Did dems have a better night in New Jersey than Virginia?

[Vosem]

Virginia state Democrats had a better night than New Jersey state Democrats. Flipping the state House is a great achievement (but of course New Jersey Democrats couldn't have done that because they never lost it to begin with).

Eyeballing it, it looks like national Democrats had a better night in New Jersey because the New Jersey results don't extrapolate to as Republican of a national picture as the Virginia results, but I need to look at the New Jersey results more closely.

[Vosem]

Somehow even when Democrats win, they lose according to the many large brain havers on the internet

2022 is actually a great example of this: Democrats won every race where both parties tried hard, won the top ten most expensive House races 9-1, and still lost the House. There is an enormous skew at many levels and it is literally true a lot of the time in American politics that "even when Democrats win they lose".

Youngkin was pretty much hinging his political future on this election and not only did he fail to flip the VA Senate, he lost the HoD in the process. That is both a massive win for Democrats and a massive loss for a guy who has clearly been angling for a presidential run

Zero people will care in a Youngkin presidential run about state legislative elections. Way too deep in the weeds.

[Vosem]

I know that the NJ State Senate Generic Ballot was D +6, about a 10 point swing right from 2020. I'm not sure about VA, but it looks like around a tie, also a 10 swing right from 2020. So I'm not sure.

Why do people keep comparing these #s to presidential #s? They are not comparable. Downballot in these states tends to be much different at times than presidential, especially with Trump on the ticket.

Because they're generic, so the effects of lots of candidates average out and in theory you get a picture of the broader environment. By comparison, it's hard to say that Beshear vs. Cameron reflects what a national environment will be like.

You're not wrong, but this is the reason people do it. Ultimately no two elections are alike, so if you want to extract information about some race somewhere you have to figure out which elections give you the most information.