Virginia Mega Thread: The Youngkin Administration

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I hope Democrats have the correct reaction to this.


The correct reaction is ram through everything they can, because the narrative has been set. Perceptions become reality, and this election will literally cause a red wave in 2022.

But inb4 Manchin decides to become even more "moderate" in reaction to this, as if running to the center helped Democrats at all in 2010, in 2014, in 2016...

The Virginia election won't "cause" a red wave. Voters aren't going to vote Republican because Youngkin won. It might point to a potential red wave (but I'm waiting for NJ results to judge that - VA is a state where Democrats just don't seem to be in a good place right now).

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People seem to be focusing more on McAuliffe's bad campaign than Youngkin's good one. If Republicans can run similar campaigns next year they could get their red wave. I'm not entirely confident they will, though.

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People seem to be focusing more on McAuliffe's bad campaign than Youngkin's good one. If Republicans can run similar campaigns next year they could get their red wave. I'm not entirely confident they will, though.

The takeaway is that the thing people dislike about Trump is not his rhetoric, but his tone. Youngkin ran close to Trump on the issues—making CRT the key issue was definitely a Trumpy thing to do—but was much nicer about it. Democrats are in big trouble if they don’t figure out how to counter the rhetoric.

Agreed, mostly - you can see this through the numerous blue avatars that opposed trump but seem all in on DeSantis 2024. (Although I would say that some Trump rhetoric like the electtion fraud stuff is genuinely unpopular.)

I will note that Youngkin-type campaigns lend themselves more to gubernatorial elections. Tonight is a much worse sign for Gretchen Whitmer and Tony Evers than for Maggie Hassan or Catharine Cortez Masto.

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The message from this election is that Republicans win more easily without Trump involving himself in their campaigns.

This, and Democrats need to learn that they can't run against an imaginary Trump. If Trump steps back from the 2022 midterms, the Democratic boogeyman needs to be McConnell instead.

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So for my Atlas peeps who were politically aware at the time (instead of being a dumb 15-year old who was more concerned with how skinny her jeans were...):

How does this compare to, say, Scott Brown's special election upset in Massachusetts? I do recall commentators heralding that as a pure rejection of Obama (as many will likely say this was a rejection of Biden).  

I was even less politically aware (being 6 and all) but a Senate election definitely comes across as more of a referendum on the president than a gubernatorial election.

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also don't blame me I supported Carroll Foy

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I was told the Fox poll was Junk?

Also Trafalgar remains gold standard

I mean he's going to win but it still won't be by 8, that poll never made sense

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Lee Carter would've easily won this.

Lee Carter would have lost by 10% lol

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I'm afraid to say this country's demise is occurring sooner than I thought.

if the embodiment of "generic R" beating a guy running a really bad campaign while the president's approval ratings are 8 points underwater is a sign of the country's demise it was already doomed

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Let’s just make this clear

1) absolutely no one but GOP partisans care about CRT
2) The white suburbs were never really loyal to the Democratic Party
3) The Democratic party has told young people and progressives to shut up and aren’t in the mood to have them in office and take credit for their ideas, thus leading to poor governance
4) No one but GOP partisans care about Covid “tyranny”
5) Tmac ran a dog•••• campaign and has an awful personality
6) even still, he was chosen by Democratic primary voters over anyone else who would have won
7) The Biden Administration’s complete lack of care for raising people’s living standards in the midst of the greatest societal upheaval since the 1930s was universally unpopular and made people feel cheated
The Clinton Crime Family are not liked by the average American voter

Hillary Clinton is 0.0% responsible for losing this election

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In retrospect I think the fact that Virginia Republicans had a quick convention and not a drawn-out primary was tremendously helpful for them.

Youngkin may not have won a primary. If he had, it would have been longer than the campaign before the convention, and almost certainly would have forced him to take more pro-Trump positions. That would go for whoever would have won.

That was a smart move by the GOP. Amanda Chase might have won a primary, and she would almost certainly be losing.

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I'm afraid to say this country's demise is occurring sooner than I thought.

if the embodiment of "generic R" beating a guy running a really bad campaign while the president's approval ratings are 8 points underwater is a sign of the country's demise it was already doomed

A solidly blue state that hadn't elected a Republican statewide in 12 years does so bEcAuSe cRiTiCaL rAcE tHeOrY!!!!

It's proof to me that this country is so easily distracted by pointless wedge issues and conned into voting for economic policies that directly hurt them. By the end of my lifetime most of America is going to resemble Flint, Michigan save for its wealthiest areas both because of how easily blinded white people are by their own bigotry but also the structural advantage the GOP has thanks to polarization and rural red states and state legislatures.

We're going to have West Virginia type poverty in all areas, rural, suburban, and urban with hyperinflation and wages that never grow to keep up with it. Any time people start trying to vote to change it, along will come another minority group that needs to be defecated on, or masks, or vaccines, or abortion, or critical race theory, or whatever Fox News comes up with this week.

This country is burning to the ground and tonight's result shows that now even people who normally vote for Democrats are throwing gasoline on it.

Youngkin is running well among pretty much every ethnic group, not just whites. In fact the only places he's running behind his benchmarks are very white.

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REALLY close in NJ. 49.8-49.4

Apparently they're expecting a blue shift there. The margin is definitely something to watch, though.

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I've been at church tonight.  I can see that Youngkin is going to win, but what's the big story?  Is it suburban reversion, urban tightening, or just North Korea-like rural margins?

He just overperformed his benchmarks pretty much everywhere

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Michelle Wu went from GamerGate to Mayor of a major US city

that's brianna lol

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Why do people keep trying to make this about "white voters mad at the Democrats"? Youngkin is overperforming with everyone. That's like saying that Laura Kelly winning in 2018 meant white voters were going D en masse.

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You know for all the comparisons Biden gets to Jimmy Carter, at least Jimmy was able to hold the House and Senate in the 1978 midterms. I see little to no chance Biden does the same.

The Democrats had 61 Senate seats and and 292 House seats going into the 1978 midterms. An identical performance in 2022 in terms of seats lost would still flip both chambers.