Virginia Mega Thread: The Youngkin Administration

[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

18 points difference in favs, as preliminary exit polls show.

This is why I was looking for terry mcauliffe 2013 favs in order to compare but so far I have not found anything

I remember a preliminary exit poll from VA in 2013 that was McAuliffe +7 and then adjusted down throughout the night.  Even if this is off, it's pointing to such a clear R win that it would be very hard to flip the outcome.

[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. 

Hence why I mentioned, "in the context of this specific election". Also, voters in an off-year election are not representative of Virginia's 2024 or 2020 voters as a whole. Plus, we have to wait until the election results come in before we can even know if this is true.

Also don't forget, I remember plenty of approval polls placing Trump's rating under water in states like Nebraska, Texas, and Alaska, and several points underwater in Iowa or Ohio. I'll believe a dramatic exodus from one of the two major parties when I see it.

The IA/OH polls were obviously just wrong.  As for NE/TX/AK, Trump did the worst of any modern R in those places even though he still won (except for NE-02).

[Skill and Chance]

AP Vote Cast exit poll has education decently lower. Interesting if we get a 2020 Edison. vs Votecast again

In the race between Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin, 34% of Virginia voters say the economy and jobs was the most important issue facing the state. Seventeen percent name COVID-19 and 14% choose education, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of voters.

Health care (7%), climate change (7%), racism (5%), immigration (5%), abortion (5%) and law enforcement (4%) were all lower-tier issues.

https://apnews.com/article/virginia-election-ap-votecast-survey-75520c5c9a245bee384526abc138a61a?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=AP_Politics&utm_source=Twitter

Fascinating.  This other exit poll looks like a narrow McAuliffe win. 

[Skill and Chance]

IDK what is being reported 1st, but the rurals are all coming in reverse NYC level R in the initial results.

[Skill and Chance]

Loudoun early vote(?) is only McAuliffe +10.

[Skill and Chance]

Underrated result: VA supreme court likely stays 4 conservative/3 liberal through at least 2027.  2 seats are up in the next legislative session, the most moderate conservative and one of the liberals.  Republicans will have a say through the HoD and Democrats through the State Senate.  The most likely outcome is probably a deal where Democrats pick one and Republicans pick the other given there are 2 seats up and the majorities are so narrow.  If the seats are held open past a certain time, Youngkin gets to fill them unilaterally, but they only serve until the next legislative session, so it would risk kicking the permanent appointments out beyond the 2023 elections which in all likelihood won't be this R-leaning (and population equality requires moving at least one seat in each chamber from rural areas to NOVA, probably 2 in the HoD).

[Skill and Chance]

COVID is over and Dems need to stop running on it. The results here and in NJ make it clear.

Yes, this feels very 1946.  People are ready for the wartime mobilization atmosphere to end.

[Skill and Chance]

Wonder what happens in 2023?  Seems like a very different dynamic with lower turnout and Dems motivated by fear of a GOP trifecta?

[Skill and Chance]

Any news on the state senate? Or was it not up? I know Dems lost the house.

Not up until 2023

Smh why can’t they do half every cycle

If they did, Republicans would likely have a trifecta, assuming at least one of the Norfolk-Eastern Shore or outer Loudoun narrow Dem seats was up. 

[Skill and Chance]

EDIT: This was likely incorrect, it looks like the judicial nominees will have to pass both the GOP majority HoD and the Dem majority State Senate separately

[Skill and Chance]

Dems lost everything that was up in VA and are only being saved by the late absentees in NJ, so this wasn't just about T-Mac.

[Skill and Chance]

Any thoughts on what this means for 2022 and 2023?

Spanberger is in very bad shape IMO unless she somehow got an I-64 vote sink district. 

[Skill and Chance]

Honestly….how did Romney only lose loudoun by 4

I find Loudoun voting Gillespie in 2014 despite losing statewide more impressive.

He somehow squeezed enough out of rural areas.  It was remarkable.

[Skill and Chance]

Skip

I think the one thing we can learn from this is that Democrats are doomed in 2022 with that level of WWC support

Yeah, this is just really grim for Dems.  There's no way to spin this and it wasn't at all candidate-specific.  They can get VA back by matching or exceeding Biden with the college+ vote, but how they can possibly counter reverse-NYC style rural voting in the presidential swing states, let alone the senate?  That's the ballgame federally and we get the Republican New Deal in either 2025 or 29.

[Skill and Chance]

https://twitter.com/vpapupdates/status/1456641720976879621?s=20

Henrico held up really well for Dems for some reason. 

