Virginia Mega Thread: The Youngkin Administration

[LtNOWIS]

Today I took a gubernatorial primary poll on YouTube, where I picked McAuliffe. And I door knocked a little bit for Ayala for Lt. Governor.

The LG race is still a black hole to me. Almost every voter in Alexandria is still undecided, they're more concerned about the city races. Polling's probably useless with so many people undecided. It's one of those things where Ayala might win just because she drew straws to be first on the ballot.

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Because literally no one in Virginia can tell the difference between the two candidates for that office (Lt. Governor).  they haven't distinguished themselves.  their ads are the usual, I support women and abortion and hate guns, and love healthcare... ok ... I have no idea who I will vote for.  I wish MT Treasurer (in touch voter with extensive knowledge of Arlington/Fairfax demographics) could help me out. 

On Gov. I am going to vote for Terry because he's the most likely to beat Trumpkin.  Though I do like Foy and her ads.  If she ran for Lt. Gov. I would definitely vote for her....

For AG I'm voting for Herring because the other dude is clearly way too inexperienced for the job in my opinion.  It looks like he is barely out of law school and as far as I can tell he's mostly worked in politics.

For Lt. Gov. I'll probably just leave it blank.

I mean the tea leaves seem pretty clear to me. Ayala is aligned with Northam and House Democratic leadership and other establishment elements, and was endorsed by them. She endorsed Biden in the 2020 primary. Rasoul is aligned with Warren/Sanders Democrats, and was endorsed by the Sunrise Movement and so forth. He endorsed Warren in 2020. Guzman endorsed Sanders but she dropped out, so Rasoul takes over that lane.

And those are the frontrunners, with a pretty clear ideological divide. Besides that, McClellan has support in Hampton Roads but Northam having beef with her would seem to block her out of the establishment lane. Perryman has a lot of inexplicable endorsements in Fairfax County but I don't think he's broken out of the pack at all. Levine has a lot of money but I've literally door knocked a lot in his district and only one person mentioned his name. Warren has no money or support and is irrelevant.

So like, I could be wrong, but it seems like a pretty clear choice between the two wings of the party. And then with that you also look at the representational aspects. Is it bad if the Dems nominate an all-male slate for the 3rd time in a row, with Rasoul? Is it a dire mistake if the Dems nominate an all-NOVA ticket of McAuliffe/Ayala/Herring?

That's what you have to work with. Platform/positions is not very relevant, they're all Dems and can all break Senate ties just as easily.

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I wish we had ranked choice voting for LT Gov in particular. It’s so hard to tell who is favored and how strategic to be with my vote.

It's amazing we have 45% undecided a few days from election day.

But I do think it's primarily an Ayala vs. Rasoul race. Ayala is #1 in polling (for what little that's worth), has the Northam endorsement and other establishment backing, and is #1 on the ballot. Rasoul has a lot of progressive support and endorsements, a lot of money, and WaPo's endorsement.

McClellan and Levine aren't out of it, with McClellan having a lot of support in Hampton Roads and Levine trying to benefit from a late ad blitz on gun control. But I do think they're second tier.

But yeah, this would be a great time for ranked choice voting. I much prefer Ayala, Rasoul and McClellan to Levine and the also-rans. Levine's my delegate and I rather dislike him. He's also running for re-election, which is tacky, but he faces a top tier primary challenge from the vice mayor of Alexandria.

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Virginia should really just let Governors run for re-election so this kind of mess doesn't happen again. Yes, it sucks when the well-liked former Gov comes in and decides he'd like another term, cutting off every other candidate. There's a reason this doesn't happen in any other state.

I agree, but it should be remembered that the only reason T-Mac is coming back is because Fairfax's political career was ruined because of the sexual assault allegation.

If that hadn't come out/happened, Fairfax would be Governor right now and coasting to a full term, and be widely regarded as a rising star.

Yeah, for a week or so it looked like Justin Fairfax would serve a record-breaking 1.5 consecutive terms.

