Virginia Mega Thread: The Youngkin Administration

[Alben Barkley]

If McAuliffe loses, will Democrats storm the Capitol of Virginia with guns and zip ties, erecting a gallows outside, and try to overturn the results?


If something, God forbid, like that were to happen what can Republicans say? They wouldn’t be able to denounce it…

Imagine thinking Republicans have principles or shame lol

[Alben Barkley]

More votes in from Loudoun (up to 86% in) and the gap has narrowed slightly.

Where are you seeing that??

[Alben Barkley]

Decision desk has Laudon county total votes above 2017 final vote and Dem lead is only 6%

You know I had a feeling that something like that might happen. Will not be surprised at all if Dem underperformance in Loudoun alone gives Youngkin the win. If that does happen, we'll see if Dems actually start to learn some lessons about how to competently handle messaging and optics.

[Alben Barkley]

Remember when Mark Warner won an authoritarian NUT map in 2008?

Those were the days...

[Alben Barkley]

Kornaki just showed Loudoun and it's all Election day, not early/absentee. OFC who knows, this place has been chaos and confirming what type it is.

He said they don't know and it's glitchy and they're trying to figure it out. I don't think anyone knows WTF is going on. But regardless of exactly what's left, the numbers are bleak with that many in Loudoun already. Even in T-Mac's best case, I think he would barely squeak it out.

[Alben Barkley]

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1455684037494837250

Everything is pointing to extremely narrow Youngkin win, with polls more or less spot-on.

[Alben Barkley]

Way too early to start celebrating or dooming.

Silliness. That’s the Atlas motife

Says the king of the doomers lol

[Alben Barkley]

Establishment Democrats suck.

Yeah, I'm sure a far left progressive would have done much better against a man whose primary message is railing against radical socialist theory in public education.

[Alben Barkley]

Well, at least future President Adams gets his race called in an hour, so we have that to look forward to.

[Alben Barkley]

Well maybe Dave hasn't seen enough yet, but I have:

[Alben Barkley]

Hopefully this will teach Democrats from ever spouting about CRT again.

Republicans are literally the only ones I ever hear talk about it.

And yet it just won them the VA governor's mansion.

Well that and cold, flippant attitudes towards a high school girl getting raped.

Maybe these issues don't resonate with you, and maybe the crowd you hang around never discusses them, but alas, you aren't a suburban parent and swing voter in VA, are you?

[Alben Barkley]

Loudoun 95% in now with mail votes counted, only same day left. T-Mac only up by 11. Not even close to good enough. That county alone likely blew it for him for highly specific reasons. It's Miami-Dade 2.0.

[Alben Barkley]

Dave not only called it, he thinks Youngkin could win by as much as 5.

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1455695676025839618?s=20

[Alben Barkley]

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.

Oh yeah, Whitmer in particular I think is in big trouble.

On a related note, I almost see this race as like a reverse KY-2019 or something.

[Alben Barkley]

The fact that red avatars are denying that Democrats had pro-CRT messaging instead of thinking that maybe Democrats should actually speak out against CRT is telling.

Not all of us! If it doesn't exist as everyone keeps saying, nothing to lose by coming out against it! Simply nip the issue in the bud by saying "I absolutely do not support CRT and denounce it in the strongest terms possible. If it's being taught anywhere in this state, we should put a halt to that. I agree with my opponent completely."

This isn't rocket science.

[Alben Barkley]

It was always crazy for half the posters to predict a McAuliffe margin 5+ points to the left of the polls with literally no evidence to support that. Like the polls showed a Youngkin win, the environment was bad for Democrats, enthusiasm was seemingly on the GOP side, but people were still predicting McAuliffe +5 or more.

To be fair all the same could be said for Trump in 2020 as well and yet still plenty of blue avatars here were delusional about his chances. Hell, even some green and red avatars were dooming based on zero evidence.

[Alben Barkley]

The fact that red avatars are denying that Democrats had pro-CRT messaging instead of thinking that maybe Democrats should actually speak out against CRT is telling.

Not all of us! If it doesn't exist as everyone keeps saying, nothing to lose by coming out against it! Simply nip the issue in the bud by saying "I absolutely do not support CRT and denounce it in the strongest terms possible. If it's being taught anywhere in this state, we should put a halt to that. I agree with my opponent completely."

