Virginia Mega Thread: The Youngkin Administration

[Oryxslayer]

I am shocked Chase didn’t win.

Ground game matters! Also, conventions sometimes favor the more radical candidate, but I am not sure that ended up being the case here. Chase turned off a lot of party insiders by threatening third party runs and endorsing independents.

Youngkin is also perceived to be more hardline than Snyder. The pitch his campaign during the last few days was essentially a call for ballot integrity a la other Southern GOP efforts. There is a reason why he will benefit from whoever gets knocked out for third place: He's got a similar profile to Snyder and is closer in pitch to Chase, and its hard to imagine the Snyder v Chase identity contest producing many transfers.

[It’s so Joever]

I am shocked Chase didn’t win.

Anyway... this is exactly how Marjorie Taylor Greene would go down in flames if she decides to run statewide. You can be as "Trumpy" as you wish, but if you have an XX chromosome and/or severely lack charisma, you're out.

Good point, for a second I forgot a lot of Trumpism requires being a male to work.

[VAR]

I am shocked Chase didn’t win.

Anyway... this is exactly how Marjorie Taylor Greene would go down in flames if she decides to run statewide. You can be as "Trumpy" as you wish, but if you have an XX chromosome and/or severely lack charisma, you're out.

Good point, for a second I forgot a lot of Trumpism requires being a male to work.

Exactly! Donna Trump wouldn't even have cracked 10% in 2016.

[Mr.Phips]

Youngkin could turn out to be a problem for McAuliffe.

VA voters might have a Dem. fatigue by November and elect him (barely), but Gov. Murphy should easily hang on in NJ.

A 1R, 1D win would be the same result for Biden as Reagan in 1981.

In the 40 years in between, the new President always lost both races ...

Dems losing either race in November would not be a good sign for them.

[DINGO Joe]

I like how Snyder and Younkin have managed to tie Loudon, Arlington and Falls Church.

[Tender Branson]

Youngkin could turn out to be a problem for McAuliffe.

VA voters might have a Dem. fatigue by November and elect him (barely), but Gov. Murphy should easily hang on in NJ.

A 1R, 1D win would be the same result for Biden as Reagan in 1981.

In the 40 years in between, the new President always lost both races ...

Dems won the Virginia race in 2013.

Anyway, Dems losing either race in November would not be a good sign for them.

You need to read my post again.

Obama wasn’t new in 2013.

[Skunk]

We're still clinging to the notion that there's a such thing as an "electable" Republican in this race huh? Okay.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Re: "electable" candidates winning in the primaries and their competitiveness... we already saw this happen four years ago and it didn't work out for Republicans. Electable Ed Gillespie fought off a (should-be) fringe candidate but still ended up getting subsumed into culture war nonsense that was fairly unpersuasive and led to him being crushed. Youngkin will follow the same script and end up campaigning on some anti-CRT nonsense because that's where the Republican party is. It will be slightly more successful than talking about MS13, but the fact that the craziest person doesn't seem to be on track to win doesn't necessarily make the actual winner competitive.

[MT Treasurer]

I actually think this will be a tougher race for Republicans than MD-GOV 2014. Hogan could at least mount an under-the-radar challenge in a race that went largely unnoticed by the DGA until the final weeks of the campaign and run as a check on the incompetent, complacent, out-of-touch D legislature to pull off his upset. Youngkin (bless his candidacy for the memes) will have to contend with a very reliable and more energized D base (the drop-off in turnout from a presidential year won’t hurt D chances in a state like this, nor would that have been the case pre-Trump), a more robust D ground organization, the inevitable national attention this race will attract, and a very efficient D coalition (Hampton Roads/Richmond/the independent cities are hardly more "elastic" than NoVA). Short of an unprecedented D collapse, he or any other Republican is pretty much DOA against any D candidate regardless of the quality of their campaign, even in a GOP wave environment.