Anyways the Virginia government is set up so that there's a steady stream of Lt. Governors and Attorneys General to run for Governor or other statewide office. That's almost always how it works, with at least one party getting their nominee for governor from those positions. So it's a bit presumptuous for Carroll Foy to run for governor after only 4 years in the House of Delegates, when many people of equal or greater seniority were only running for Lt. Governor, and when McAuliffe and McClellan both had bigger records in Richmond. If you're more progressive, that's an argument at least, but it's not one that Establishment-minded Virginia voters are very receptive to.

In any event, the commonwealth is 100% guaranteed to have a barrier-breaking Lt. Governor of some sort, who will then be in a position to run in '25.

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https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1402415072828399616?s=20

Dang I guess Dave and I are neighbors.

I'm glad to see Mark go.

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https://twitter.com/LarrySabato/status/1402415074254508033

Honestly this is a smashing success up and down the ballot. Pretty much all the results are exactly what I wanted. Delegates Mark Levine, Lee Carter, Steve Heretick, and Ibraheem Samirah are the only Dem incumbents I would've wanted to lose their primaries, and they're the only ones who did lose.

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As a leftist, I’m glad Carter is gone cause he’s a douche, makes the whole movement looks bad. Saying his defeat is the death of the “insurgent left” is way premature and simplified, also the woman who beat him is a progressive. It also seems like some more moderate delegates lost to more left candidates, but I can’t quite tell cause Heretick also had some corruption charges which likely played into it

Of the 4 defeated Dem incumbents, I believe 3 were defeated by more centrist candidates (Carter, Levine, Samirah), while Heretick was the only one beaten from the left.

Of course there were other issues at play in all cases. Temperament, corruption, or blatantly abandoning the district to seek a higher office. "More centrist" doesn't mean "actually centrist" in these cases, it just means being less of jerk about it.

Broadly you're correct, this isn't the death knell for anything. Virginia's an establishment state that had a good night for the establishment.

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The Lt. Governor map is so pleasing to the eyes (With the exception of Danville City and Pittsylvania).

https://www.politico.com/election-results/2021/virginia/lieutenant-governor/

Also Alexandria City, which was carried by Mark Levine. He got a resounding 30% of the vote in his home city. You can't see it as easily on that map, but it stands out pretty well on the VPAP map.

https://www.vpap.org/electionresults/20210608/office-lt-governor/

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Disappointing to see McAuliffe sail to victory and the expectantly lackluster performance from Carter.

Thrilled, however, that DSA-endorsee Clark Nadarius unseated a conservative incumbent for the 79th district.

Yeah. I'm a super centrist. My favorite Virginia politician is Abigail Spanberger.

But Nadarius beating Steve Heretick is absolutely a good thing. I probably would've knocked doors for Nadarius myself. Heretick was a shady dude. He worked in the "industry" where they buy out structured settlements.

So like, decades ago a 6 year old kid got horrifically burned in a fire, lost a leg and had extensive skin damage. A defective space heater was at fault. So the family sues and the company has to pay the kid's living expenses for the rest of his life.

But then Heretick's law firm comes along to this now-adult man and says "hey we'll give you cash now in exchange for your settlement, it'll be great." So they do all that and then you have this disabled burn victim saying "hey wait, this lump sum isn't as much as I thought after all your fees, and now I don't have that monthly income and I'm totally screwed."

You can see some long-ass articles on this back going back to 2015, and as recent as 2021.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/the-flawed-system-that-allows-companies-to-make-millions-off-the-injured/2015/12/27/cce16434-9212-11e5-a2d6-f57908580b1f_story.html

https://vpm.org/news/articles/22473/virginia-lawmaker-steve-heretick-deposed-in-alleged-fraud-scheme

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Wow, delegates only make $17K a year? I make more than Carter and I'm 21 lol.

Unaffordability of the job might be a fair sour grape.

