Virginia Mega Thread: The Youngkin Administration

[LabourJersey]

I'm very unlikely to change my mind so after being vaccinated this morning,  I went ahead and voted.

Voted for Terry Mcaufflie for Governor candidate, Sam Rasoul for Lt Governor and Jay Jones for attorney General.

Early voting is opened already?

[LabourJersey]

Did T-Mac even need their endorsement? Just don't think it warrants the sirens

No but had the Post endorsed Carroll-Foy (or any other candidate, but Carroll-Foy has momentum right now) it would have had a ton of influence on making the race competitive.

This makes the primary pretty much a certainty for TMac.

[LabourJersey]

Needless to say, the chances of a GOP upset in November are... slim.

https://twitter.com/umichvoter/status/1391816951308161026?s=21

Yeah, I'm pretty baffled by people think Youngkin will be that strong a candidate given the intensity of Virginia's political realignment.

Also I find it interesting people saying he'll "blanket the airwaves nonstop" and that will win him re-election...is that a strategy that can still work for a candidate in 2021 in a state/district that politically leans against them? I think partisanship is a little too strong these days for that to be the sole cause of a victory

[LabourJersey]

Anyway, here's my take on potential GOP Competitiveness. Here are the states Trump won 2016 by a margin similar to Biden's 2020 Virginia Result:

SC - 14.2%
VA - 10.1%
IA - 9.4%
TX - 9%
OH - 8.1%

So unless you think 2022 will be worse for D's than 2018 was for R's...

The national election was almost D+5.That puts Virginia 5 points left of the nation. Arguably, Trump was the worst possible fit for VA, too. Seems to me a state that is at best 5 points left of the nation is perfectly winnable in a Biden admin if he gets a little more unpopular, especially when Youngkin has a turnout operation and Terry Mc is uninspiring at best.

Youngkin is still going to run a very Trumpy campaign--he talks about Dominion machines and stuff like that, no to mention the fact that he'll get and flaunt Trump's endorsement if he wins the nomination. That's not going to work all that well in a state like Virginia.

[LabourJersey]

What do folks think about the claim that Youngkin was the GOP establishment’s favored candidate? Did establishment groups prefer Youngkin over Snyder?

Even if they preferred Youngkin over Snyder, it seemed that Kirk Cox was the most “establishment” candidate, given his long legislative career and list of endorsements.

https://twitter.com/politics1com/status/1392067230595170309?s=21

If true that only shows just how Trumpy the Virginia GOP has become.

[LabourJersey]

Is the Democrats' campaign really just boiling down to Orange Man Bad? It's bad enough that he's completely dominated national discourse since June 2015, but he's not even president anymore. He's basically Grampa Simpson yelling at a cloud. At least in a state-level race, not everything needs to come back to him.

I mean he might be yelling at clouds from Mar-A-Lago, but Trump is still the leader of the Republican party. That's just a fact.

[LabourJersey]

Today I took a gubernatorial primary poll on YouTube, where I picked McAuliffe. And I door knocked a little bit for Ayala for Lt. Governor.

The LG race is still a black hole to me. Almost every voter in Alexandria is still undecided, they're more concerned about the city races. Polling's probably useless with so many people undecided. It's one of those things where Ayala might win just because she drew straws to be first on the ballot.

I don't know any Democrat in Virginia who has a clear, set first choice for Lt. Governor so far.

[LabourJersey]

Virginia should really just let Governors run for re-election so this kind of mess doesn't happen again. Yes, it sucks when the well-liked former Gov comes in and decides he'd like another term, cutting off every other candidate. There's a reason this doesn't happen in any other state.

I agree, but it should be remembered that the only reason T-Mac is coming back is because Fairfax's political career was ruined because of the sexual assault allegation.

If that hadn't come out/happened, Fairfax would be Governor right now and coasting to a full term, and be widely regarded as a rising star.

[LabourJersey]

Wow, delegates only make $17K a year? I make more than Carter and I'm 21 lol.

Unaffordability of the job might be a fair sour grape.

Being a state legislator in VA is a de facto part-time position. However they get paid a per-diem for every day the Legislature is in session--I forget the exact amount but it's supposed to be enough for a hotel/meal per day in Richmond.

[LabourJersey]

I expressed support for Carter early on in this primary before I did my research on JCF and I think there's a lesson to be learned here about name recognition. McAuliffe and Carter are on the polar opposite ends of how having a familiar name in certain communities can be either really good or really bad. Carter is one of the most well-known delegates in VA and he absolutely tanked in the primary because he spends all of his time complaining and insulting and fostering rage instead of putting in the work to change minds and policy. McAuliffe, on the other hand, is well known amongst real human beings in the real world and no matter what you think about his policy positions, he at least demonstrates a willingness to get things done. Let this be a lesson for future DSA and progressive candidates. AOC and Ayanna Pressley have done a pretty good job striking a balance between coalition building and criticizing Democrats when they're obviously wrong. There's room for growth there, but we now have a poster boy for how not to do it.

McAuliffe had so much more name recognition than Lee Carter though. This isn't really a fair comparison.

Politically engaged people/Left wing people know who Carter is, but that's not all that many compared to the whole group of voting Virginia Democrats. McAuliffe was Governor of the whole state.

I'm not disagreeing that the publicity Carter had proved to people he was bad (it did) but this is just not a fair comparison here

[LabourJersey]

Wow, delegates only make $17K a year? I make more than Carter and I'm 21 lol.

Unaffordability of the job might be a fair sour grape.

