Virginia Mega Thread: The Youngkin Administration

[MT Treasurer]

lol VA Gov Lean D > Safe D

This race was always Safe D (with any Democrat/Republican).

[MT Treasurer]

lol VA Gov Lean D > Safe D

This race was always Safe D (with any Democrat/Republican).

I would be worried if Lee Carter is chosen as the Democratic nominee...

There is no universe in which Lee Carter is chosen as the Democratic nominee, and if he somehow managed to win the D nomination, he’d definitely win the general.

[MT Treasurer]

Probably looking at a Likely D race. I'll predict the margin to be 8 points.

I doubt that the democratic candidate would win by eight points if Cox is the republican nominee, yeah it’s true that in 2017 Northam won by 9 points but the climate should be less dem friendly than four years ago.

Possible, but considering that Biden won VA by ''only'' 10 points and that the state congressional vote was D+5 (closer to D+6 if you take into account VA 9), a double digit dem win seems unlikely.

D+8 =/= double-digit win.

[MT Treasurer]

^Dude, the person suggesting that he would do better than Northam wasn’t Chips (who predicted D+8), and you literally quoted yourself in that post. I think you meant to quote KaiserDave.

D+8 is a completely realistic prediction, as this is certainly not the kind of state where there’s a large pool of persuadable voters who will flock to the GOP because it’ll be a ‘Biden midterm.’ The Democratic base in VA is very inflexible and tends to turnout even in off-year elections.

[MT Treasurer]

Virginia is Safe D and I will say this until the end of time

Yes, but governor's elections are different, as KY, KS, LA, VT, MA, and neighboring MD can tell you.  

Ironically, the kind of coalition + conditions that allowed Hogan to pull off an upset in MD may not exist in VA. I’d also argue that VA's D base is more inflexible than that of MD and very much tends to turn out in off-year elections.

Likely D.

[MT Treasurer]

My #elastic #swingy friends in McLean would even vote for a QAnon candidate since 2021/2022 will be a B I D E N  M I D T E R M, but they were wondering if Youngkin was related to YOUNG KIM (whom they hate with a burning passion), so yeah... not a good sign.

"I’m a Kim guy through and through

Kim guy through and through

Kim guy through and through"

Paid for by McAuliffe For Virginia

✓ TERRY MCAULIFFE WINS VA GOVERNOR'S RACE

[MT Treasurer]

Youngkin winning the nomination wouldn’t be "meme come true" but "you can’t make this stuff up" meme territory.

[MT Treasurer]

To win the Republicans need to not just flip some of those downstate counties.  They also need to substantially cut down their deficits in Fairfax and Loudoun. 

I don't think they have much shot at cutting down the margins in Alexandria or Arlington and the turnout in both will be high.  Probably won't cut much in Prince William either.  I think they would need to get the Fairfax margin under 30 and the Loudoun margin under 20.  I don't think either will happen with the second rate candidates they have.

I dont see any of the trends in Virginia reversing. At most the Republicans lose by 6-8 but I dont see it being any closer than that.

You'd be correct.  the only hope Republicans have is that Democrats push too far on "socialism" and raise taxes, etc.  But the Virginia Democratic Party seems to be messaging perfectly.  They haven't raised taxes and they are set to nominate Terry, a moderate who is liberal on social issues but fiscally responsible - a perfect fit for NOVA.  As long as democrats keep a tight grip on growing NOVA counties they should be fine, the math doesn't work for Republicans. 

Democrats nationally, and especially in states like Georgia, Texas, Arizona, and Florida should look at how the Virginia democrats have done things.  They have completely rammed through their agenda on social issues, the court, and race relations while being just moderate enough to avoid attacks.  They've completely neutered the Virginia GOP to the point where they are irrelevant to state politics at the local level.

Oh god no. Please don't spread social liberalism and fiscal moderation everywhere...

I also like how he thinks that what works in Virginia must also work in Texas and Florida (or even Arizona, for that matter).

[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.

[MT Treasurer]

Link?

He’s always doing this, don’t trust anything that hasn’t been posted on the polling boards already.

[MT Treasurer]

https://www.npr.org/2021/05/10/995715076/virginia-gop-chooses-political-newcomer-youngkin-as-nominee-for-governor

This guy is wildly out of touch with the Virginia general electorate.  He's not diverse.  He does not have an appealing background.  He seems unlikable.  This race is Safe D.

Maybe up in Fake Virginia he is... but in the rest of the state, his policies are more in line with public & more helpful and attractive.

Well, but so called "Fake Virginia" makes up a larger share of the population. And that's how elections are won.

Republicans like SirWoodbury don't actually believe in democracy.

especially when you call a region of the state fake.