This isn't rocket science.

Democratic strategists are too dumb to realize that, apparently.

I'd actually argue it's the opposite problem: They're too smart for their own good. Democrats use their heads and try to appeal to the head of the voter likewise; Republicans think with their guts and likewise appeal to the voters on a gut level. The latter is usually far more powerful, especially when it comes to emotionally charged issues like this. Democrats would do well to stop walking into the trap of "Well actually that's not quite what's happening, the issue is far more nuanced than that and blah blah blah" until it makes voters' eyes glaze over. Slick Willie was so good a campaigner in part because he never did any of that crap. It was all "I  feel your pain," denouncing Sister Souljah, etc. Whether it was genuine or not and whether the issue at hand was even a real issue or not was totally irrelevant. Clinton knew that politics is a game of images and emotions, not facts and logic, and he was a master at it. Today's Democrats (well actually, starting with his VP Al Gore)? Not so much.

[Alben Barkley]

The fact that red avatars are denying that Democrats had pro-CRT messaging instead of thinking that maybe Democrats should actually speak out against CRT is telling.

Not all of us! If it doesn't exist as everyone keeps saying, nothing to lose by coming out against it! Simply nip the issue in the bud by saying "I absolutely do not support CRT and denounce it in the strongest terms possible. If it's being taught anywhere in this state, we should put a halt to that. I agree with my opponent completely."

This isn't rocket science.

Confirming an outright lie serves no purpose. If something isn't part of a curriculum why should Democrats lie and say it is? But I shouldn't even ask you considering how backwards your thinking is. You'd say Democrats should campaign on pardoning Derek Chauvin if you thought it was politically expedient.

You agree that the boogeyman would be bad if he was real. That's not the same as acknowledging the boogeyman is real. But it does serve to deflate your opponent's attempts to portray you as pro-boogeyman.

Again, not rocket science.

As for that last sentence, it's totally false and defamatory. But that said, Democrats frankly need more people like me who think in terms of what's "politically expedient" and pragmatic. Otherwise Republicans will just wipe us out over and over again.

[Alben Barkley]

Once again Kornacki clearly is chomping at the bit to call it but can't because the network won't let him.

[Alben Barkley]

That Delta 8 gummy kicked in right about now!!! DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA!!!
Y'all all need to get in on this.

You partying with BRTD?

Told him a few weeks back that was bad for his health and unregulated by the FDA.

I was going to ask why the hell BRTD is messing with that crap when weed is legal in MN, only to Google it and find it somehow is not yet! That's shocking to me.

[Alben Barkley]

Larry Sabato is on TV basically blaming Manchin/Sinema for the outcome, arguing that if the BBB bills had passed, T-Mac would have had something to run on and "sell" but was left with nothing. Seems like a reasonable analysis.

[Alben Barkley]

1 year to course correct.

1 year.

Otherwise, well, I know some of y'all are too young to really remember 2010. Let me just say it is PAIN.

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1455709997887787009?s=20

[Alben Barkley]

https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1455709644324749312?s=20

...The Angry Virginia Woman replacing the Angry New Hampshire Woman???

[Alben Barkley]

The comedy in Virginia and New Jersey have outdone the absolute tragedy in Buffalo and Seattle in making me happily drink my cheap vodka tonight.

What happened in Seattle?

Progressives underperforming due to Covid raising their fixed campaigning costs mainly

Or maybe it's just nobody likes the s--t you are selling and are sick of it, even in a place like Seattle.

[Alben Barkley]

So looks like tonight we will see a big Adams win, narrow Youngkin win, Murphy underperformance at least, socialist mayor/local candidates and defund the police ballot initiatives failing in deep blue cities…

Almost like I'm more in tune with the electorate than the "progressives" on Atlas or something! And even some of the more mainstream Dems who were deluding themselves into being bloomers and calling me a doomer (laughably, given how I was constantly called a bloomer last year and in 2019 for the KY race), using mental gymnastics to explain away Biden's abysmal approval ratings and the polls showing weak results for Dems. And arguing endlessly that NOBODY could POSSIBLY care about any of this "woke" stuff because THEY personally don't care about it!

I DID live through 2010 and 2014, you know, and even voted in those elections. And a lot more too. Almost like I have some idea of what races are more likely to go which way, when, and why because I've lived it.