Virginia Mega Thread: The Youngkin Administration

[Skill and Chance]

Bump.

So the surprise was actually the near tie in SD-30, which voted clearly right of SD-31 and SD-16!

[Skill and Chance]

FWIW, SD-27 probably will end up left of SD-24 when Poquoson is said and done.

[Skill and Chance]

FWIW Susanna Gibson overperformed the fundamentals.  That was the best Dem result in the state in a Biden +5 seat.

[Skill and Chance]

FWIW Susanna Gibson overperformed the fundamentals.  That was the best Dem result in the state in a Biden +5 seat.

In fact the night was not so good for the dems: if biden does the same result, he loses the election.

I'm getting tired of reading this.

*Democrats flip a chamber* -> "Here's why that's bad news for democrats"

Down ballot races aren't always good proxies for national races. Virginia Republicans still have strength down ballot and Biden winning the state by double digits wasn't a normal occurrence.

The absolute outcome in Virginia is good for Democrats; the only thing really at stake was whether Dems would get a majority in each chamber and in the end they won both.

However, they still have a lot of room for improvement; they lost a ton of Biden + 5-10 seats due to factors like being outspent and low black turnout which were at least somewhat in the state party's control.

It's the same way in Mississippi, from an absolute standpoint the only thing that mattered was Reeves won the Governorship, but his relatively weak performance suggests Rs in the state have work to do.

The VA HOD is likely to be pretty solid for Dems going forward.  Dems were able to get a majority there without winning a single seat that Biden won by less than 12 points.  This was probably Republicans’ last real shot at a majority there under current coalitions.

I would agree with that.  There were bunch of narrow misses in the HoD in significantly Dem trending areas (Henrico/Chesterfield/Williamsburg), and Dems still took control without the.  The PWC seat they flipped may be vulnerable given less favorable trends there (D's basically ran even with McAuliffe 2021 throughout PWC while obviously doing better elsewhere), but there's also an outer Loudoun seat that was only won 53/47 by the R this week after being tied between Biden and Trump, so it's probably screaming left.   55D/45R in the HoD seems totally achievable in 2025 (they pick up 57, 75, 71, 82, and 89).  The ceiling is also really high in a Dem wave, approaching 70D/30R.

The State Senate math actually looks worse than expected for Dems.  With PWC drifting back right vs. statewide, they will need to make progress somewhere else to make up for SD-30 being more of a toss up than expected.  One way to do that would be winning LG in 2025, because 20 of the 40 seats were quite clearly left of the state.  SD-24 appears to have trended right, and SD-17 trended right dramatically.  SD-27 probably looks the most promising for Dem expansion given it was only a 2% R plurality win with a left-leaning independent taking 4.5%?   Also, interesting how close SD-4 in Roanoke was, 53/46 R win in a Trump +1 seat, and without anything close to a top tier investment in the Dem.

[Skill and Chance]

FWIW Susanna Gibson overperformed the fundamentals.  That was the best Dem result in the state in a Biden +5 seat.

In fact the night was not so good for the dems: if biden does the same result, he loses the election.

I'm getting tired of reading this.

*Democrats flip a chamber* -> "Here's why that's bad news for democrats"

Down ballot races aren't always good proxies for national races. Virginia Republicans still have strength down ballot and Biden winning the state by double digits wasn't a normal occurrence.

The absolute outcome in Virginia is good for Democrats; the only thing really at stake was whether Dems would get a majority in each chamber and in the end they won both.

However, they still have a lot of room for improvement; they lost a ton of Biden + 5-10 seats due to factors like being outspent and low black turnout which were at least somewhat in the state party's control.

It's the same way in Mississippi, from an absolute standpoint the only thing that mattered was Reeves won the Governorship, but his relatively weak performance suggests Rs in the state have work to do.

The VA HOD is likely to be pretty solid for Dems going forward.  Dems were able to get a majority there without winning a single seat that Biden won by less than 12 points.  This was probably Republicans’ last real shot at a majority there under current coalitions.

I would agree with that.  There were bunch of narrow misses in the HoD in significantly Dem trending areas (Henrico/Chesterfield/Williamsburg), and Dems still took control without the.  The PWC seat they flipped may be vulnerable given less favorable trends there (D's basically ran even with McAuliffe 2021 throughout PWC while obviously doing better elsewhere), but there's also an outer Loudoun seat that was only won 53/47 by the R this week after being tied between Biden and Trump, so it's probably screaming left.   55D/45R in the HoD seems totally achievable in 2025 (they pick up 57, 75, 71, 82, and 89).  The ceiling is also really high in a Dem wave, approaching 70D/30R.

The State Senate math actually looks worse than expected for Dems.  With PWC drifting back right vs. statewide, they will need to make progress somewhere else to make up for SD-30 being more of a toss up than expected.  One way to do that would be winning LG in 2025, because 20 of the 40 seats were quite clearly left of the state.  SD-24 appears to have trended right, and SD-17 trended right dramatically.  SD-27 probably looks the most promising for Dem expansion given it was only a 2% R plurality win with a left-leaning independent taking 4.5%?   Also, interesting how close SD-4 in Roanoke was, 53/46 R win in a Trump +1 seat, and without anything close to a top tier investment in the Dem.