The idea is, it's a part time job. The sessions are only 30 to 60 days per year. But between that, campaigning, party events, constituent services, etc., it probably will take up most of your time. Most 9-5 jobs don't want you gone that long, so you better be like, a law partner, a business owner where someone else runs things, or something like that. Or your spouse has a real job while your profession is "nonprofit operator/activist" or whatever. Carter's official profession is listed as "IT Specialist," but as of 2019, his main day job was driving for Lyft.

It's fair to say that the pay isn't enough to make it logically worthwhile for most people. Even if they're going to they're going to corruptly leverage this into a lobbyist position or judgeship or something, that takes years. This is an issue in many states, where low legislator disincentives regular working people from seeking office. Instead you have independently wealthy people, out of touch retirees, and ideologues. Even moreso than if it paid a living wage.

[LtNOWIS]

Also why did Ibraheem Samirah lose his primary?

From what I heard Samirah was not a constructive legislator. It was either his way or the highway, even on progressive issues.

He was one of the defectors on the bill eliminating qualified immunity because it didn't go far enough. I believe he did the same with the clean energy bill and tried to do it with marijuana legalization. Basically his constant sabotage was enough to piss off the VADP to where they refused to back him.

It's not like Shin is a moderate or anything. She just had a more constructive approach.

Yeah. Samirah's predecessor in that seat, state senator Jennifer Boysko, endorsed Shin and actively campaigned for her.

Also Samirah had never faced a real primary electorate before. State Senator Wexton was elected to the US House, then state delegate Boysko filled Wexton's senate seat, then Samirah won a "firehouse primary" for the house seat, defeating Kofi Annan and some other people. That's a different crowd than a statewide June primary.

[LtNOWIS]

Lee Carter is supporting Independent candidate Princess Blanding for Governor.

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I don't live in Virginia but I might be tempted to vote for Youngkin depending on how the legislature plays out. What I'm more worried about is if the state ends up in a republican trifecta.

Well the state senate isn't up until 2023, so that's the earliest a trifecta can happen unless a Democrat dies, resigns, or switches parties.

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Could the afganistan fiasco hurt mcaulife in NOVA?

NOVA is AN EXTREMELY pro-interventionist area of the country.

I don't see why it would. The governor has zero control over foreign policy.

Yeah speaking as an extremely "NOVA" guy, who has followed events in Afghanistan very closely for years, I'm gutted by recent developments. Awful result for millions of Afghans, and for the US's place in the world.

But I don't blame McAuliffe for that, he's not a foreign policy guy by any means, and had nothing to do with any of that.

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Just saw a new Youngkin ad, he absolutely demolished McAuliffe on the premature Afghanistan withdrawal.  Race is over.  Pro-interventionist NOVA is going to deliver for its hometown hero Glenn Youngkin and Matty will be hailed as an amazing political prognosticator for years to come.

But anyways, on Earth 1, the amount of spending Youngkin must be doing is insane.  He's on every channel on prime time on DC stations, meaning it's probably being blasted to NOVA/DC/and parts of Maryland.  He actually seems to be trying to cut into the NOVA margins.  Which, to be fair, is the right strategy.   He can't win unless he gets the Dem margin down 10 points in Fairfax.  Downstate vote isn't going to cut it.  He's been very cautious to look like a Trumpy politician but not say one word that offends liberals.  But at the end of the day he's unlikable and bland and this is a waste of time and money.

is McAuliffe gonna start airing ads or?

He does air ads as well just not nearly as many.  I've seen a more balanced number of ads on YouTube and online.  McAuliffe was actually showing up more until recently but now even online I'm seeing more Youngkin ads than McAuliffe.  Predictably, most of his ads are trying to tie Youngkin to Trump + highlighting how Youngkin refuses to debate him.  The Youngkin ads are all about how he's a victim of negative attack ads because McAuliffe wont focus on the real issues (not that Youngkin is mentioning any himself).