Literally no Republican unironically uses terms like "libs" or "Fake Virginia" (certainly, the vast majority of Republicans don’t). You people should know better than to fall for his lame, lame act because your replies to him are far more annoying than his shtick (which is easy to ignore).

[MT Treasurer]

Well, VA and NJ happen to be solid Democratic states, so of course they have major implications for 2022 (even when they don’t). Youngkin losing by "close to 10" wouldn’t signal that Democrats are favored to retain the House or that Republicans won’t turn out in 2022, nor would Younkin losing by 5 signal "a coin toss" in the battle for House control. I hope people enjoy the spin for one year, though (we saw how it turned out in 2013 after McAuliffe's win supposedly indicated some national "backlash" against the obstructionist GOP that shut down the government or whatever when it was just a matter of VA being too blue by 2013/Sarvis hurting Cuccinelli).

Long story short, Youngkin does not need to make this race "truly competitive" for the GOP to have a good year in 2022. But that is pretty obvious, so....

[MT Treasurer]

You are right, I should know better than to promote unsubstantiated "Virginia is an unrepresentative blue state" claims which are a mere product of my fantasy and clearly not based in any actual data/voting patterns. If Republicans can’t even make Virginia genuinely competitive, how will they ever rebound in PA, WI, NV, AZ, or MI? Or keep it within single digits against the Fink?

Then again, I still mix up Arlington and Fairfax, so what do I know?

[MT Treasurer]

My guess is that we’re not going to see polling underestimate Democrats to nearly the same extent as in 2013/2014 given how considerably more 'high-propensity' the Democratic coalition in Virginia has become (most polling 'misses', even while acknowledging margin of error, can be attributed to changing party coalitions more than any late movement in the race/a sudden shift in the environment). Even with the overwhelming Trump surge in rural/small-town VA in 2016, statewide polling was pretty much spot on that year, likely due to the fact that whatever GOP surge the polls did not pick up in the R parts of the state was canceled out by a GA-type miss in the urban/suburban areas (NOVA in particular), where the dramatic increase in the non-native-born population and D gains among a traditionally more R-leaning voter bloc probably skewed the model a little too R in those areas.

I’d sooner bet on polling slightly underestimating Democrats than Republicans this November (somewhat similar to what happened in the NM-1 special election). We’re also not seeing the double-digit drop-off in the president's approval numbers that we saw between 2012 and 2013/2014, as Biden's numbers have been steady and there’s little evidence that he has lost considerable if any ground in the state since November (if he has, it’s certainly not enough to make up a 10-point deficit). Also, even modest/non-negligible inroads in NOVA won’t cut it for Youngkin unless he can reverse the rapid D trend in Richmond Metro/Hampton Roads/the independent cities. It’s really hard to overstate how much of an uphill race this is for the GOP.

[MT Treasurer]

Predictably (and even uploaded on the same day):

https://youtu.be/Fh_5lK_uP5M

https://youtu.be/YZgstTIarEM

These culture-war issues (not far-fetched to count COVID among them at this point) will hold more sway / impact base turnout more than Biden's decision to withdraw from Afghanistan.

[MT Treasurer]

If Youngkin loses decisively (>4 or arguably even >3 points), I don’t think any Republican was going to win here under any circumstances. Maybe it’s just time to accept that VA is completely gone for the GOP at the state level as well.

This is why I disagree with the notion that Barbara Comstock would have been favored in a Senate special election in VA in 2017 under a President Clinton. GOP can barely poll* more than 40% against someone like McAuliffe while the Democratic President's approval numbers have been in free fall, and that’s not even a federal race.

It’s obviously not just "NoVA" either — other D-trending parts of the state are arguably even more inflexible, including Richmond metro, the independent cities, and arguably even the Hampton Roads area (this is also what doomed Gillespie in 2014).

The state is already more solid for Democrats than it was at any point under R rule.

*Yes, I am taking polling with a huge grain of salt, but it’s remarkable nonetheless.

[MT Treasurer]

Is he trying to lose?

https://twitter.com/GlennYoungkin/status/1433187809368723456

Does Trumpkin know that Virginia is an extremely pro-choice state? Why would he think this is a winning message, abortion rights are an extremely important issue to many Virginians.

This is not a message designed to appeal to hardcore Democratic partisans on an obscure election forum or single-issue pro-choice voters who favor zero restrictions on abortion whatsoever. If anyone sees the message he’s pushing and comes to the conclusion that it’s typical of a candidate who is "trying to lose," they have no idea what they’re talking about and are forcing their bias on us. The editorializing of the "news" in this thread is tiresome — believe it or not, not everything is actually good news for your party.