Is PWC County really “drifting right”. Dems uniquely bad 2023 performance could just be due to low non-white turnout and local issues; it’s been pretty consistently shifting left at the Pres level for the past few decades and is still seeing growth from Dc.

Dems have underperformed in PWC in a relative sense in every election since 2020.  The county is 26% Hispanic (the most in VA), so this is probably an extension of the gradual Hispanic R trend.  I certainly don't expect Dems to lose PWC anytime soon, but there's a greater chance they get held under 60% going forward.  FWIW Dems only matched McAuliffe in PWC while running ~3% ahead of him statewide.

[Skill and Chance]

In Virginia, each chamber of the legislature has final jurisdiction over who won a disputed election to one of their seats if the losing candidate files an election contest.  The chamber with the disputed seat acts as a court of last resort and can declare a winner by majority vote.  The decision of the legislative chamber would be final and unreviewable by any court (unless it was somehow found to violate the federal constitution, but this very process was used in Mississippi just a few years ago).  If a lower court somehow ruled in favor of this insane position, Hashmi would file an election contest before the state senate.  The seat would be held vacant until the dispute was resolved (they could not be bound to follow any state court or SBE order to seat the Republican) and the worst case scenario would be a 20/19 vote to seat Hashmi next winter.

Also, there is a Republican in the (soon to be) Dem majority HoD facing a dispute of just this sort.  Democrats actually could declare his opponent the winner 51/48 with no recourse if they really wanted to.  Senate Republicans should keep that in mind. 

[Skill and Chance]

Early voting in Virginia appears to have stabilized at ~32% of the total post-COVID.  EV was notably more Republican this year and election day notably more Democratic.

Note that early voting prior to 2020 required an excuse.  

[Skill and Chance]

Wow, the 2nd closest Dem loss after HD-82 was Lily Franklin in HD-41 (Blacksburg).  This was a Trump 2020 district!  The 3rd closest Dem loss was Karen Jenkins in HD-89 (Chesapeake/Suffolk).  This was a Biden +2 2020 district!  These were both considered Lean R going into the election and did not receive top tier investment.  Both finished within 1%.

Compare this to HD-21 and HD-30, which did receive top tier investment and ended up 52R/47D and 53R/47D, respectively.

[Skill and Chance]

So many unfortunate close losses for Dems. The GOP is lucky, this was almost a catastrophic situation for them moreso than just a bad one.

If Dems performed 2% better everywhere, they would have 56(!) HoD seats and 23 senate seats.

[Skill and Chance]

So many unfortunate close losses for Dems. The GOP is lucky, this was almost a catastrophic situation for them moreso than just a bad one.

If Dems performed 2% better everywhere, they would have 56(!) HoD seats and 23 senate seats.

I think David Owens (seat 56) wins by 1 vote (1.35 unrounded) if Democrats performed 2% better everywhere and the recount would be highly uncertain. Owens won by 2.0037%.

Republicans were about 4.8% away from a trifecta, which seems quite far despite only losing by chambers by 1 seat.

Yes, Dems were unexpectedly up >4% in their 50th HoD seat.  However, I think the overall expectation was that R's would be even further from a trifecta because SD-30 was never expected to be right of SD-31.  Also, there appears to have been a relative Dem overperformance in the mountains that counteracted the relative GOP overperformance in most of NOVA and still gave Dems the statewide PV.

 

[Skill and Chance]

Interesting that it's the exact opposite pattern compared to the federal level.

Democrats lost 13 seats in 2001 even as Warner won because the GOP controlled redistricting.

The same was true in 2011.

2023 is the first election since 1999 conducted on a map the GOP didn't draw.

I mean yes we can argue on multiple curves, but if the GOP had a trifecta that drew the maps odds are the GOP would have gained 5-7 with these statewide results depending on how defensive the GOP wanted to be.

For the State Senate it's:

1995 Allen (R): R+2
*R's gain a seat in a special election, control flips R*
1999 Gilmore (R): EVEN
2003 Warner (D): R+3
2007 Kaine (D): D+5 Control Flips D
*D's gain a seat in a special election*
2011 McDonnell (R): R+2 Control Flips R
*Northam (D) becomes LG in January 2014, Control Flips D*
*R's gain a seat in a special election in August 2014, Control Flips back R*
2015 McAuliffe (D): EVEN
2019 Northam (D): D+2 Control Flips D
*D's gain a seat in a special election*
2023 Youngkin (R): R+1

As you can see, there's a lot more going on here.  Other than the one term between the 2003 and 2007 elections, the 40 seat chamber has been within 22/18 either way since 1992 and there has only ever been one true wave election in that period (2007 for Dems).  Also, special elections have been hugely important for control.

[Skill and Chance]

https://x.com/lukerosiak/status/1723483423535157476

https://twitter.com/jaaavis/status/1730690310500487340https://twitter.com/senatorhashmi/status/1730699321769709901

Good.  The people just voted for her.  The proper time to challenge something like this is in advance of the election.