Virginia Mega Thread: The Youngkin Administration

[Skill and Chance]

McAuliffe has been tying Youngkin to Trump/abortion restrictions/insurrectionists for months now and that didn’t stop the race from tightening or at least didn’t cause a shift in McAuliffe's favor, so I fail to see how this "message" will prove more successful if he goes full Mark Udall during the next weeks. I really don’t think this "Trumpkin" thing is the gotcha genius line of attack Democratic strategists think it is, but who knows. If McAuliffe's playbook is vindicated and Democrats win the race rather easily (at least 5 points), then I don’t see how any other Democrat would have lost with the exact same message/strategy — if tying Youngkin to Trump/national Republicans is really all that’s needed for a D win here, it really flies in the face of the "McAuliffe is a particularly/uniquely good candidate for this race" takes.

Obviously the state has changed dramatically over the last decades, but it’s still quite something to see a Democrat staking everything on cultural issues in Virginia, and it’s certainly not a strategy without its risks. The dominant message of Youngkin's campaign has been that VA Democrats just keep taking the state to new extremes on all of these social issues (abortion, COVID restrictions, parental rights and school choice, etc.), and if that message actually resonates with a non-negligible portion of swing and D-leaning voters while galvanizing the R base, McAuliffe sure is doing his best to reinforce it. If it doesn’t resonate with them (and barely galvanizes the Trump base), then this entire campaign is a moot point because the race is Safe D anyway. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

I’m sticking with my McAuliffe +4 prediction, but my "gut" feeling (which has been wrong before, so...) tells me that this will either be a dramatic D underperformance/GOP upset (so razor-thin McAuliffe victory or a Youngkin win) or an easy high single-digit D sweep of all the statewide races/HoD with nothing in between.

I'm sticking with McAuliffe +2.5

Youngkin will improve dramatically everywhere else, but given what we have seen in all the elections so far this year, how is he supposed to be the one R candidate that swings the college+ inner suburbs vote?

I think the HoD is basically Lean R, though.  All those Trump->Biden outer suburbs districts are majorly at risk.

Also Sears and Miyares could get enough crossover votes to win.   

[Skill and Chance]

McAuliffe has been tying Youngkin to Trump/abortion restrictions/insurrectionists for months now and that didn’t stop the race from tightening or at least didn’t cause a shift in McAuliffe's favor, so I fail to see how this "message" will prove more successful if he goes full Mark Udall during the next weeks. I really don’t think this "Trumpkin" thing is the gotcha genius line of attack Democratic strategists think it is, but who knows. If McAuliffe's playbook is vindicated and Democrats win the race rather easily (at least 5 points), then I don’t see how any other Democrat would have lost with the exact same message/strategy — if tying Youngkin to Trump/national Republicans is really all that’s needed for a D win here, it really flies in the face of the "McAuliffe is a particularly/uniquely good candidate for this race" takes.

Obviously the state has changed dramatically over the last decades, but it’s still quite something to see a Democrat staking everything on cultural issues in Virginia, and it’s certainly not a strategy without its risks. The dominant message of Youngkin's campaign has been that VA Democrats just keep taking the state to new extremes on all of these social issues (abortion, COVID restrictions, parental rights and school choice, etc.), and if that message actually resonates with a non-negligible portion of swing and D-leaning voters while galvanizing the R base, McAuliffe sure is doing his best to reinforce it. If it doesn’t resonate with them (and barely galvanizes the Trump base), then this entire campaign is a moot point because the race is Safe D anyway. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

I’m sticking with my McAuliffe +4 prediction, but my "gut" feeling (which has been wrong before, so...) tells me that this will either be a dramatic D underperformance/GOP upset (so razor-thin McAuliffe victory or a Youngkin win) or an easy high single-digit D sweep of all the statewide races/HoD with nothing in between.

I'm sticking with McAuliffe +2.5

Youngkin will improve dramatically everywhere else, but given what we have seen in all the elections so far this year, how is he supposed to be the one R candidate that swings the college+ inner suburbs vote?

I think the HoD is basically Lean R, though.  All those Trump->Biden outer suburbs districts are majorly at risk.

Also Sears and Miyares could get enough crossover votes to win.  

There is literally one Trump > Biden district that Dems hold in the HOD.  For Republicans to win the majority, they have to win districts Biden won by double digits.

OK, but I stand by this.  The decisive districts have been very close downballot in recent times and R's won several Clinton 2016 districts in 2017 and 2019 despite a Republican president.