[Skill and Chance]

Also, note VA went from 63% absentee/early vote in 2020 to 37% absentee/early vote in 2021, with the same voting rules in place.  The surge to majority EV was likely a one-time thing due to COVID. 

Nationwide, 2020 was 67% EV and 2016 was 37% EV.  I would strongly expect this will revert back to a majority of votes cast day-of in 2024. 

[Skill and Chance]

I was quite busy last week so I just looked at the Virginia results in-depth today, I think there are a few things that stand out about this election worth noting.

Firstly, as I had indicated prior to the election, many of the firms who analyse the early vote like Targetsmart are basically run by dems and their analysis of the early vote is always to rosy for democrats, it was the same case this time, predictions that McAuliffe was winning the early vote by 30% or even 25% turned out to be wrong. In a state with no voter registration by party, analysing the early vote is hard, the only thing that could be gleaned from it was that early voting was higher relative to 2020 in counties that voted for Trump then Biden in Virginia to a modest degree, suggesting a moderate Republican turnout edge.

On turnout, the one piece of conventional wisdom that came true was since democrats like to vote early and Republicans on election day, the higher turnout was on election day relative to overall turnout, the better Youngkin would perform. Since turnout was very high on election day, over 2 million, it suggested Republicans would do well state-wide and they did. As an aside, I find it very funny that people were suggesting in this forum and on twitter that very high turnout on election day was somehow not good for Youngkin even though all the evidence suggested it was due to Republicans preferring to vote more on election day relative to democrats.


Finally, the 2021 election was basically an exact copy of the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections in VA with more or less a uniform shift towards the Republicans. In 2012, Romney lost VA by 4%, he lost Fairfax county by 20%, Fairfax had a partisan lean of D+16 vs the state-wide vote, in 2016 it was D+30 and D+32 in 2020, in this election it was D+32.

The different parts of the Virginia electorate voted identical to 2016 and 2020 in terms of how different groups behaved with a uniform swing towards Republicans. The election suggests there will not be a return to the pre 2016 alignment and the 2016 election represented a new alignment which is durable.

The problem is the 2016 coalition doesn't actually help Dems win anything.  What they need is for the Biden coalition to filter downballot and solve their geography problems through Southern suburbs and small cities more generally.  So far, that just isn't happening.   

[Skill and Chance]

I was quite busy last week so I just looked at the Virginia results in-depth today, I think there are a few things that stand out about this election worth noting.

Firstly, as I had indicated prior to the election, many of the firms who analyse the early vote like Targetsmart are basically run by dems and their analysis of the early vote is always to rosy for democrats, it was the same case this time, predictions that McAuliffe was winning the early vote by 30% or even 25% turned out to be wrong. In a state with no voter registration by party, analysing the early vote is hard, the only thing that could be gleaned from it was that early voting was higher relative to 2020 in counties that voted for Trump then Biden in Virginia to a modest degree, suggesting a moderate Republican turnout edge.

On turnout, the one piece of conventional wisdom that came true was since democrats like to vote early and Republicans on election day, the higher turnout was on election day relative to overall turnout, the better Youngkin would perform. Since turnout was very high on election day, over 2 million, it suggested Republicans would do well state-wide and they did. As an aside, I find it very funny that people were suggesting in this forum and on twitter that very high turnout on election day was somehow not good for Youngkin even though all the evidence suggested it was due to Republicans preferring to vote more on election day relative to democrats.


Finally, the 2021 election was basically an exact copy of the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections in VA with more or less a uniform shift towards the Republicans. In 2012, Romney lost VA by 4%, he lost Fairfax county by 20%, Fairfax had a partisan lean of D+16 vs the state-wide vote, in 2016 it was D+30 and D+32 in 2020, in this election it was D+32.

The different parts of the Virginia electorate voted identical to 2016 and 2020 in terms of how different groups behaved with a uniform swing towards Republicans. The election suggests there will not be a return to the pre 2016 alignment and the 2016 election represented a new alignment which is durable.

The problem is the 2016 coalition doesn't actually help Dems win anything.  What they need is for the Biden coalition to filter downballot and solve their geography problems through Southern suburbs and small cities more generally.  So far, that just isn't happening.   

The Biden coalition in 2020 was a short term reaction to Trump, much like the Carter coalition in 1976 was a one time reaction to reaction to Watergate.

If that is true, then Dems are screwed for a decade, especially with the Hispanic GOP trend continuing beyond Trump.

2024 will likely produce a GOP supermajority in the senate if they win the presidential race, so it's kind of a must-win for Dems.  I could see the party that loses 2028 being better off in the long run though, between redistricting control, China likely peaking in power, and the social security/medicare situation really coming to a head.  But 2024 is the Republican New Deal if they win.   

