Virginia Mega Thread: The Youngkin Administration

[Chips]

Here, I'd like to give out 5 reasons why I think Youngkin was successful and McAuliffe was not.

No. 1: Biden

This may be cliché but with Biden at low approval ratings both nationwide and in the Commonwealth of Virginia, Republicans set out to make this a referendum on Biden. Youngkin appears to have been successfully able to tie McAuliffe to the failures of Biden, fair or not.

No. 2: Tradition

Aside from 2013, every Virginia gubernatorial election spanning back a good while has saw the state vote the opposite way as the party in the White House. This ties into the first point a bit, but it was something I felt like pointing out.

No. 3: Education

Education has proved to be a big issue in this race and Youngkin was simply able to beat McAuliffe on this issue. It seems as though McAuliffe's comment about not wanting parents to be able to control what teachers are teaching their kids greatly hurt him after all.

No. 4: Youngkin himself

Let's be real, although no one saw it coming for most of the race Youngkin has run a very, very good campaign. Being very good at seizing almost every opportunity that came his way. He did well enough in the debates it seemed and he really capitalized on the education issue and some other stuff.

No. 5: McAuliffe himself

I think most people can agree that McAuliffe ran a pitifully horrible campaign. He didn't speak out too much about his former term as governor, he tried to make the race about Trump and there were a few other mistakes. I know that he didn't have involvement in the tiki torches thing, but I honestly think he was still hurt by failing to address the allegations in a meaningful way. That just made him seem more untrustworthy in the eyes of many it seemed.

[Brittain33]

TMac's campaign looks inept because it threw a lot of things at the wall to see what would stick. It was beyond their control that nothing could stick in the face of people wanting to try something different and having a Republican who wasn't Trump or a nutcase on the ballot.

A political strategist would tell you that's bad campaigning because you're supposed to have a focused message instead of being all over the map.

Forgive me, which campaigns were you chief strategist for, again?

[MillennialModerate]

I totally agree with the fear of a constitutional crisis. In many ways I always liked Senator Sinema and Senator Manchin for the longest time, but to be honest unless things take an unbelievable turn of events … they are going to go down in history as having been running the who stood in the way of preventative measures that would’ve made such constitutional crisis impossible if not unlikely.

I’m not sure how they are going to live with themselves

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

McAuliffe is a Clinton goof.  Did VA have no better lib candidate?

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

I totally agree with the fear of a constitutional crisis. In many ways I always liked Senator Sinema and Senator Manchin for the longest time, but to be honest unless things take an unbelievable turn of events … they are going to go down in history as having been running the who stood in the way of preventative measures that would’ve made such constitutional crisis impossible if not unlikely.

I’m not sure how they are going to live with themselves

There isn’t going to be a “constitutional” crisis if Republicans win. Rhetoric like this is a part of the reason why I switched my support from dem to repub, albeit a small one.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Explain

Two major concerns:
* Republican House acting undemocratically in certifying a winner in a Presidential race as Trump tried to do this year.
* Republican Senate refusing to confirm Dem President appointees and the geography of current coalitions making it virtually impossible for Dems to win the Senate.

If GOP does it, there will be a legal consequences (jail) or a ~civil war. The difference between talk the talk but and walk the walk is YUUUUGE.

In both cases, our democracy will no longer be working as a democracy. It already isn't - we see that in states like Wisconsin where voters have no effective way to turnover government from Republican leadership.

Can you link to a good source, that explains your take in more details?

[iceman]

well, so much for “Virginia is gone for the GOP in the foreseeable future” narrative.

[Blair]

To defend the campaign staff I would love to watch Atlas posters try and run a campaign. Would be hilarious where it ended up.

[Brittain33]

If GOP does it, there will be a legal consequences (jail) or a ~civil war. The difference between talk the talk but and walk the walk is YUUUUGE.

In both cases, our democracy will no longer be working as a democracy. It already isn't - we see that in states like Wisconsin where voters have no effective way to turnover government from Republican leadership.

Can you link to a good source, that explains your take in more details?

I don't have time for a Google search, but these are the main points:

1. Legislative districts are so gerrymandered that even when Democrats win a significant majority of the vote, they are limited to a minority of seats. Some of this is due to geography but the legislature itself has drawn lines to make it impossible for Dems to get control absent an unprecedented landslide.
2. When Dems are elected statewide, the legislature strips those executive positions of their powers and refuses to confirm appointees, making them significantly weaker than Republican executives. This happened after 2018.

Basically, Republicans had a good year in 2010 and have used it to cement control of the state, elections notwithstanding, for as long as the current coalitions hold. Something similar happened in North Carolina. Facing a potential minority status, Republicans are acting like a weaker version of Communists in Eastern Europe after World War II, participating in democracy as long as they need to to win one election and then changing the rules to prevent ever losing power.

[Brittain33]

McAuliffe is a Clinton goof.  Did VA have no better lib candidate?

It's funny how much better Republicans do when Trump isn't weighing them down like a lead weight, no? He was poison to Virginia suburbanites.

[iceman]

how many CDs did Youngkin win?

[Roll Roons]

how many CDs did Youngkin win?

Apparently he came within like 3 points of winning VA-10. So I would think he won VA-01, VA-02, VA-05, VA-06, VA-07, VA-09.