[Skill and Chance]

If you were Youngkin you really want to see more crossover from 2020 in these polls. Maybe they have something internally but being down 3 in a Biden +2 sample isn't really confidence inspiring. This electorate even with a Dem dropoff is unlikely to be below Biden +7-8.

No, you don't adjust polling for recalled vote.  It's well documented that people "forget" that they voted for incumbents who are currently unpopular.  We've seen this all the time. 

[Skill and Chance]

It will be so funny when this ends up being a McAuliffe +1-2 victory and both Democratic and Republican hacks on here have egg on their face.

Two posts will inevitably happen:

SnowLabrador Concerned Citizen ★★★★★ Posts: 4,509

Virginia election results « on: November 3, 2021, 06:50:22 pm » Biden won the state by 10, so there's a 9 point GOP shift. Mark my words, we're about to lose 80 seats in the House next year and McConnell will come close to having a filibuster proof majority in the senate. Biden is over and will absolutely not run, leaving the inevitable loss against Trump to Harris.

SirWoodbury Concerned Citizen ★★★★★ Posts: 3,011

Reaction to Trump winning VA in 2024? « on: November 3, 2021, 04:13:21 pm » ?

If it ends up being McAuliffe +1, it will look like Youngkin won until the weekend after the election when they finish counting the late mail-in votes.  I'm sure that won't be controversial at all.

[Skill and Chance]

Since McAuliffe's entire strategy is Youngkin = Trump, I wonder how that sits with Democrats if they lose this. I'm still expecting a narrow McAuliffe win but I can't imagine going into 2022 thinking a Trump clone just won a state Biden won by 10 (but of course, he's not a Trump clone, not even close).

And if Youngkin loses, it'll really cement the idea that Virginia is done with the Republican Party medium/long term. If they can't win when the national winds are favoring them and Biden is unpopular and McAuliffe has run this lousy of a campaign they probably can't win any time in the near future.

Agree completely (I also think Youngkin would beat McAuliffe in any remotely competitive state except maybe GA), but I wonder if 'minimalist' single-issue themes/campaigns might be more effective than we think. Hickenlooper's entire campaign could be reduced to "Gardner = Trump", Tuberville's to "I support Donald Trump", Rick Scott's to "Bill Nelson had four decades to fix this", Todd Young's to "I’m a marine, not a lobbyist," Maggie Hassan's to "We need a Senator who will put Granite Staters ahead of special interests", etc. All of these candidates sounded incredibly repetitive and clearly gave scripted answers all the time, but apparently it was all that was needed from the candidate him- or herself (while outside groups took care of the negative ads, obviously) to ride the state's partisan lean to victory. Even Mark Udall, who was widely mocked for his seemingly obsessive focus on abortion, only lost by two points back when CO was only D-leaning and not deep blue like VA/CO today. He’d win easily even with a literal single-issue abortion campaign today, and VA isn’t that much more R than CO.

McAuliffe is many things but he’s no dummy, so I don’t think he’d be pushing this "Youngkin = Trump and no abortions" message so hard if he didn’t consider it an effective strategy. He also drove home the abortion message in 2013 when he painted Cuccinelli as an extremist, and it worked for him then (again, when VA was already a strongly D-leaning state but less D than it is today). There’s a case to be made that a largely negative campaign that drives home no more than one or two themes and doesn’t allow itself to be distracted no matter what is a winning formula in today's world of political campaigning. Now obviously you’re right that Republicans were never going to win this race if they can’t even win it under current conditions, but it’s an interesting pattern nonetheless. (And like I said, I don’t think McAuliffe's strategy would have worked in any remotely competitive state this year.)

Because of McAuliffe's background and personal life, a clean, upbeat, unifying campaign isn't really an option for him.  He knows he has to go with fear to win, and it worked last time (albeit narrowly). 

Holding that Trump rally on Wednesday night may have been a huge strategic error.  It effectively ends the all education, all the time news cycle that started with the debate gaffe with enough time left on the clock for McAuliffe to make it about Trump again.

[Skill and Chance]

I’m just not convinced abortion in general is some huge net loser for either party

The polling on abortion in America is incoherent

People want it legal, but they also have large margins want it restricted after a while

How can someone be “pro life”, but only after x weeks?

