If the 2021 results are now largely seen as a rejection of D policy on COVID and education, what has changed?
- Candidate quality - GOP nominating people who can’t match Youngkin
- Roe / Trump buffoonery - GOP excesses outweigh D overreach (and implicitly some Youngkin voters would now have chosen Terry?)
- Turnout - the Dems now have a stronger grip on more reliable voters
- Turnout with an asterisk - the Ds may win specials, but Reps will still show in Nov
I think 2021 suggests it’s a mix of 1,2, and 4.
Youngkin's win was always overblown as meaning more than it ever did. State politics are very different from national politics, and he barely won. It would be like expecting Biden to win Kentucky because Beshear narrowly won in 2019.
And I see little evidence or reason to believe Dems will have much higher turnout advantage in specials compared to November.
Anyway, 2 is THE big thing, and that can be seen in the fact that the tide started turning for Dems literally right after Dobbs. That suddenly changed the whole game. The election ceased to be about critical race theory nonsense or whatever, or even inflation/the economy (which is now improving anyway), and started to be about women's rights. Ironically Dobbs was the worst thing that could have happened to Republicans, a Pyrrhic victory/dog caught the car moment if I ever saw one.
