Virginia Mega Thread: The Youngkin Administration

[sting in the rafters]

2020 Exit poll for mod/con/lib.

https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/exit-polls/president/virginia

This is the first thing I'm looking for. Ideological ID is the 2nd most correlated metric w/ voter intent after party id, and imo is more useful because of the distinction between moderates and independents. If that conservative number is <35%, then Tmac wins even if he hits the D-floor with moderates (e.g. 4 to 3). The pollsters have been screening for a conservative turnout of 37-39%,  which opens the door to have the raw E-day vote margins in rural/Appalachian VA and eat into the state's ideological lean. Also look for liberals to be at least 25%.

[sting in the rafters]

The current live breakdown on CNN's exit polls has the 2020 presidential vote at 46/46, liberal turnout at 23%, and the conservative vote at 90+% for Youngkin and unusually high at 38% . So either:

A) Entire sample isn't in yet
B) 04 and 18 repeat where it was a sh**tty sample altogether
C) A lot of voters are lying about their prior voting history
D) The polls were right and people in the VA-Dem GOTV operation+T-Mac campaign need to be yote into the Potomac for letting the Rs so easily control the narrative and issues of a winnable race.

[sting in the rafters]

While it is plausible that there is higher conservative turnout amongst LV, the ideological composition would be not only be to the right of the 2013 race, but feature the same conservative% as 2009. Rs do have an enthusiasm advantage, however not by much.

At the risk of hackery the RV screens in both polls show the generally accepted ~25/40/35 split seems more accurate. That said, the state of the campaign indicates a path to victory for Youngkin as TMac cannot take turnout in NoVA and the black communities of the Tidewater regions for granted. Sleepwalking through the home stretch is not an option.

People keep saying this but there is no evidence of this?

No evidence of the Tmac campaign sleepwalking? Agreed, he's been utilizing COVID and abortion as 2 key issues to hammer Youngkin over the head with. My point is more a general point of not taking the race for granted solely because of favorable trends.

He isn’t so it’s pretty moot. He’s running a good campaign by your admission.

Never really said he isn't, look man some of us are gonna have the '16 general in the back of our minds forever (yes, there are countless differences in the dynamics which need not be enumerated but the principle is the same) and be scared s---less at any sign of low base turnout. WaPo showing consistently higher voter intent among Rs and conservatives underscores the need to close it out in the final 6 weeks.

To reiterate, the fact that even an electorate as right as 2013 would give Tmac the W indicates this is a Likely D race. But there's a reason Likely D races are Likely and not Safe.

>Looks at Surry County, a rural racially polarized county in the Tidewater at Youngkin+0.7 with 100% reporting as opposed to Northam+13.1
>Repeatedly bangs head into wall

[sting in the rafters]

A majority of voters stated VA's economy is doing well. Another majority support vaccine mandates. Despite the enthusiasm gap the recalled 2020 vote is D+2. Even with the fuel shortage fostering further outparty sentiment in rural areas due to the inelastic demand for gas, overall those are favorable fundamentals. And losing in a favorable state with favorable fundamentals is unacceptable.

Do not let the Beltway and I-95 corridor fool you, VA has its fair share of Appalachia. One party stood by its agenda, defined the issues of the race (seriously how did schoolboard meetings become a winning issue for Rs? Embarrassing.) and engaged the low-propensity voters they needed. Youngkin's raw margins over Gillespie '17 in the fully reported counties along the WV border show that alone.

The other party's spent the last 6 months throwing cold water on its base at a national level, failed to talk about the issues where it has the upper hand (healthcare+minimum wage), and failed to GOTV in the Tidewater.  Otherwise in a calendar's time the same s---'s gonna happen in the Rust Belt GOV/SEN races.

[sting in the rafters]

https://twitter.com/DrewWilderTV/status/1456311610935595011

You know, this does prove there is a party in this country which still believes elections have consequences. Unfortunately, it's a party which is unsure whether it still believes in elections.

[sting in the rafters]

What evidence is there that there was some massive reversion of suburbanites who despite supporting conservative policies voted blue the last four years because of "civility politics"? T-Mac won Biden voters 95-5 according to exit polls. While exit polls aren't always reliable, I highly doubt the true marginal was significantly different given the county data we have.  The fact that NOVA, the region with the highest voting propensity in the state trended D in the row offices indicates it was more a function of turnout. NOVA isn't full of swing voters, it is the Democratic base.

If we're ranking the 3 sources of Youngkin's margin of victory relative to Northam's in 2017, they are as follows:

1a) Northam-Not voting (This is the swing in the Tidewater where black turnout was notably depressed. In addition, T-Mac's raw margins in the rural regions indicate that whatever remaining vestigal WWC support Ds have opted to stay at home.)
1b) Not voting-Youngkin (The swing in Appalachia where turnout was up considerably compared to 4 Novembers ago)

BIG GAP

3) Northam-Youngkin

Further proof of this arises from 2013. According to exit polls T-Mac actually did worse with independents in 2013 than he did this year; the difference is the partisan gap was D+5 and this year it was D+2. Now, I can admit my bias here is in favor of wanting to believe that the Democratic agenda isn't the issue, but when the recalled 2020 vote is Biden +4 as opposed to the Biden+10 result last November, the black vote is only 16% of the electorate, that indicates base turnout is more of a culprit here than any hand-wringing over "turning off moderates".

Simply put, the campaign couldn't explain to its target audience why it should get to the polls. T-Mac talked in his concession speech about raising the minimum wage, fighting for paid leave, and expanding Medicaid. Where was any of that in the campaign? Why let Youngkin have free rein in defining the issues of the race?

[sting in the rafters]

McAuliffe actually had around 12% more votes than Northam (1,588,149 and 1,409,175 respectively) to add on to your points about turnout and of course VA is not a friendly environment for gubernational candidates for the President's party...

From bro up the thread (sorry can’t find quote im pretty twisted rn) but while T-Mac managed to increase the raw numbers and share of total registered voters from 25.67% in 17 to 26.69%, the largest decreases in vote share were in the Tidewater/Richmond metro. I don’t think it’s a coincidence the counties which saw the largest drop-off in vote share saw the largest swings. This also matches up w/Youngkin winning >10% of the black vote; the miniscule portion of the black population which is R-leaning was engaged.

Indeed, the outparty nearly almost always has the enthusiasm advantage. It’s one of the reasons why Youngkin gained almost half a million raw votes on Gillispie’s 2017 performance as well as going from 21.42% of registered voters to 27.90%. And despite that massive increase in base turnout, Ds still woulda won if they worked to match by motivating their core constituencies.

Bottom line, Ds choked away a winnable race, and if they don’t learn the lessons regarding voter engagement then they’re gonna blow PA/MI/WI next fall too.

[sting in the rafters]

NJ

Murphy's largest losses came in the ancestrally D regions of South Jersey and the sparsely (relatively, no part of NJ is truly rural) populated Pines. He actually did quite well all things considered in the affluent, culturally liberal I-95 corridor.

Compare Christie's 2009 victory map with Murphy's squeaker this past Tuesday. It's not West Caldwell nor the Oranges NJ Ds need to be worried about; It's Swedesboro, Millville, and Vineland.