Virginia Mega Thread: The Youngkin Administration

[Person Man]

Two pieces of information straight off the Loudoun Presses...

One, the father (Scott Smith) of the girl sexually assaulted at the first school was at the Halloween Parade in Leesburg and was screaming and demanding to speak with Terry (who was there)... turns out he had a knife on him (like a hunting knife type thing) and he was almost arrested by the cops.

Second, (and this is big information that has not been leaked), the encounter between the rapist and this man (Scott Smith)'s daughter... was consensual (at least at first)... multiple charges of forcible fellatio in one encounter is a little bit unbelievable of a story (apparently to a judge as well)... The story going around is that they had hooked up a couple of times and either got caught, didn't want to continue seeing him, or was actually sexually assaulted (the least likely of these stories IMO) and told her father, a known conservative activist who donated 1.5k to a Republican statehouse candidate before this whole scandal even began. Additionally, this kid is simply not trans (a friend of a friend used to be friends with him), so if the girl or her father did make up this sexual assault story, I can imagine that she would also make up this detail. This explains why the DA placed him in another school (where he did actually sexually assault someone and should be facing severe punishment) but that detail explains a looooooot of why this hubbub is happening right around this election....

https://www.wjla.com/amp/features/i-team/teen-suspect-found-guilty-in-loudoun-county-public-school-stone-bridge-high-bathroom-assault

The rapist was convicted so as a matter of legal fact it was what you are trying to spin as the "least likely story". Dont spread bs.

Btw, I didn't find anything about Hyouzel's second story (about the father). Probably, he made up this one, too.

One, the father (Scott Smith) of the girl sexually assaulted at the first school was at the Halloween Parade in Leesburg and was screaming and demanding to speak with Terry (who was there)... turns out he had a knife on him (like a hunting knife type thing) and he was almost arrested by the cops.

Like I said, the second story is the rumor going around... The first story hasn't been reported on by the news because nothing news worthy happened, I know what happened because I was literally there lmao

If it’s true, with everything else going on, and Republicans win convincingly, it will just show how little damage is actually done to your cause when you are violent.

[Person Man]

This is a bloodbath.
https://twitter.com/notlarrysabato/status/1455532521207250945?s=21

Usually there is a flood of votes before work (2017 I imagine was like this) then it calms down til after work hours.  The pace appears different this year with everyone working from home.  It's more just steady all day.  That's what I'm taking from the updates from Falls Church which are occurring more often.

What does bloodbath mean?

[Person Man]

ANYWAY - it's also quite possible that if Dem areas DO have high turnout, it was a classic case of bed-wetting Dems thinking they had it in the bag or ones that didn't really care about the race until they saw Youngkin taking the lead in polls and realizing this sh**t could actually happen.

I think it's pretty clear that this is exactly what happened with the CA recall.

You mean other affluent liberals act just like Atlas people?

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/MalcolmNance/status/1455543195635490818

LOL. How many many times we heard that "democracy will be over" if Democrats don't get their way?

Every win is a revolution, every loss a stole election.

[Person Man]

RIP Democratic Party. That is all. Lol.

If Phil Murphy loses, I’m reregistering as an independent tomorrow.

[Person Man]

We back

Only had to beat some cops and raid the Capitol to gain some influence back lmao

Rioting can work, I guess.

[Person Man]

RIP Democratic Party. That is all. Lol.

If Phil Murphy loses, I’m reregistering as an independent tomorrow.

Just give up on the Dem party. Its not worth saving. I gave up a while time ago when they decided to nominate a corpse as their standard bearer

We can’t just have the Republican Party become the new nobility, though. Maybe a better alternative will appear.

[Person Man]

Democrats are being punished for failing to deliver on some major promises.  After tonight they better get in line.  I highly doubt they will.

They haven’t been delivering.

[Person Man]

Eh…at least all of Northam’s reforms are protected. Good save on the HoD.

[Person Man]

I keep on saying this : But Democrats have to find a better way of talking about working class issues or else they're going to get shut out of the working class for the next 50 years.

They need people who actually benefit from them to vote for them.

[Person Man]

Wapo gives Terrance mcawfuliffe 4 Pinocchios for repeatedly inflating covid threat in the commonwealth

https://mobile.twitter.com/MattWolking/status/1452972964551475206

This fear mongering is a sign of a flailing campaign. Could Dems really not find anyone better?

Youngkin has literally been fear mongering this entire campaign...

They are really desperate for talking points on this.  It's going to be hilarious to read this forum when Youngkin loses.

