Virginia Mega Thread: The Youngkin Administration

[Vice President Christian Man]

I'm going to guess TMac will hold it by around 5-6%.

[Suburbia]

McAuliffe wins, and he probably drags Ayala and Herring to victory

McAuliffe and Herring should bow out in 2025 and move on with their lives

[Skill and Chance]

McAuliffe wins, and he probably drags Ayala and Herring to victory

McAuliffe and Herring should bow out in 2025 and move on with their lives

Well, McAuliffe kind of has to.  Herring probably wants to be governor, but I don't think there's any way he gets through a Dem primary against Alaya, and even if Herring wins and Alaya loses, there are going to be 5 or 10 younger people chasing it by then.

BTW I think Herring and especially Alaya are at serious risk of losing this year, even if McAuliffe wins narrowly.

[wbrocks67]

538 has a poll average tracker so we can ignore RCP:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/governor/virginia/

[Non Swing Voter]

538 has a poll average tracker so we can ignore RCP:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/governor/virginia/

Do they ban trash polls? 

Will they ignore Trafalgar?

[Non Swing Voter]

It's really hard to square the CA recall numbers in Orange County with the idea that Youngkin is close enough in NoVA to make this a real race.

Yeah.  Basically this.

Youngkin is from NoVa (Fairfax) but he's not particularly appealing to NoVa voters that signals any result better than how the GOP is performing in UMC suburbs nationally (i.e., terrible).

[Non Swing Voter]

Question:

In 2020, did gop congressional candidates significantly outrun Trump in VA?

Biden beat T by 10+ in VA

What was the house margin in va?

Significantly.

51.99% D to 47.23% R

Bear in mind that Griffith in VA-09 was unopposed, while the GOP ran candidates in every district, skewing numbers slightly.

If you adjust for that, what does the margin look like?

It makes so much more sense to compare the 2021 gov result to the 2020 house results

If you adjust for Griffith running unopposed, the margin is similar to Biden/Trump, but slightly better for the GOP. The improvement is solely the result of Biden keeping VA-01 close (4 point loss) while Wittman crushed his opponent (a twitter progressive with a muslim name). All races besides 01/09 had extremely close margins to the presidential.

Wexton did poorly compared to Biden, too. No one noticed though since she still won by double digits.

That's because she's significantly more liberal than the district.  She's my congresswoman.  She basically runs like she's in one of the other 2 NOVA districts even though this one is a bit less liberal.  Not too liberal to win easily though.

Or because there’s still a big bloc of voters that still haven’t shifted their voting habits downballot yet. She isn’t much more liberal than Biden is. It’s normal for there to be a lag in voting patterns. You can see this in Democrats doing better than Biden in many rural Midwestern House seats, or in Republicans doing a lot better than Trump in newly blue suburban seats in California, Georgia, Texas, and Virginia.

Perhaps on paper, but her focus is much more on cultural stuff and she's not afraid to emphasize things like gun control, transgender rights.  If you listen to her main issues it's extremely liberal on social issues, more nuanced on fiscal stuff.  She's basically playing to people like me (which I guess makes sense given that I live in her district) but not really extending an olive branch to middle of the road voters in the district (other than on taxes).  I'd expect her to take a hit on this a bit, though not enough to lose the district other than in a giant red wave year (not gonna happen this time). 

[jamestroll]

Going forward, the Loudoun portion of the current VA 10 will probably be more reliable than the Fairfax portion for Democrats.

[Non Swing Voter]

Going forward, the Loudoun portion of the current VA 10 will probably be more reliable than the Fairfax portion for Democrats.

Perhaps.  It's had more demographic change than the Fairfax portion.  The Fairfax portion was explicitly carved out to gerrymander Barbara Comstock a district and essentially has all of the wealthy (formerly GOP leaning) areas in it.  That's why Wexton has to tread lightly on taxes.  She winning or coming close to winning essentially all of those rich precincts but if Dems did a huge tax increase she'd probably have to rely a lot more on Loudoun, which is where she's from anyways. 

It will be interesting to see how this part of Fairfax is redistricted.  I am guessing most of it does not remain with Loudoun.  Maybe the McLean and Great Falls portions but that's probably it. 

[Spectator]

Why are we pretending that VA-10 is even theoretically competitive? It’s not.

[Non Swing Voter]

Why are we pretending that VA-10 is even theoretically competitive? It’s not.

Who is saying it's competitive?  It's not competitive.  It's just the least Democratic of the 3 NOVA districts and the constituency is a lot different than the other two.

[Non Swing Voter]

Would note for the record though that a number of blue avatars here argued Barbara Comstock was safe after Trump got elected or that she was highly competitive...  that NOVA only swung because of him, etc. etc.  some of those posts have since been deleted.