How can someone be “pro choice”, but oops, no choice allowed for you, young lady who is too far along in term

Doesn’t make sense

An intermediate view on abortion (1st trimester clearly legal, 3rd trimester clearly illegal) has actually been the majority opinion in the English-speaking world for centuries.  I encourage you to read up on the legal concept of "quickening," which was historically the point during the pregnancy after which termination was regarded as murder.  Roe overshot this historical consensus in the pro-choice direction and fired up conservatives.  The Texas law now overshoots it in the other direction for the first time in 50 years. 

[Skill and Chance]

Question: will the counting on election night resemble typical VA r bias, or will the mail voting alter the pattern?

In 2020, the R bias got even worse.  It looked like Trump could plausibly win VA until very late despite the double digit Biden win in the end.  Also, if it's within a % or so, they won't be able to call it until the weekend after due to the new postmarked-by-election-day mail ballot rule. 

[Skill and Chance]

McAuliffe is kind of a Democratic Trump.  Fairly moderate on an actual policy level, but constantly having personal scandals and putting his foot in his mouth.

[Skill and Chance]

So, question for those of you who are arguing mcauliffe's "parents and education" statement wasn't problematic....why is mcauliffe spending time and resources producing an ad saying it was "taken out of context"?

They know it didn't play well. It probably won't matter, but it didn't help either.

Also....lmfao at a poster above trying to tie youngkin to trump's heartless powell statement.

When you have literally nothing else to run on, you make it all trump trump trump.

the people of va deserve a better campaign.

Politicians are always paranoid, McAuliffe has to run as if he's down by a point but he isn't actually.

Can't decide if he's tied/losing in his internals and genuinely panicking or he's still up 2-4 and is trying to scare Dems into turning out so he can have a chance at a 2017 result.

[Skill and Chance]

This race just feels different than 2017.

I am smelling a Mcauliffe +2-4 result.

Agreed.

Still don't think Youngkin will win, though.  I do think Youngkin wins a majority of the CDs, which will be important for 2022 recruiting.

[Skill and Chance]

So, question for those of you who are arguing mcauliffe's "parents and education" statement wasn't problematic....why is mcauliffe spending time and resources producing an ad saying it was "taken out of context"?

They know it didn't play well. It probably won't matter, but it didn't help either.

Also....lmfao at a poster above trying to tie youngkin to trump's heartless powell statement.

When you have literally nothing else to run on, you make it all trump trump trump.

the people of va deserve a better campaign.

Politicians are always paranoid, McAuliffe has to run as if he's down by a point but he isn't actually.

Can't decide if he's tied/losing in his internals and genuinely panicking or he's still up 2-4 and is trying to scare Dems into turning out so he can have a chance at a 2017 result.

Or maybe it's neither.

It's like saying "McAulife is scared and that's why he's bringing in Obama, Biden, Harris, Abrams, etc."

Those people would be brought in whether his internals said +10 or -10.

You still don't run an apology/clarification ad unless something says you have to.  A well-executed apology ad can be effective, though. 

[Skill and Chance]

Mcauliffe ends planned news interview early due to “bad questions”

https://mobile.twitter.com/TeamYoungkin/status/1450593236301590540

This is bad.

[Skill and Chance]

Mcauliffe ends planned news interview early due to “bad questions”

https://mobile.twitter.com/TeamYoungkin/status/1450593236301590540

This is bad.

Don't worry, I'm sure in few days Trump will put out a statement congratulating Terry Mcauliffe for showing that reporter who's boss

Trump barely made it through in what should have been a favorable environment.

[Skill and Chance]

https://twitter.com/kabir_here/status/1450830169460117506

What is a more typical PVI at this point? This sounds high.

We don't know what to make of this.  The rules were different in 2017, and there was a giant spike nationwide from 40% EV/VBM in 2016 to 69% EV/VBM in 2020 for obvious reasons.  Previously, it took from 2004 to 2016 to get from 20% to 40% There is every reason to expect that the 2024 EV will fall back below a a majority when COVID is fully behind us. 

[Skill and Chance]

Fairfax will report very late as will the rest of Nova.

But look to Hampton Roads.. if Youngkin is dominating there hard I may be able to call it for him early.

It wasn’t late in 2017 or 2020.

Young king winning Hampton Roads? You can’t be serious.

Fairfax changed its reporting method this year to centralize everything and add an extra verification step.  It will be very late.  In the extreme case, it may very well report all at once the morning after. 

[Skill and Chance]

The bottom line is McAuliffe needs something to break the all education, all the time news cycle before election day. 

[Skill and Chance]

The Dems endless incompetence is staggering. This is what happens when you promote a bunch of idiot moron social justice types as the future and get the media to go along with it. You can thank AOC, Omar and company for the future Republican majority with 59 senators come 2025. Forget about stolen elections, Rs won't need to cheat!