Given that T-Mac is "more vulnerable than Tester" I guess when Youngkin loses it means the Dem senate is safe for 4 years!

LMAO but will he leave?

No one leaves here.

[Person Man]

I've been following elections for almost 30 years now and one thing I can say is people are vastly exaggerating the role of campaigns or politicians in losing or winning.

* Democrats have governed Virginia and New Jersey for the last term and enacted a lot of policy
* President is unpopular and general situation is unhappy for most
* A big chunk of voters Dems rely on for their majorities will vote for change easily and flip their votes

TMac's campaign looks inept because it threw a lot of things at the wall to see what would stick. It was beyond their control that nothing could stick in the face of people wanting to try something different and having a Republican who wasn't Trump or a nutcase on the ballot.

Dems are heading into the wilderness below the Presidential level, and it likely leads to major constitutional crises later this decade at the federal level but it's beyond our control. Let NJ and VA have a different party in charge, that's democracy.

Explain

[Person Man]

* Republican Senate refusing to confirm Dem President appointees and the geography of current coalitions making it virtually impossible for Dems to win the Senate.

In both cases, our democracy will no longer be working as a democracy.

I always love the blissful ignorance of people not recognizing for almost the entirety of the second half of the 20th century Congress was one-party government. Or how Democrats ran most southern states for a century straight unchallenged. They only started to have a problem with it when their side was on the losing end.

I love people who jump to conclusions and spout off about people's ignorance because they didn't discuss the subject they had in mind when talking about something completely different, or who like to make sick burns about events 40+ years ago that had nothing to do with them, or who themselves are completely oblivious to how different the party system was before the realignment of the 1980s.

While I'm old for Atlas, I wasn't in fact a Democratic Senator from Mississippi in the 1970s, so you should maybe reconsider what you think I know or don't know or how I feel about historical patterns in the U.S.

We can have one party dominance and we can have ideologically based parties but we can’t have both to have a surviving democracy. That’s what happened to the Whigs in the 1840s, they were competitive until political corruption and polarization limited the ways they could win. When they got a trifecta, they couldn’t do anything and once it became clear that they would not be an effective national party under circumstances, more and more federal level candidates that were outside of the dominant party decided to run as part of an opposition caucus instead as part of the opposition party. Eventually that opposition coalesced into the Republican Party. I think that’s where we are at: realizing that the Democratic Party is no longer to serve its purpose as the vehicle for its coalition.

Although, to be serious, the Republicans will probably get to 1928 levels, or at least 2004 levels of power by 2024 and they will eventually mess up and eventually Democrats will do what they need to rebalance things. My guess is that the next D trifecta happens in 2032.

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1455915253305335815

Whoa!

My guess is that 47% of voters were going to vote for McAuliffe no matter what and 43% were going to vote for Youngkin no matter what. That said, that means that Youngkin won people on the fence 3:1.

[Person Man]

I'm glad I tempered my expectations for this race after the Tox poll gave me an ulcer. In spite of this, that poll being an outlier after all and me actually nailing my updated Youngkin+2 prediction were the only minor silver linings. It was an excruciating night otherwise, like every election since 2014 (2027 and 2019 excepted).

I want to be sedated.

https://twitter.com/tripgabriel/status/1455892930800066564?s=20

See? I f***ing knew we couldn't trust suburbanites in general. They hate Trump, but only him personally. They're like relapsing addicts with the GOP without him.

So if Democrats can't rely on them, or even voters of color anymore, what does a winning Democratic coalition even look like? Let's face it, we're going the way of the British Labour Party but we can't even partly blame Scotland like they can.

1) wait until voters come around, 2) somehow find the next Obama, 3) try to get someone like Sinema to win back the suburbs,4) try to get someone like Tulsi Gabbard or Tim Ryan to win the Gore+Kerry+Ohio+Colorado map.

[Person Man]

I'm glad I tempered my expectations for this race after the Tox poll gave me an ulcer. In spite of this, that poll being an outlier after all and me actually nailing my updated Youngkin+2 prediction were the only minor silver linings. It was an excruciating night otherwise, like every election since 2014 (2027 and 2019 excepted).

I want to be sedated.

https://twitter.com/tripgabriel/status/1455892930800066564?s=20

See? I f***ing knew we couldn't trust suburbanites in general. They hate Trump, but only him personally. They're like relapsing addicts with the GOP without him.

So if Democrats can't rely on them, or even voters of color anymore, what does a winning Democratic coalition even look like? Let's face it, we're going the way of the British Labour Party but we can't even partly blame Scotland like they can.

