Virginia Mega Thread: The Youngkin Administration

[Pres Mike]

Democrats lost because the country is sick of covid restrictions, inflation and rising gas prices.

Virginia has no covid restrictions and last time I checked, "the country" is not voting in Virginia.

How many schools have mask mandates?

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Democrats lost because the country is sick of covid restrictions, inflation and rising gas prices.

Virginia has no covid restrictions and last time I checked, "the country" is not voting in Virginia.

Are you telling me there's absolutely 0 COVID restrictions in VA? No mask mandates in schools, no vaccine requirements for people otherwise they get fired, etc? That's a bold claim to make.

[BG-NY]

Virginia rejected Joe Biden tonight.

[The Undefeatable Debbie Stabenow]

No better way for Youngkin to win than seeing Loudoun and Fairfax crown him. Dems need to stay away from the aggressive CRT messaging and embrace something more inclusive and appropriate for middle and high school kids. Could also see Asian parents (like 20% of the demographic here) revolting against making Thomas Jefferson, probably the best high school in the country academically, lottery based as opposed to merit centered. Although it’s pretty laughable to think a more leftist candidate would win VA at all; I could see the Republican winning Loudoun  and cracking 40% in Fairfax at that point. Abandoning the suburbanites would be a huge mistake because I can safely say the WWC is not going to come back if we leave the party.

Please point me to the Democratic Party's "aggressive CRT messaging." I'd love to see it.

https://spectrumnews1.com/ky/louisville/news/2021/04/27/biden-100-days-race

I regret to inform you that absolutely nothing in that article has anything to do with CRT.

[jamestroll]

I told yall this would happen

[South Dakota Democrat]

People were sick and tired of having their children taught to be racist in public schools.  Fight all day over the semantics of whether its TECHNICALLY "CRT", the people know what their children are being taught, and its racist and anti-American.

No.

[NOVA Green]

Can someone tell me who’s winning and how many votes are still out/where those votes are? Thanks

YoungKing is winning with maybe 40% out ?

Fairfax County is ground zero (Although there are still other pockets plus EVs elsewhere other than Fairfax that would likely be heavily Tmac).

[Greedo punched first]

Does T-Mac still have a slight chance? CA-21 2018 was initially called for Valadao but Cox narrowly ended up winning.

[DrScholl]

No better way for Youngkin to win than seeing Loudoun and Fairfax crown him. Dems need to stay away from the aggressive CRT messaging and embrace something more inclusive and appropriate for middle and high school kids. Could also see Asian parents (like 20% of the demographic here) revolting against making Thomas Jefferson, probably the best high school in the country academically, lottery based as opposed to merit centered. Although it’s pretty laughable to think a more leftist candidate would win VA at all; I could see the Republican winning Loudoun  and cracking 40% in Fairfax at that point. Abandoning the suburbanites would be a huge mistake because I can safely say the WWC is not going to come back if we leave the party.

Please point me to the Democratic Party's "aggressive CRT messaging." I'd love to see it.

https://spectrumnews1.com/ky/louisville/news/2021/04/27/biden-100-days-race

That's not critical race theory, that's common sense. After you had a black man murdered by a white police officer on video there is no way that you can avoid addressing racism any longer. Much of the Republican whining over critical race theory really is just a cover for the fact that they can no longer truly pretend that racism isn't a problem.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

The national environment will certainly be better for Democrats next year, as the economy improves and as the issues with the supply chain get sorted out. The problem is, that only means better than 12 points worse than they did in 2020. They have a LOT of work to do to win back what they've lost.

"as the economy improves"

This was supposed to be a V shaped year with a massive economic recovery and double digit growth.

Instead, it's been anything but.

It's possible that a general decline of coronavirus could bring the world economy, and thus the US, higher. But with the virus having actually gotten worse since Biden took office, and with inflation etc on track to only continue to grow, there's no reason to think the economy will just magically improve over the next 12 months. It could -- but it could also stay stagnant, or fall.

[CookieDamage]

Well not only is Youngkin most likely going to win, but unlike in California the votes to impeach them are not there.

The only solace in this is that the Virginia Democratic Party will soon die and allow for the Green/Liberation movement to grow as it has in West Virginia and more recently Ohio.

Yeah, and then pigs will fly. -

[Mr. Smith]

Virginia rejected Joe Biden tonight.

Kentucky and Louisiana rejected Donald Trump in 2019 too.

[AGA]

The fact that red avatars are denying that Democrats had pro-CRT messaging instead of thinking that maybe Democrats should actually speak out against CRT is telling.

[Pollster]

Probably not as decisive in this race as the media is desperate to make it look, but Democrats need to come up with a better rebuttal to the CRT panic.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Why does WA Post not have anything from Richmond yet?

[Adam Griffin]

Where's a guillotine when you need one?

https://twitter.com/heatherscope/status/1455696272489422849

[Woody]

Virginia rejected Joe Biden tonight.

The worst thing is that Biden doesn't realize what's going on right about now.

[BG-NY]

Virginia rejected Joe Biden tonight.

Kentucky and Louisiana rejected Donald Trump in 2019 too.

Yeah Kentucky 2019 was about Bevin being an idiot, and the Lousiana Governor election was just JBE being a good incumbent. The entire ticket is winning here.

[Alben Barkley]

People seem to be focusing more on McAuliffe's bad campaign than Youngkin's good one. If Republicans can run similar campaigns next year they could get their red wave. I'm not entirely confident they will, though.

The takeaway is that the thing people dislike about Trump is not his rhetoric, but his tone. Youngkin ran close to Trump on the issues—making CRT the key issue was definitely a Trumpy thing to do—but was much nicer about it. Democrats are in big trouble if they don’t figure out how to counter the rhetoric.

Agreed, mostly - you can see this through the numerous blue avatars that opposed trump but seem all in on DeSantis 2024. (Although I would say that some Trump rhetoric like the electtion fraud stuff is genuinely unpopular.)

I will note that Youngkin-type campaigns lend themselves more to gubernatorial elections. Tonight is a much worse sign for Gretchen Whitmer and Tony Evers than for Maggie Hassan or Catharine Cortez Masto.

Oh yeah, Whitmer in particular I think is in big trouble.

On a related note, I almost see this race as like a reverse KY-2019 or something.

[Figueira]

Look on the bright side. At least Mark Warner isn't going to be the VP candidate in 2024.

In all seriousness though, while this is bad for Virginia, I'm more worried about the fact that this will set us back and the "ban mentioning racism at school" crowd will be emboldened nationwide.

I don't think this changes anything about how I view 2022. Obviously 2022 will be tough no matter what, but a lot of what happened here is because of idiosyncratic issues, 2021-specific issues, and McAuliffe running a bad campaign. Yes, I'm not extremely optimistic about the midterms, but not because of this.

[Vespucci]

The message from this election is that Republicans win more easily without Trump involving himself in their campaigns.

This, and Democrats need to learn that they can't run against an imaginary Trump. If Trump steps back from the 2022 midterms, the Democratic boogeyman needs to be McConnell instead.

[BigSerg]

Does T-Mac still have a slight chance? CA-21 2018 was initially called for Valadao but Cox narrowly ended up winning.

No.

[JMT]

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1455698335785013249?s=20

[swf541]

The fact that red avatars are denying that Democrats had pro-CRT messaging instead of thinking that maybe Democrats should actually speak out against CRT is telling.

I think dems should tone down some things but if people actually think thats CRT I have a bridge to sell them......

[OBD]

bruh.