MD 2014 was 7 points more Republican in the GOV race than VA 2013 as well, and Cuccinnelli's and Hogan's candidate qualities obviously weren’t the only reasons for that. Ralph Northam won by nine points against a relatively competent Republican, it’s very hard to see the GOP closing that gap in a state as inflexible in its political preferences as VA!

My prediction would be a D+5-6 win, and that’s pretty close to the best-case scenario for the GOP. A double-digit blowout should surprise nobody.

[VAR]

Glenn Youngkim's general election campaign can be summarized beforehand as "reeeeeeee cancel culture" / "'wokism' bad", and I, as a resident of the Commonwealth of Virginia, can assure you that nobody will care.

[Skill and Chance]

I actually think this will be a tougher race for Republicans than MD-GOV 2014. Hogan could at least mount an under-the-radar challenge in a race that went largely unnoticed by the DGA until the final weeks of the campaign and run as a check on the incompetent, complacent, out-of-touch D legislature to pull off his upset. Youngkin (bless his candidacy for the memes) will have to contend with a very reliable and more energized D base (the drop-off in turnout from a presidential year won’t hurt D chances in a state like this, nor would that have been the case pre-Trump), a more robust D ground organization, the inevitable national attention this race will attract, and a very efficient D coalition (Hampton Roads/Richmond/the independent cities are hardly more "elastic" than NoVA). Short of an unprecedented D collapse, he or any other Republican is pretty much DOA against any D candidate regardless of the quality of their campaign, even in a GOP wave environment.

MD 2014 was 7 points more Republican in the GOV race than VA 2013 as well, and Cuccinnelli's and Hogan's candidate qualities obviously weren’t the only reasons for that. Ralph Northam won by nine points against a relatively competent Republican, it’s very hard to see the GOP closing that gap in a state as inflexible in its political preferences as VA!

My prediction would be a D+5-6 win, and that’s pretty close to the best-case scenario for the GOP. A double-digit blowout should surprise nobody.

I'm thinking more like D+2.5-5.  The VA electorate is structurally less realigned/more R in the odd years, 2017 was a significant underperformance of 2018, 2019 a significant underperformance of 2020 and Youngkin does have the ideal VA R profile (vaguely socially conservative businessman focused on education and employment).  He will be good at making Dems look like the aggressors on social issues, which is key to keeping it close, but I do agree with you on how hard it will be for R's to get over the line.

[KaiserDave]

Oh my god are people actually caring about this

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

This just means the GOP is gonna spend millions more than they would with Chase to still lose by mid-high single digits

[Tender Branson]

This just means the GOP is gonna spend millions more than they would with Chase to still lose by mid-high single digits

Nope.

This race will end up relatively close.

[Lief 🗽]

Yikes, not looking good here. Thank god TMAC seems to be the front runner for the nomination, he’s really the only one with a chance of beating Youngkin.

[Roll Roons]

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1391827258520788992

[Canis]

Yikes, not looking good here. Thank god TMAC seems to be the front runner for the nomination, he’s really the only one with a chance of beating Youngkin.

I don't see how people see Youngkin as a strong candidate the man doesn't even support Same-Sex marriage.
I see any of the D's beating youngkin by a decent amount besides maybe Fairfax and Carter because Farifax is a sexual predator and Carter seems to barely be trying to run a campaign T-mac and the Jennifers would crush any of the republican candidates. Cox is the GOP's strongest candidate and I can't see him cutting margins in Farifax and Loundon County by enough to give him a shot of winning and now he's out of the race. Till further notice, I'm rating this at Likely D closer to Safe then Lean unless a big scandal comes up on the Democratic Nominee and even then it would have to be pretty big.

[Oryxslayer]

So now we progress through three near-meaningless rounds of apportionment until we find out if Chase and Cox's overlapping bases allows her to overtake Snyder and lose to Youngkin.

[Skill and Chance]

So now we progress through three near-meaningless rounds of apportionment until we find out if Chase and Cox's overlapping bases allows her to overtake Snyder and lose to Youngkin.