[MT Treasurer]

Ah, yes, Ben Tribbett, noted objective observer of VA politics since the early 2000s.

Up next: Tim Kaine calling Youngkin's campaign "awful."

[MT Treasurer]

Is this election really as close as it's "cracked out" to be?

MSM is now making this like a horserace election, but my question would be why unless DEM TO sinks dramatically or massive swings in the Deep DEM 'Burbs of Metro DC, and lesser extent Richmond, plus major shifts in Tidewater.

Ideas Atlas Hive?

VA elections have always been overhyped by the MSM, but I would be surprised if this turned into a "2017 redux," and I think Republicans should be concerned if McAuliffe wins by the same margin as Northam.

I’m not a fan of concepts like "redux," but the closest analogies I can think of here are IA-GOV/OH-GOV 2018 — the race ends up at something close to a McAuliffe +4 win, which would also be in line with the CA swing from 2020. Republicans put up a decent candidate with fairly good messenging, the environment is somewhat favorable to them (even if not massively so), but the state is too far gone at that point.

McAuliffe and Murphy both winning in a blowout close to the 2020 result would indicate that the R brand is toxic enough to sink even generic/"inoffensive" Republicans (conservative =/= offensive!) in non-federal races and trump (no pun intended) local issues, and at that point the GOP should worry about implications for 2022. They absolutely don’t need to win states like VA or NJ just like Democrats didn’t need IA or OH for a wave, but if they can’t even achieve a moderate swing from 2020, something is obviously wrong.

[MT Treasurer]

McAuliffe has been tying Youngkin to Trump/abortion restrictions/insurrectionists for months now and that didn’t stop the race from tightening or at least didn’t cause a shift in McAuliffe's favor, so I fail to see how this "message" will prove more successful if he goes full Mark Udall during the next weeks. I really don’t think this "Trumpkin" thing is the gotcha genius line of attack Democratic strategists think it is, but who knows. If McAuliffe's playbook is vindicated and Democrats win the race rather easily (at least 5 points), then I don’t see how any other Democrat would have lost with the exact same message/strategy — if tying Youngkin to Trump/national Republicans is really all that’s needed for a D win here, it really flies in the face of the "McAuliffe is a particularly/uniquely good candidate for this race" takes.

Obviously the state has changed dramatically over the last decades, but it’s still quite something to see a Democrat staking everything on cultural issues in Virginia, and it’s certainly not a strategy without its risks. The dominant message of Youngkin's campaign has been that VA Democrats just keep taking the state to new extremes on all of these social issues (abortion, COVID restrictions, parental rights and school choice, etc.), and if that message actually resonates with a non-negligible portion of swing and D-leaning voters while galvanizing the R base, McAuliffe sure is doing his best to reinforce it. If it doesn’t resonate with them (and barely galvanizes the Trump base), then this entire campaign is a moot point because the race is Safe D anyway. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

I’m sticking with my McAuliffe +4 prediction, but my "gut" feeling (which has been wrong before, so...) tells me that this will either be a dramatic D underperformance/GOP upset (so razor-thin McAuliffe victory or a Youngkin win) or an easy high single-digit D sweep of all the statewide races/HoD with nothing in between.

[MT Treasurer]

It will be so funny when this ends up being a McAuliffe +1-2 victory and both Democratic and Republican hacks on here have egg on their face.

This is a very disingenuous post. There are like... two or three Republicans on this entire board who are actually predicting a Youngkin win, one of whom is an obvious troll, so I don’t think it’s Republicans will be having "egg on their face" if McAuliffe only wins very narrowly. Reading a few pages of this thread alone should tell you what the "dominant tone/narrative" in the discussion of this race has been on here, especially since the CA recall election but even before.

[MT Treasurer]

Since McAuliffe's entire strategy is Youngkin = Trump, I wonder how that sits with Democrats if they lose this. I'm still expecting a narrow McAuliffe win but I can't imagine going into 2022 thinking a Trump clone just won a state Biden won by 10 (but of course, he's not a Trump clone, not even close).

And if Youngkin loses, it'll really cement the idea that Virginia is done with the Republican Party medium/long term. If they can't win when the national winds are favoring them and Biden is unpopular and McAuliffe has run this lousy of a campaign they probably can't win any time in the near future.

