kids to be taught anti american propaganda like the 1619 project and liberals should stop advocating that they be taught

You’re one to talk. You can’t teach kids to love their country unless they fully understand all of its history and can accept the darker parts of it. Governor-elect Youngkin said so himself.

[Kamala's side hoe]

https://twitter.com/Booker4KY/status/1455712865063776261?s=20
lol

THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE WHEN THE YOUNGKIN ACTUALLY SEEMS TO HAVE UNDERPERFORMED WITH WHITE VOTERS AND DID BETTER WITH MINORITIES!!

That being said, I want to see the full demographics.

Do keep in mind that, with Black voters in particular (which is who I assume Booker is referring to), over/underperformance by Republicans is typically driven by turnout differentials rather than vote changing.

That's why I said, I need to see the full demographics.

Is there a split between Black voters and Hispanic/Asian voters ?

There always has been. Real question is if it got bigger or smaller, and if there was any difference between Latinos and Asians this time.

[Kamala's side hoe]

https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1455980091893235716?ref_src=twsrc%5Etf...

Asians are a relatively insignificant group as far as percentage of electorate unless you're on the West Coast or Hawaii. So how is knowing what the Asian vote in Virginia did even statistically measurable to a high degree of accuracy in an exit poll?

There are a lot of Asians in NJ and NoVA.

Someone on AAD said that the Manassas area swings from 2017 weren’t suggestive of a significant Latino R shift. Without access to or time to look at the precinct results, I’m guessing there was at most a mild Asian R shift, definitely smaller than among white (especially non-college white) voters.  

[Kamala's side hoe]

https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1455980091893235716

Asians are a relatively insignificant group as far as percentage of electorate unless you're on the West Coast or Hawaii. So how is knowing what the Asian vote in Virginia did even statistically measurable to a high degree of accuracy in an exit poll?

There are a lot of Asians in NJ and NoVA.

Quantify "a lot" and then think of how many of a group you need to poll of those that voted to have an accurate measure of how the whole of the group is acting. Throw in things like you have to account for differences in ethnicity influencing voting meaning it's not a monolithic group (Indians and Chinese are both "Asian", but are completely different groups of people) which means you need to have a larger sample to account for that (also exists with Latinos but not with blacks). You can get the whole "polling a unicorn" factor as well with such a low-percentage group, e.g. something I learned not that long ago is in the 2016 election there was a black voter in Chicago randomly polled that was a Trump supporter and this data point completely screwed up a lot of national polling numbers trying to account for that.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/13/upshot/how-one-19-year-old-illinois-man-is-distorting-national-polling-averages.html

This problem does actually exist with black voters in NoVA, where there are also a lot of African immigrants in addition to old-school African Americans. Maybe not enough to throw off an exit poll, but they’re still there and I see no reason to believe they’re any more politically equivalent to each other than Mexicans are to Puerto Ricans.

Anyway I’m fairly certain VA Asians didn’t vote to the right of the overall vote- they definitely didn’t vote to the right of VA Whites lol.

[Kamala's side hoe]

https://www.civisanalytics.com/blog/key-takeaways-from-the-2021-virginia-election/ (source)

This table shows which district-level factors were most associated with shifts since 2019. Higher positive values indicate variables where support for Democrats grew since 2019, and negative values indicate variables where support for Democrats declined since 2019.

% Asian = +0.34, % Hispanic = +0.33, % Suburban = +0.28, % nonwhite suburban = + 0.26, % white suburban = +0.24, % under 35 = -0.10, % black = -0.12, % white = -0.12, % nonwhite urban = -0.26, % Native American = -0.26

Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

Show

https://twitter.com/rsgore/status/1455980117558239236

Black voters swinging R by more than Latino or Asian voters in a post-Trump election is what I would’ve expected back in 2017 or 2018.

[Kamala's side hoe]

Not sure about the rest of Fairfax (ignoring Tweets about Korean/Latino/Ethiopian support for Youngkin), but it looks like TMac improved in the most Asian parts of McNair and all of Floris.

@Forumlurker161

https://mobile.twitter.com/JMilesColeman/status/1456459013365903387
https://mobile.twitter.com/timdcpolitico/status/1458824621063553037
Hmm it looks like the more Asian areas of McNair and Floris also had strong R swings, although it seems like they also swung more D from 2013 to 2017, so maybe they still trended D relative to the white areas?