[Roll Roons]

https://twitter.com/JessicaTaylor/status/1441374272602218496

Because of course.

[Mr.Phips]

https://twitter.com/JessicaTaylor/status/1441374272602218496

Because of course.

Here we go again.  Dems are going to lose a state that Biden won by 10 points.  Of course this is happening. 

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

https://twitter.com/JessicaTaylor/status/1441374272602218496

Because of course.

Here we go again.  Dems are going to lose a state that Biden won by 10 points.  Of course this is happening. 

Lol we have Early Vote and VBM, but the Shutdown is looming and that's why Ds have fallen behind, you do know VA is a Govt employees state you know

But0, I expect D's to bank in Early votes, Elder got crushed 70/30 in Early voting

[wbrocks67]

What should we expect? Everyone wants the horse race. They wanted it with CA and they want it with this. Love the notion of a simultaneous Newsom landslide in CA but also the "national environment souring for Dems".

Not to mention the public polling is showing a "close ish" race in the sense that there hasn't been a ton of high quality polling, but it's still all generally been McAuliffe +3-5, with some outliers on both sides.

Not to mention the polling average in 2017 was literally Northam +3. This is feeling like that race all over again.

[Mr.Phips]

What should we expect? Everyone wants the horse race. They wanted it with CA and they want it with this. Love the notion of a simultaneous Newsom landslide in CA but also the "national environment souring for Dems".

Not to mention the public polling is showing a "close ish" race in the sense that there hasn't been a ton of high quality polling, but it's still all generally been McAuliffe +3-5, with some outliers on both sides.

Not to mention the polling average in 2017 was literally Northam +3. This is feeling like that race all over again.

In 2017, Northam had the boost from an unpopular Trump in the White House.  Now the shoe is on the other foot.

[wbrocks67]

What should we expect? Everyone wants the horse race. They wanted it with CA and they want it with this. Love the notion of a simultaneous Newsom landslide in CA but also the "national environment souring for Dems".

Not to mention the public polling is showing a "close ish" race in the sense that there hasn't been a ton of high quality polling, but it's still all generally been McAuliffe +3-5, with some outliers on both sides.

Not to mention the polling average in 2017 was literally Northam +3. This is feeling like that race all over again.

In 2017, Northam had the boost from an unpopular Trump in the White House.  Now the shoe is on the other foot.

A bit much is being made of Biden's "bad environment for Dems". Trump was very disliked in the fall of 2017 with a national approval of like -20, let alone in a state Trump lost.

Biden is about -3/-4 nationally in a state he won. It's not the same at all.

[Non Swing Voter]

At what point can Cook's "analysis" be considered "disinformation"? 

Didn't they also say Dems would pick up house seats in 2020?  Among other huge misses.

[jamestroll]

https://twitter.com/JessicaTaylor/status/1441374272602218496

Because of course.

Here we go again.  Dems are going to lose a state that Biden won by 10 points.  Of course this is happening. 

It might be time just to give up. Maybe all these people who said va only voted dem because of trump were right.

[Non Swing Voter]

https://twitter.com/JessicaTaylor/status/1441374272602218496

Because of course.

Here we go again.  Dems are going to lose a state that Biden won by 10 points.  Of course this is happening. 

It might be time just to give up. Maybe all these people who said va only voted dem because of trump were right.

I'm sorry, was Trump on the ballot in 2008, 2012, 2013, 2018?  Most of the people making that argument also predicted a 5-10 point recall margin in CA.  If and when they make a correct prediction I'll factor in what they say about the VA race.

[LabourJersey]

https://twitter.com/JessicaTaylor/status/1441374272602218496

Because of course.

Here we go again.  Dems are going to lose a state that Biden won by 10 points.  Of course this is happening. 

Seems like an over-reaction

[jamestroll]

Youngkin is basically going to win solidly over pandemic restrictions and critical race theory.. basically things that don't even exist !

[Sir Mohamed]

https://twitter.com/JessicaTaylor/status/1441374272602218496

Because of course.

Here we go again.  Dems are going to lose a state that Biden won by 10 points.  Of course this is happening. 

Seems like an over-reaction

Seems more like doomerism to me. These ratings don't mean much, they also said AL-Sen 2020 is a tossup or just Lean R.

[roxas11]

To be honest, I'm actually glad that Cook and others are acting like the race is a real tossup

This news will force Dems not get complacent and it will also end up being a far bigger deal if Dems do end up winning big in Virginia because this time around the media won't be able to simply dismiss the victory because it was in a blue state since they were the one who insisted that the race was a toss up in the first place lol