IDK about 59 senators, but Trump's winning the PV on his 3rd try if this environment continues all the way to 2024.

*However, be very, very careful about assuming that.  Imagine telling someone in 2017 that the deciding issue in the 2020 presidential election would be infectious disease management!

[Skill and Chance]

The Dems endless incompetence is staggering. This is what happens when you promote a bunch of idiot moron social justice types as the future and get the media to go along with it. You can thank AOC, Omar and company for the future Republican majority with 59 senators come 2025. Forget about stolen elections, Rs won't need to cheat!

Establishment darling Terry McAuliffe is a social justice type?

Lee Carter wasn't nominated here. If he was you might have had a point. I can only imagine how depressing this race would have been with him or Fairfax nominated. I can't believe that things actually could be worse. Would we have been better off with Carroll Foy?

The choice of Dem nominee probably didn't much matter (excluding Lee Carter).  What they needed was for the GOP nominee to be an Amanda Chase or Corey Stewart.

Also, this looks like another example of the "only won because their opponent was nuts" penalty.  McAuliffe barely eeked out a plurality against Ken Cucinelli, who was pushing the right wing culture war as hard as the Squad is now pushing the left wing culture war.  In retrospect, that should have set off alarm bells about renominating him for a 2nd run.    

[Skill and Chance]

https://twitter.com/tencor_7144/status/1454150580671328261?s=20

Yes, this really looks like "we're down outside the MOE in internals" flailing.  Reminiscent of the Jack Conway Aqua Buddha stunt late in the 2015 KY-GOV campaign. 

[Skill and Chance]

Youngkin should turn this disgusting episode into a nice final ad.

Did they not have a plan to attack him on any other issue than this?  Was it not obvious from day 1 that Youngkin isn't Corey Stewart or Trump? 

[Skill and Chance]

LG is kind of meaningless unless the governor has huge scandal or gets sick, or if the state senate is tied (in fairness, a plausible outcome after 2023).  AG is a somewhat valuable office in its own right because an opposite party AG can act to inhibit and constrain a governor.  However, if it's a split decision, the best outcome by far for Dems would be to somehow hold the HoD while losing the governorship.  

On the other hand, Ayala is clearly a better 2025 prospect for governor than Herring, so if they can only have one statewide office, Dems might prefer winning LG while losing everything to winning AG while losing everything else.  Herring is washed up at this point and would not be a viable 2025 candidate.  

[Skill and Chance]

Worst campaign ever
https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1455167994397593604?s=20

Hard disagree.  COVID has always been McAuliffe's strongest issue advantage vs. Youngkin.  Significant majorities support vax mandates for teachers and masking kids in schools.  Had COVID remained the top issue for voters, he would be winning by 5-10% using the Newsom CA-Recall strategy.  Fortunately, the outbreak in VA is in rapid decline now so voters have mostly moved on to other issues. 

[Skill and Chance]

Chaz Nuttycombe has Governor at Tilt R, Lt. Governor as Tilt D and AG as Lean D, with the GOP picking up 7 Delegate seats (HDs 10, 12, 28, 73, 75, 83 and 85).

12, 28, 75, 85 are certainly possible flips with the trends in 12 being bad for Dems.
10 was Biden +16
73 was Biden +21
83 was Biden +15.

If polls are off even a tiny bit in the suburbs and TMac holds on by a few, I can see Dems holding everything but 12.

If a Youngkin win is truly driven by overperformance in inner NOVA and majority-minority areas,  I expect it the HoD hold at 51D/49R unless it's Youngkin by >5.

[Skill and Chance]

Always take early exit polls with a grain of salt, but if they are accurate this looks like the Youngkin +5-10 R sweep scenario. 

[Skill and Chance]

In 2013 54 percent of voters disapproved of Obama’s job performance, according to the exit polling. But 30 percent of those who “somewhat disapproved” of Obama nonetheless voted for McAuliffe.


https://www.politico.com/story/2013/11/terry-mcauliffe-virginia-governor-2013-elections-099441

This is from an old politico article

This is why the Biden numbers, in the context of this specific election, don't interest me to much for now. What I think Democrats should be concerned about is Youngkin's approvals in comparison to McAuliffe's.

If Biden really is 43/56 in VA, it means he's in Hoover after the stock market crash territory nationally, so that's actually pretty important, possibly the most important part here for longer term implications.