Agree completely (I also think Youngkin would beat McAuliffe in any remotely competitive state except maybe GA), but I wonder if 'minimalist' single-issue themes/campaigns might be more effective than we think. Hickenlooper's entire campaign could be reduced to "Gardner = Trump", Tuberville's to "I support Donald Trump", Rick Scott's to "Bill Nelson had four decades to fix this", Todd Young's to "I’m a marine, not a lobbyist," Maggie Hassan's to "We need a Senator who will put Granite Staters ahead of special interests", etc. All of these candidates sounded incredibly repetitive and clearly gave scripted answers all the time, but apparently it was all that was needed from the candidate him- or herself (while outside groups took care of the negative ads, obviously) to ride the state's partisan lean to victory. Even Mark Udall, who was widely mocked for his seemingly obsessive focus on abortion, only lost by two points back when CO was only D-leaning and not deep blue like VA/CO today. He’d win easily even with a literal single-issue abortion campaign today, and VA isn’t that much more R than CO.

McAuliffe is many things but he’s no dummy, so I don’t think he’d be pushing this "Youngkin = Trump and no abortions" message so hard if he didn’t consider it an effective strategy. He also drove home the abortion message in 2013 when he painted Cuccinelli as an extremist, and it worked for him then (again, when VA was already a strongly D-leaning state but less D than it is today). There’s a case to be made that a largely negative campaign that drives home no more than one or two themes and doesn’t allow itself to be distracted no matter what is a winning formula in today's world of political campaigning. Now obviously you’re right that Republicans were never going to win this race if they can’t even win it under current conditions, but it’s an interesting pattern nonetheless. (And like I said, I don’t think McAuliffe's strategy would have worked in any remotely competitive state this year.)

[MT Treasurer]

I know there’s no point in arguing with him, but this...

A) this is literally the same exact polling average as 2017. Northam had a final polling average of +3. T-Mac is at +3. So, no, it's not any tighter than it's been in years

...has reached obsessive levels at this point. You keep comparing this to 2017, but there’s a slight difference here: Back then, we had a deeply unpopular Republican President and a depressed GOP base. Now, we have a (nationally) very unpopular Democratic President and a (presumably) far more energized GOP base.

It’s not that hard to figure out why polling may have 'underestimated' Republicans in 2009 and 2013 and why it 'underestimated' Democrats in 2017.

[MT Treasurer]

McAuliffe might not win by a lot, but my reaction to Atlas still acting as though Virginia is a swing state in 2021:

If 'Atlas' is treating this race as close/competitive (and it’s obviously not as unified on this as you make it out to be — the vast majority still thinks McAuliffe is favored, with many believing he’s heavily favored and only very few actually predicting a Youngkin win), then that is a sign that they’re considering VA a blue state because this race would already be over and McAuliffe burnt toast in any remotely competitive swing state. Everyone was (rightly) treating IA-GOV 2018 and OH-GOV 2018 as fairly competitive in a massive blue wave environment, but that didn’t mean that those states were still "swing states."

[MT Treasurer]

As you’ve pointed out before, close and competitive are not the same thing. Yes, the result could be somewhat close, but that doesn’t mean Youngkin has a realistic chance of winning, just like Hubbell  probably didn’t, either. Many things broke his way, and he still came up 3 points short. I could see McAuliffe having an embarrassingly close call if things get really, really bad for Democrats (I.e. the environment is looking worse than it was in 2010), but that doesn’t mean that this race is truly competitive in that Youngkin has a legitimately decent shot at winning. If Virginia had gone to Biden by 5-6% and weren’t trending Democratic, then considering this a very close and competitive race in which McAuliffe has a very narrow advantage would be warranted.

That’s a fair point, but I don’t think it was that unreasonable to call IA-GOV 2018/OH-GOV 2018 legitimately competitive (or at least no worse than Lean R), if we’re using those two races as analogies to VA-GOV 2021. I would agree that calling VA competitive would be fairly unreasonable if this was a federal race, but I feel like it’s a little easier to gain those last 3-4 points in a gubernatorial race (although that may be changing, and VA gubernatorial races of course tend to be more nationalized than those in other states). I also think the VA-CA comparisons are misguided for a variety of reasons (Elder's conservative-talk-show-host campaign obviously ended any chance of attracting any crossover appeal and arguably turned him into a worse-than-generic-R candidate [a far cry from Youngkin's systematic, fairly professional campaign], the universal mail-in voting system in CA would always ensure that that election reflected the state's general partisan lean more closely [not applicable to VA], YES/NO is still different from D/R even when associated with two major-party candidates from different parties, there was a clear trend toward NO in the final CA polls even though NO's final margin was 'underestimated' [no such trend in VA; quite the opposite], said pro-D trend also coincided with an increased nationalization of the race [whereas VA has always been somewhat nationalized], etc.).

I’m sticking with my Lean D rating, with McAuliffe winning by a margin slightly under Clinton's 2016 result (+4-4.5), but I really don’t think he has anything other than the state's partisanship going in his favor.