Democrats never want to admit this, but we do in fact need the old New Deal coalition if we want to be as competitive in local and congressional races as we are for the presidency. In safe blue districts/states, run as liberal a candidate as you can find. But down south, Democrats have his really stupid idea of running of socially liberal fiscally moderate-conservative corporatists which NOBODY LIKES OUTSIDE OF THE WEALTHY NORTHEAST. Run socially conservative populists.... like legitimate populists... run a bunch of tough Teddy Roosevelt clones who a more traditional electorate can trust to represent them on cultural issues and fight for their best interests on economic issues. I'm tired of seeing (insert generic effeminate beta male neoliberal here) lose year after year. When they do manage to squeak out a victory, they always sell their voters out to corporate donors.

Maybe Democrats can come back in the rural midwest, but the rural south isnt possible anymore. Ronald Reagan broke the Democratic Hold on the Rural South and then George W Bush absolutely obliterated any hopes for a Democratic resurgence there

I still think you could probably do this in Florida. I could someone like Stephanie Murphy doing better in  a Republican midterm. Someone who is hawkish and otherwise moderate. Democrats needs to do better in the senate and getting conservadems to win in Missouri, Ohio, Montana, or even Kansas and Nebraska will be important.

[Person Man]

A lot of blame has (rightfully) been blamed on Dems for losing this race, but I don’t think we should overlook the fact that Youngkin was a truly outstanding candidate (from an objective electoral standpoint; I personally strongly dislike the guy), one of the very best the GOP has put forward in any state in the last decade.

Perhaps his greatest talent, one that all the most successful politicians possess, was being different things to different people at the same time. He came across as an “authentic” Republican to base voters, and so hugely juiced turnout, while seeming inoffensive and reasonable to independents and swing voters. This is evidenced by the fact that the swing to him was pretty uniform across all areas of Virginia. Youngkin also avoided divisive and unpopular culture wars issues, and instead focused on one of the few that had broad appeal throughout the state, namely education/“CRT”.

Finally, he didn’t say anything stupid. This may seem trivial, but never underestimate just how many ostensibly strong Republicans have thrown away elections because they seem pathologically incapable of not making bizarre and offensive comments.

I guess Democrats got “legitimately raped” then. For those who weren’t around in 2012, that’s why McCaskell was senator all the way until 2018.

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/vpapupdates/status/1455753265413513217

Seems like Rs did have a turnout advantage at least relatively.

Gosh…knew there was something we were supposed to do today.

[Person Man]

Does Youngkin sound like a name for a hound dog?

[Person Man]

D +10% to R +2% and D+16% to D+ under 5% is a very strong indicator that Democrats would lose Congress if the election were held now, and backs up the stuff we already know that tells us these bare majorities are not going to hold.

I'm not disputing that these results are a warning to Dems who will likely have a bad 2022, but what comes to mind when I see people make an apples-to-apples comparison is what it would say if we took the shift in KY Gov in 2019 and used it to project federal results in 2020. Dems would have won in a landslide.

And 2009 wasn’t as bad as 2010. I think we will have 1995-like numbers in 2023 if you ask me now.

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1456326713944776719

It rained.

[Person Man]

I was quite busy last week so I just looked at the Virginia results in-depth today, I think there are a few things that stand out about this election worth noting.

Firstly, as I had indicated prior to the election, many of the firms who analyse the early vote like Targetsmart are basically run by dems and their analysis of the early vote is always to rosy for democrats, it was the same case this time, predictions that McAuliffe was winning the early vote by 30% or even 25% turned out to be wrong. In a state with no voter registration by party, analysing the early vote is hard, the only thing that could be gleaned from it was that early voting was higher relative to 2020 in counties that voted for Trump then Biden in Virginia to a modest degree, suggesting a moderate Republican turnout edge.

On turnout, the one piece of conventional wisdom that came true was since democrats like to vote early and Republicans on election day, the higher turnout was on election day relative to overall turnout, the better Youngkin would perform. Since turnout was very high on election day, over 2 million, it suggested Republicans would do well state-wide and they did. As an aside, I find it very funny that people were suggesting in this forum and on twitter that very high turnout on election day was somehow not good for Youngkin even though all the evidence suggested it was due to Republicans preferring to vote more on election day relative to democrats.


Finally, the 2021 election was basically an exact copy of the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections in VA with more or less a uniform shift towards the Republicans. In 2012, Romney lost VA by 4%, he lost Fairfax county by 20%, Fairfax had a partisan lean of D+16 vs the state-wide vote, in 2016 it was D+30 and D+32 in 2020, in this election it was D+32.