I feel like we're at a stage in modern elections where every TV set is just saturated with ads, so much so that there's nowhere for additional money to go.

Conversely, there are tons of people like me who don't watch traditional TV, who get no ads. All my YouTube ads are for health care or joining the Air Force, even though I vote religiously.

[LtNOWIS]

He’s being called a RINO now because of the ad. Something tells me his chances of victory have fallen, even if it’s a bit overdramatic.

That ad is completely unobjectionable, for anyone except white supremacists.

[LtNOWIS]

As far as the super rich places, Youngkin will win both Great Falls and Oakton, while still losing McLean handedly. He'll obviously win the geographically large precincts on the PWC border north of Manassas. But these places account for only a relative small percentage of Fairfax's population. Reston, Alexandria (ffx county portion), Tyson's, the Springfield's, and the Burke's are all unmovable these days: somewhat to very dense, extremely diverse and very well-educated. Youngkin MIGHT improve slightly on the 2016 numbers here, but this really isn't a place that can move much.

That sounds like a 66-34 T-Mac win in Fairfax, which is definitely not sufficient for Youngkin if he wants to win statewide. 

Oakton is about 34k people, Great Falls is like 17k.  Youngkin could win both, but obviously that's a tiny fraction of Fairfax, and he probably won't win by a big margin.

I am very confident Trumpkin will not win Oakton. lol

Trumpkin will carry great falls of course.

I just realized we will never know for sure who won either area, as absentee votes are still routed through the central absentee precinct for Fairfax County.

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https://twitter.com/Michelle4VA50/status/1442927730895376384?s=19
Beyond parody. Maybe Carter was the right choice after all.

If NARAL Virginia didn't want things like this to happen, they shouldn't have gone completely outside their wheelhouse to support defunding the police. They are distracting from their broadly popular cause by advocating an unrelated, much less popular idea.

[LtNOWIS]

Some random thoughts:

• The HoD is unpredictable, and looking at presidential margins won't tell you the whole story, especially in NoVA. One example is HD-34, which runs along the Potomac from McLean to Trump's golf course (this is probably in the top ten wealthiest state legislative districts in the country). Biden won this district by 25+ points, but incumbent Kathleen Murphy won by just 16 in 2019. If there's going to be a rebound in the suburbs it will be here, and she's facing a well-funded opponent in Gary Pan.
  

This was Barbara Comstock's old seat. She also represented it in the US Congress, making her the last congressional republican to have any territory inside the beltway.

I door-knocked here in the January 2015 special, after Comstock won her US House seat, when Murphy was first elected. Even back then the Dems knew it was vulnerable and managed to flip it. At the time we thought that was just poor campaign strategy. Not knocking on enough doors or whatever, hitting the same doors too many times and pissing people off. We didn't think it was because of shifting winds as such. But Murphy remains, almost 7 years later.

Lots of massive houses with long driveways. Also I saw former GOP cabinet member who was still a household name, who told me he "wasn't involved in politics anymore." [/list]

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Here's an anecdote for you all. I don't have cable, but I watch a lot of YouTube, with ads. I've gotten a few Glenn Youngkin ads, talking about how McAuliffe is generically bad, or talking about the school choice issue. One where they talk about raunchy books in the Fairfax County library system, which really hits close to home to me as a childless bachelor in Alexandria City.

By contrast, the Dem ads are almost invisible. They're just directing me to vote early, and go to iwillvote.com to do that. That's a DNC-run website to help you find an early voting location or method or whatever. I've seen Mark Warner, and Stacey Abrams in these ads, telling me that early voting is important, but never anything about how Youngkin is a bad candidate or how McAuliffe is a good candidate.

So I'm not sure what's going on here. Perhaps the Democrats have me dialed in as a reliable Dem voter, since I did vote in the Democratic presidential primary in 2020 and the state primary in 2021. Or they figure across the board that there are more Democrats than Republicans in Virginia, and if they get anything remotely like 2018 or 2020 turnout, they're gonna win.

