If McAuliffe loses, who is to blame?

[fhtagn]

Non Swing Voter

Turns out I was right

[Mr. Smith]

McAuliffe ran a terrible campaign. What was he going to do if he won?

He lost same reason Hillary lost in 2016. You can't run on a campaign of "My opponnet is bad".

Once again, 2020 is the Exhibit A.

In fact, all the candidates that didn't do that in 2020 got clobbered out of the primaries.

What do you mean?

The whole operandi of 2020, hence why Buttigieg, Harris, Warren, etc. kept losing to Biden was simply because Biden said "I can beat Trump" and the entire shlock went hook and line and sinker for him.

When Summer rolled through, all he said was "Trumpbad"...the only difference is Trump finally lost coherence by that point and Pence couldn't stop a fly on his head.

Enough people took that to actually mean something. Oops.

Biden decisively won the nomination because of black voters. I don’t know if they gravitated toward him because of “Trumpbad.”

Primary black voters are the epitome of that mentality, albeit more openly reserved for any Republican.

[SnowLabrador]

Bumping this after McAuliffe did lose.

[Flyersfan232]

all of above this was the tampa bay lighting of 2019 levels of  bad

[Mr. Reactionary]

McAuliffe ran a terrible campaign. What was he going to do if he won?

He lost same reason Hillary lost in 2016. You can't run on a campaign of "My opponnet is bad".

Once again, 2020 is the Exhibit A.

In fact, all the candidates that didn't do that in 2020 got clobbered out of the primaries.

What do you mean?

The whole operandi of 2020, hence why Buttigieg, Harris, Warren, etc. kept losing to Biden was simply because Biden said "I can beat Trump" and the entire shlock went hook and line and sinker for him.

When Summer rolled through, all he said was "Trumpbad"...the only difference is Trump finally lost coherence by that point and Pence couldn't stop a fly on his head.

Enough people took that to actually mean something. Oops.

Biden decisively won the nomination because of black voters. I don’t know if they gravitated toward him because of “Trumpbad.”

Obama helped at the margins. My dad is a pollworker and in the VA Dem primary last year he had 2 different black ladies ask for assistance because they couldn't find Obama on the ballot. They were asked at church to come vote for Obama. Both eventually figured out who to vote for because they remembered Biden's name from yard signs. Biden being Obama's VP def helped.

[dw93]

McAuliffe himself mostly. The Democrats should've never ran him

[SnowLabrador]

In hindsight, I tend to agree with #5, and somewhat with #1. While Manchin and Sinema blocking everything in Washington did play a part in Democrats being dissatisfied, McAuliffe and especially Northam got through a lot of good policies in Virginia. McAuliffe could have campaigned on those, so why didn't he?

[SInNYC]

In hindsight, I tend to agree with #5, and somewhat with #1. While Manchin and Sinema blocking everything in Washington did play a part in Democrats being dissatisfied, McAuliffe and especially Northam got through a lot of good policies in Virginia. McAuliffe could have campaigned on those, so why didn't he?

a) because calling attention to those policies will 'turn off moderate voters'
b) because those policies might mean he doesnt get campaign contributions from the corporate sector of the day
c) because its too risky to talk about policies when any idiot knows that saying 'orangeman bad' is a sure winner at the polls
d) all of the above

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Actually, Manchin and Sinema weren't the problem they vote LD for infrastructure, VA isnt blocking Voter rights like red states, the Progressives we're wrong in blocking infrastructure

[xavier110]

McAuliffe ran a terrible campaign. What was he going to do if he won?

He lost same reason Hillary lost in 2016. You can't run on a campaign of "My opponnet is bad".

Once again, 2020 is the Exhibit A.

In fact, all the candidates that didn't do that in 2020 got clobbered out of the primaries.

What do you mean?

The whole operandi of 2020, hence why Buttigieg, Harris, Warren, etc. kept losing to Biden was simply because Biden said "I can beat Trump" and the entire shlock went hook and line and sinker for him.

When Summer rolled through, all he said was "Trumpbad"...the only difference is Trump finally lost coherence by that point and Pence couldn't stop a fly on his head.

Enough people took that to actually mean something. Oops.

Biden decisively won the nomination because of black voters. I don’t know if they gravitated toward him because of “Trumpbad.”

Obama helped at the margins. My dad is a pollworker and in the VA Dem primary last year he had 2 different black ladies ask for assistance because they couldn't find Obama on the ballot. They were asked at church to come vote for Obama. Both eventually figured out who to vote for because they remembered Biden's name from yard signs. Biden being Obama's VP def helped.

Oh for sure, they voted for Biden because of his associations with Obama and general familiarity with him. Not because of Trump, lol. Black voters followed the signals of their community/Black politicians.

The racial gap seen in IA/NH where white liberal voters wanted nothing to do with Biden (while still frothing at the mouth to beat Trump) should make that even more obvious.

[Fetterman my beloved]

Other (Mostly McAuliffe but the democrats being stalled in the senate by Manchin and Sinema probably didn’t help, along with Biden’s tanking approval.)