The different parts of the Virginia electorate voted identical to 2016 and 2020 in terms of how different groups behaved with a uniform swing towards Republicans. The election suggests there will not be a return to the pre 2016 alignment and the 2016 election represented a new alignment which is durable.

This. Along with the vote in New Jersey, it did feel like there was more or less a 12% R shift in both states from D+16 and D+10 to D+2/3 and R+2. Which leads me to believe that it wasn’t about changing coalitions (except for maybe Virginia is still slightly trending and New Jersey is steady) or candidate quality but that 1) a lot of people are ready to move on from the pandemic and 2) Biden wasn’t able to do anything with his agenda.

[Person Man]

Target smart was way off with early vote margin

It was only +19 tmac

https://mobile.twitter.com/tencor_7144/status/1457432570229055502

That’s why it looked good until the polls closed for him. The difference was in the EV.

[Person Man]

https://twitter.com/JulieCareyNBC/status/1493231639178231815
Hero!

Good

[Person Man]

If McAuliffe had won we'd be looking at a Minnesota 2.0 legislative session next year after getting rid of all that deadweight tonight. Now we have to wait until 2026 for any real progressive legislative wins. Of course this is all predicated on Dems doing decent this year and flipping back the Gov in '25.

Well, I don't think anyone was expecting the state senate to shift that far to the left that quickly.  Since the strongest Republicans won their primaries in the 3 lean R seats and both of the rural-ish Dem incumbents have retired, they fundamentally need to win a Youngkin +1 outer Loudoun based seat to hold the chamber.  There's also a McAuliffe +4 district in western Prince William that wasn't a clearly Dem leaning seat until the Trump era and swung back pretty hard to the right in the 2022 congressional vote.  Between this and all the progressive prosecutors being renominated, is a message this left-leaning going to sell in either of these seats?  IDK.  This could reasonably be the thus far and no further moment in outer NOVA in the GE.

It's true that Loudoun and PWC swung right in 2022, but even with that swing these districts would both be won by Democratic candidates. 2021 was a red tidal wave, primarily driven by presidential-level republican turnout caused by covid fatigue. You're talking about Rs flipping districts that Biden won by 17 points. That hasn't really happened anywhere in the country. I also think that Russet is a very high-quality candidate. Like Mikie Sherrill in North Jersey, it's like she was grown in a lab to win her district.

I agree, it’s kind of hard to say a Youngkin +1 seat is even really a tossup. 2021 is the high mark of Virginia Republicans post-2010, and acting like Youngkin +1 is the starting baseline is very misleading. Something like 2022 would be more realistic.

Democrats currently have 19 totally safe seats in the state senate.  Because a 20/20 tie currently goes to Republicans through the LG, Democrats will have to win 2 out of these

1. A Biden +9/Youngkin +3/2022 Dem +1 Hampton Roads seat
2. A Biden +7/Youngkin +5/2022 Dem +0.4 Southside seat
3. A Biden +13/Youngkin +1/2022 Dem +5 outer Loudoun seat.
4. A  Biden +27/McAuliffe +4/2022 Dem +6 outer Prince William seat

The exposure here to areas that look strong Dem on paper but snapped back after Biden is significant.

By contrast, a tie in the HoD cannot be broken and would deny R's a trifecta.  Dems are currently at 48 seats, but the old map was more Republican leaning than the new map will be.  Essentially, there are already 48 totally safe Dem seats  on the new map.  The next 4 most likely Dem seats are:

1. A Biden +27/Youngkin +3/2022 Dem +2 seat in western Prince William (yes, seriously)
2. A Biden +12/Youngkin +3/2022 Dem +9 college town seat
3. A Biden +12/Youngkin +2/2022 Dem +5 seat in Virginia Beach
4. A Biden +5/Youngkin +3/2022 Dem +1 seat in Western Henrico (yes, seriously)

Note that #1 here is unsurprisingly within the legendary Biden +27/McAuliffe +4 state senate district.  #4 here doesn't look quite as impressive, but it's probably the fastest Dem-trending area of the state.  The takeaway here is that HoD Dems can still overcome another outer NOVA revolt through seats 2-4, while state senate Dems are entirely dependent on those 2 seats. 

I think in the HOD, you are missing the Biden + 11/Youngkin +2 south side seat (Kim Taylor).

So both chambers are probably Tilt D to Lean D?