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…

So I'm not sure what's going on here. Perhaps the Democrats have me dialed in as a reliable Dem voter, since I did vote in the Democratic presidential primary in 2020 and the state primary in 2021. Or they figure across the board that there are more Democrats than Republicans in Virginia, and if they get anything remotely like 2018 or 2020 turnout, they're gonna win.

Part of it depends on where you are.

I live in Wayne County, Michigan.

Country seat is Detroit.

Republicans have not carried the county, thinking specifically for U.S. president, since 1928.

Yeah that makes sense. Thinking about this a few days later, Google probably doesn't know my voting history. But they do know I live in Alexandria, and probably in a very bougie, heavily Dem ZIP code in Alexandria. So the McAuliffe campaign figures that anyone here needs to be turned out, not convinced of anything.

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Youngkin potentially winning Democratic gloomism is probably the best possible narrative for the final nine days of early voting in NVA.

So I think the perception Youngkin is surging is going to dominate the final two weeks of this race, not the issues. And that means that while those issues may have driven swing voters to Youngkin, and I think red avatars here underestimated the degree of long-term partisan commitment some of those voters had, if there is a Democratic enthusiasm problem there is a good chance it will be solved in the next nine days. Or if it isn't we will know.

But if we start seeing 75K a day next week we will know something is happening.

I've been saying this all along. As irritating as the media still treating Virginia as a swing state is, it at least can help avert complacency. That very well could have aided in the California recall too. And if that comes to fruition it provides at least some hope for 2022, because Democrats should be scared s***less, and that being instilled this early could help make the year less dreadful. That might be wishful thinking though and getting way too ahead of oruselves. Let's just see how this race and New Jersey go first, I guess.

Yeah, you can contrast that with the thinking in 2014. "Mark Warner is a beloved former governor, Virginians just adore him. Just look at how he thrashed Gilmore in 2008. There's absolutely no way he could ever lose to anyone."

And then due to that complacency, Dems came within a percentage point of losing.

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The only way Youngkin wins is if turnout is low enough among Democrats. Fortunately for him, that might well happen.

Turnout (Voted by mail, ballot app, early vote)

10th district (Dem) = 88,533
9th district (GOP) = 45,798

Well yeah it looks great for the Dems when you compare a hugely overpopulated, growing district, with an underpopulated, shrinking district. You could also look at turnout like this:

3rd district (Dem) = 55,933
1st district (GOP) = 81,743

[LtNOWIS]

The only way Youngkin wins is if turnout is low enough among Democrats. Fortunately for him, that might well happen.

Turnout (Voted by mail, ballot app, early vote)

10th district (Dem) = 88,533
9th district (GOP) = 45,798

Well yeah it looks great for the Dems when you compare a hugely overpopulated, growing district, with an underpopulated, shrinking district. You could also look at turnout like this:

3rd district (Dem) = 55,933
1st district (GOP) = 81,743

And how much of the 1st is from now overpopulated Prince William? I would be careful looking at early vote numbers because VA's history is very short for non-election day voting. Some 2020 mail voters have traditionally voted E-day and appear to be returning to it.

Yeah that was my point, that there is no direct comparison for early voting in Virginia. We have the excuse-required early voting in 2019 and earlier, and the no-excuse voting in the height of the 2020 pandemic. There's nothing like 2021. Presumably Democrats will do disproportionately well in the early vote, and Republicans will easily win the Election Day vote, but it's all about the margins.

Looking at the early votes by district on VPAP is fine. And you can break it down by city and county if you want as well. But with no basis for comparison, and without knowing how people in these areas are swinging, you can't draw any firm conclusions from that information.

I think McAuliffe wins but I'm not 100% convinced, and saying "look at the early voting data, safe D" is not a sound argument.

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Dem pundit Ben Tribbet just called all 3 races for the GOP on Twitter.