[roxas11]

In the end it just goes to show you that voters will find any reason to throw a party out of power lol

This sentence seems to suggest that TMac (quite possibly) losing is the voters’ *fault* instead of the voters’ *choice*

Peak Atlas Democrat brain, y’all

I know this is an old comment but I feel need to respond to it

My final post on election night was not about blaming voters for not picking TMac It was about making a larger statement about how our current political environment works

Bill Clinton famous statement about it being all about the economy, stupid is increasingly no longer relevant today because voters do not reward politicians anymore for a good economy like they did in the past. They also don't punish politicians for a bad economy like they use to because Obama won in 2012 despite the economy still not being great and Trump almost won in 2020 despite the country being in a recession.

looking at this race objectively had this been the 1980s, 1990s or even the early 2000 terry mcauliffe would have won the election just based on low unemployment numbers alone but because of the increasing partisanship, it is hard for either party these days to really benefit from a decent economy or low unemployment numbers

Now in farness I have heard some suggest that inflation is the reason for mcauliffe loss, but to frank with you I'm not convinced that terry mcauliffe would have won this election, even with low inflation because ultimately this race was not really about the economy

it was about this....

48% of voters chose taxes and the economy as their most important issue.



For those who chose the "culture war" issue of Education, 44% still voted for McAuliffe.

This poll basically just proves my main point

Terry McAuliffe is losing to Glenn Youngkin on the economy and jobs at a time when Virginia is actually doing even better than the country as a whole and unemployment is at 3.8 percent

Again had this been the 80s 90s or even the 2000s there is no chance that Glenn Youngkin would be beating McAuliffe on that issue when the economy was doing that well. The fact is Terry McAuliffe and Dems literally got no credit for the great economy in virigina would scare the heck out me if were the Dems heading into the 2022 midterms

These results suggest to me that voters may not reward the Dems even if the economy is doing well in 2022 or even if the Dems do pass popular bills like infrastructure.

The economy isn’t good, dude. Unemployment isn’t the only factor in an economy. Inflation is still pretty high. Inflation is one of the worst death sentences for a party in power, especially because it hurts the working class the most.

Virginia economy is not bad on any level at all and not amount of political spin in the world is going to convince me otherwise. Now dont get me wrong, there are definitely states that are still struggling economically because of this pandemic, but Virginia ain't one of them


Also Glenn Youngkin winning on inflation is one thing, but the poll that ElectionsGuy had posted specifically showed that Youngkin was beating terry mcauliffe when it came to Jobs

To me that just proves that voters gave the Dems hardly any credit at all for the great jobs market in the state because voters literally said that the Republicans are better than the dems when it came to jobs during a time when unemployment in that state was very low. I just think results like these should be a big wake up call to any Dem who is still under the impression that popular polices and a good economy in 2022 will be enough to save them

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

To defend the campaign staff I would love to watch Atlas posters try and run a campaign. Would be hilarious where it ended up.

Now I just imagine
“Twitchchat runs a campaign!”

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

McAuliffe is a Clinton goof.  Did VA have no better lib candidate?

It's funny how much better Republicans do when Trump isn't weighing them down like a lead weight, no? He was poison to Virginia suburbanites.

Oh I'm fine with him staying out of this stuff because it isn't helping, but consider that Biden, Obama, Harris, Abrams might have weighed McAuliffe down.  Or, like I said before, he's just a bad bad candidate.  But it may be more than that considering top justices and judges in PA did well and NJ is this tight.  2022 is going to be mighty interesting.

[BigSerg]

[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).

[StateBoiler]

TMac's campaign looks inept because it threw a lot of things at the wall to see what would stick. It was beyond their control that nothing could stick in the face of people wanting to try something different and having a Republican who wasn't Trump or a nutcase on the ballot.

A political strategist would tell you that's bad campaigning because you're supposed to have a focused message instead of being all over the map.

Forgive me, which campaigns were you chief strategist for, again?

I just heard it from the Strategists Podcast where one of the show hosts just successfully ran a campaign to get his candidate victory in the Mayor of Calgary election.

[Person Man]

* Republican Senate refusing to confirm Dem President appointees and the geography of current coalitions making it virtually impossible for Dems to win the Senate.

In both cases, our democracy will no longer be working as a democracy.

I always love the blissful ignorance of people not recognizing for almost the entirety of the second half of the 20th century Congress was one-party government. Or how Democrats ran most southern states for a century straight unchallenged. They only started to have a problem with it when their side was on the losing end.

I love people who jump to conclusions and spout off about people's ignorance because they didn't discuss the subject they had in mind when talking about something completely different, or who like to make sick burns about events 40+ years ago that had nothing to do with them, or who themselves are completely oblivious to how different the party system was before the realignment of the 1980s.

While I'm old for Atlas, I wasn't in fact a Democratic Senator from Mississippi in the 1970s, so you should maybe reconsider what you think I know or don't know or how I feel about historical patterns in the U.S.

We can have one party dominance and we can have ideologically based parties but we can’t have both to have a surviving democracy. That’s what happened to the Whigs in the 1840s, they were competitive until political corruption and polarization limited the ways they could win. When they got a trifecta, they couldn’t do anything and once it became clear that they would not be an effective national party under circumstances, more and more federal level candidates that were outside of the dominant party decided to run as part of an opposition caucus instead as part of the opposition party. Eventually that opposition coalesced into the Republican Party. I think that’s where we are at: realizing that the Democratic Party is no longer to serve its purpose as the vehicle for its coalition.

Although, to be serious, the Republicans will probably get to 1928 levels, or at least 2004 levels of power by 2024 and they will eventually mess up and eventually Democrats will do what they need to rebalance things. My guess is that the next D trifecta happens in 2032.

[BigSerg]

https://twitter.com/PollWatch2020/status/1455895928628563975?s=20

[BigSerg]

https://twitter.com/TerryMcAuliffe/status/1455894456801038346?s=20

[Horus]

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

[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?

[BigSerg]

52-48
https://twitter.com/JosephSzymanski/status/1455898688304340995?s=20