What? Cox is a 20+ year state legislator with something of a moderate streak (most notably, negotiating the original medicaid expansion).  Chase is a hardcore "2020 was stolen" Trump activist. Or do you mean geographical?

[Roll Roons]

https://twitter.com/stateoftheraces/status/1391830492509519879

Alright, pack this up, we're going home. It's official. This race is Titanium D. McAuliffe will now win by even more than next year's Democratic nominee in Hawaii.

[Lief 🗽]

Yikes, not looking good here. Thank god TMAC seems to be the front runner for the nomination, he’s really the only one with a chance of beating Youngkin.

I don't see how people see Youngkin as a strong candidate the man doesn't even support Same-Sex marriage.
I see any of the D's beating youngkin by a decent amount besides maybe Fairfax and Carter because Farifax is a sexual predator and Carter seems to barely be trying to run a campaign T-mac and the Jennifers would crush any of the republican candidates. Cox is the GOP's strongest candidate and I can't see him cutting margins in Farifax and Loundon County by enough to give him a shot of winning and now he's out of the race. Till further notice, I'm rating this at Likely D closer to Safe then Lean unless a big scandal comes up on the Democratic Nominee and even then it would have to be pretty big.

I absolutely don’t think this guy is a moderate at all but the Enemy of the People media is desperate for a horse race here (see those Dave Wasserman tweets) and will regurgitate his framing as a “moderate, pro-business nice guy ” as necessary.

[Oryxslayer]

So now we progress through three near-meaningless rounds of apportionment until we find out if Chase and Cox's overlapping bases allows her to overtake Snyder and lose to Youngkin.

What? Cox is a 20+ year state legislator with something of a moderate streak (most notably, negotiating the original medicaid expansion).  Chase is a hardcore "2020 was stolen" Trump activist. Or do you mean geographical?

Geographical, I'm not dumb. Cox ran a campaign of "put me second," and that ended up with him in last place of the major candidates in all but his base in Richmond. But both he and Chase have the same Richmond geographic base - the two actually served the same constituents for a period. Chase is likely to benefit from Cox transfers in that region purely off of Geographic familiarity. If these conventions were just ideological contests then Chase would be winning based off the results last night, but many other factors matter.

[Canis]

Yikes, not looking good here. Thank god TMAC seems to be the front runner for the nomination, he’s really the only one with a chance of beating Youngkin.

I don't see how people see Youngkin as a strong candidate the man doesn't even support Same-Sex marriage.
I see any of the D's beating youngkin by a decent amount besides maybe Fairfax and Carter because Farifax is a sexual predator and Carter seems to barely be trying to run a campaign T-mac and the Jennifers would crush any of the republican candidates. Cox is the GOP's strongest candidate and I can't see him cutting margins in Farifax and Loundon County by enough to give him a shot of winning and now he's out of the race. Till further notice, I'm rating this at Likely D closer to Safe then Lean unless a big scandal comes up on the Democratic Nominee and even then it would have to be pretty big.

I absolutely don’t think this guy is a moderate at all but the Enemy of the People media is desperate for a horse race here (see those Dave Wasserman tweets) and will regurgitate his framing as a “moderate, pro-business nice guy ” as necessary.

I highly doubt the early media framing of Youngkin will tilt this race in his favor. Once he opens his mouth on the campaign trail and debate stage and his record his brought up none of that will matter.  Even then I doubt people will see that he's a "moderate buisnessman " and choose to back him because of it. We just came off a complete clown show that nearly ended our democracy when we elected a "buisnessman".

[VAR]

https://twitter.com/Elections_Daily/status/1391835989010747398

[jamestroll]

I am glad the other Democratic Candidates do not even pose a threat to McAufflie in the June 8th primary. I doubt any of them could even cross 45% of the statewide vote against Youngkin, who will have unlimited funds.