[Skill and Chance]

FWIW Yougkin's margin of victory just fell under 2%.  He's almost certain to stay above 50% in the end, though (which McAuliffe didn't get in his 2013 win). 

[Skill and Chance]

Seems clear VA Dems benefit from running a non-NOVA candidate.  Northam (former state senator from the Eastern Shore) ran statewide with 2 NOVA candidates in both 2013 and 2017 and substantially outperformed both of them both times.  Kaine (former Mayor of Richmond) also tends to outperform, with the 2018 blowout, running ahead of Obama in 2012, and winning Governor in 2005 while the NOVA LG candidate lost. 

Youngkin currently lives in NOVA, but he was born in Richmond and spent part of his childhood in Virginia Beach, so he clearly had a better connection downstate.  Mark Warner is similar in that he built up really strong rural connections over the years.

[Skill and Chance]

Would former Senator and Governor George Allen have won if he ran this year?

Maybe not.  George Allen was in his prime years when in office, but he'll be 70 next year and he looked a tad rough recently.  He's the kind of candidate whose past would hold him back, and would cause folks to give up on him when the going got tough.  (I personally think Cuccinelli would have beaten T-Mac in 2013 had the GOP not given up on him.)

Youngkin was an articulate, disciplined candidate who didn't scare people and spoke to voters on what was on THEIR mind.  He didn't overplay his hand on the School Curriculum issue, and he got a big assist from Merrick Garland (who DID overplay HIS hand).  He was an impressive candidate who ran a GREAT campaign.  T-Mac was an unattractive candidate who made unforced errors. 

Given that Youngkin won by less than 2, I'm pretty sure Allen would have lost.  He's ancient, but he's also a gaffe machine with practically no appeal in urban areas of the state.  He would also neutralize the retread/sneak around term limits issues McAuliffe had.

[Skill and Chance]

If Republicans can only manage a less than 2 point victory against the tmac campaign in 2021 I am not optimistic for the GOP future in Virginia.

Yes, it’s pretty obvious that the Youngkin coalition won’t be enough for the VA GOP by 2029, maybe not even by 2025 (especially against a far less damaged, more competent, 'fresh' D candidate) — there’s very little rural/small-town vote left to max/turn out, and the R shift in the big three D-trending areas was rather underwhelming when you consider how much Republicans had going in their favor in this election. Barring significant inroads with non-white voters, this will probably remain the GOP's (resounding) last hurrah in VA.

The Youngkin Hampton Roads was actually pretty impressive.  However, 2017 was a D candidate with local connections vs. an insider NOVA R and then 2021 was an R candidate with local connections vs. an insider NOVA D, so some caution is warranted.

NOVA was unimpressive vs. expectations after the Loudoun scandals, but still pretty in line with statewide. 

Richmond was where D's really held the line impressively.  Chesterfield should not have been that close.

So there is clearly a path during a Dem presidency if that Hampton Roads performance can be replicated, but IMO nothing can save them when an R is president again. 

   

[Skill and Chance]

Closest district was VA-10.

https://twitter.com/greggiroux/status/1460659975093686275?s=21

Wow VA-09 had a higher R margin than the D margin in VA-08, and the R margin in VA-06 was higher than the D margin in VA-03.

Also VA-02 was Biden +5->Youngkin +8.2 while VA-07 was Biden +1->Youngkin +10.7.  Without redistricting, Luria might have more to worry about than Spanberger.   

[Skill and Chance]

According to New York Times, every subdivision has 100% in.

Here's the probable final margins for all 3 races:

GOVERNOR:

Youngkin+63,480

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR:

Sears+50,076

ATTORNEY GENERAL:

Miyares+26,307

Anyone have the statewide PV for the HoD?  I'm pretty sure it was narrowly Republican?

Also, with Miyares trailing the other other 2 R's significantly (surprising to me because I expected him to perform the best), I have to think Jay Jones would have held AG for the Democrats if he had won the primary.

[Skill and Chance]

According to New York Times, every subdivision has 100% in.

Here's the probable final margins for all 3 races:

GOVERNOR:

Youngkin+63,480

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR:

Sears+50,076

ATTORNEY GENERAL:

Miyares+26,307

Anyone have the statewide PV for the HoD?  I'm pretty sure it was narrowly Republican?

Also, with Miyares trailing the other other 2 R's significantly (surprising to me because I expected him to perform the best), I have to think Jay Jones would have held AG for the Democrats if he had won the primary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Virginia_House_of_Delegates_election

Republicans won by 4 points.

Wow, so significantly better than statewide. 

On the other hand, this means the significant pro-GOP geographic bias of the 2010's is gone now.