The idea is, it's a part time job. The sessions are only 30 to 60 days per year. But between that, campaigning, party events, constituent services, etc., it probably will take up most of your time. Most 9-5 jobs don't want you gone that long, so you better be like, a law partner, a business owner where someone else runs things, or something like that. Or your spouse has a real job while your profession is "nonprofit operator/activist" or whatever. Carter's official profession is listed as "IT Specialist," but as of 2019, his main day job was driving for Lyft.

It's fair to say that the pay isn't enough to make it logically worthwhile for most people. Even if they're going to they're going to corruptly leverage this into a lobbyist position or judgeship or something, that takes years. This is an issue in many states, where low legislator disincentives regular working people from seeking office. Instead you have independently wealthy people, out of touch retirees, and ideologues. Even moreso than if it paid a living wage.

Yeah, that's the biggest reason in favor of all states have full-time legislatures. Being paid a full-time wage for 2-4 years means that normal people can seek off without needing to be wealthy or have some sort of side hustle.

[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

[LabourJersey]

If Va was like CA with a total baked in early mail vote, maybe, but over 50% of VA's electorate will vote in person on Tuesday, so how would any news be 'too late'?

https://twitter.com/WaPoSean/status/1453746376173621251

I don't really see how infrastructure is even related to the VA gubernatorial election. Is anybody's vote actually gonna be decided by whether infrastructure gets passed or not?

We talked about this above. Probably not a big impact, but little things like "Wow Dems finally got something done!" versus "Dems are still in disarray!" can make a difference if this race is actually as tight as polls suggest.

Exactly. Having a framework shows that the Democrats are getting something accomplished.

A decent chunk of why Biden's approvals have declined is because of the belief he's not getting anything done (all of Manchin and Sinema's stonewalling is being blamed on Biden, something that neither of those even realize, amazingly)

[LabourJersey]

In a tight Virginia race, Covid concerns still make campaigning difficult for Democrats

While Republicans more or less kept up their normal ground game throughout the pandemic, Democrats last year halted all in-person operations for months during the height of the presidential campaign.

Even now, in Virginia's critical gubernatorial race, some progressives say they're still having a difficult time getting people to volunteer in person, though vaccines have helped ease concerns.

“We have noticed a lot more people eager to help, but not necessarily eager to knock on doors. It's been tough,” said Maya Castillo, the political director for New Virginia Majority, which organizes communities of color.

Is the excuse making already starting for a McAuliffe loss? My views on the virus and pandemic are pretty well known here but even I think this is a very poor excuse. The local Democratic party can buy N95 masks and give them out to the canvassers, plus tell them to back up from the door. Canvassing would also be considered a public-facing job so they could even get a booster shot. Combine these and canvassers are quite safe from COVID-19. The pandemic is no longer a valid reason to avoid in-person canvassing and if Dems do so it is unilateral disarmament. 

A huge component of canvassing involves reaching people who aren't easily accessible to online/digital communication, specifically older people. Many young people (the main canvassers) are still a little hesitant about reaching out to old people because of the still-existing risks, and older liberals in particular are really quite hesitant still.

Obviously this is a bad thing since it fundamentally hurts the Democrat's abilities to reach out to its base, but I don't know if telling everyone "suck it up, it's fine" is a good move, especially since McAuliffe is running on a partial platform that Youngkin doesn't care about public health.

[LabourJersey]

https://twitter.com/PollsandOdds/status/1455174915880013825?s=20

I do wonder what the impact will be if terry mcauliffe actually does go on to win. If pollsters turn out to be wrong on this I can see the polling industry taking an even bigger hit to their credibility than they did in 2016

pollsters better hope that Glenn Youngkin does win this race because otherwise they will have a lot of explaining to do....

not really. If T-Mac wins by 1 or 2 I don't see how that would hurt pollsters on a level even close to the 2016 presidential election.

[LabourJersey]

What is it about both Virginias that causes posters on this site to lose their minds?

[LabourJersey]

Hugh Hewitt has declared Youngkin's victory

https://twitter.com/PostOpinions/status/1455518435253919752?s=20

This seems very presumptuous

[LabourJersey]

It is obnoxious how much disproportionate attention Virginia gets, much like Iowa and the caucuses, despite really not even being interesting politically.

Proximity to the DC media + off year elections + competitive races do wonders for coverage.

If NJ was still a swing states like in the 80s/90s it would receive a ton of attention too

[LabourJersey]

More than anything I'm most intrigued to see the final turnout numbers.

If it actually was 3 million or more than Youngkin clearly ran a very impressive campaign. If you had told me or anyone else that the turnout would be 3 million in this election I would've assumed that the Democrats would have had this in the bag.

I also agree with some others about how this race was driven more by economic concerns like high gas prices and supply chain issues than CRT. Even though the President doesn't have power to unilaterally fix  those things, voters always seem to blame the party in power when gas prices go up.

[LabourJersey]

In retrospect I think the fact that Virginia Republicans had a quick convention and not a drawn-out primary was tremendously helpful for them.

Youngkin may not have won a primary. If he had, it would have been longer than the campaign before the convention, and almost certainly would have forced him to take more pro-Trump positions. That would go for whoever would have won.

[LabourJersey]

In retrospect I think the fact that Virginia Republicans had a quick convention and not a drawn-out primary was tremendously helpful for them.

Youngkin may not have won a primary. If he had, it would have been longer than the campaign before the convention, and almost certainly would have forced him to take more pro-Trump positions. That would go for whoever would have won.

Why did the GOP even skip the primaries in first place?

Because they were worried a crazy person like Amanda Chase would win. A valid fear, honestly.

[LabourJersey]

Larry Sabato is on TV basically blaming Manchin/Sinema for the outcome, arguing that if the BBB bills had passed, T-Mac would have had something to run on and "sell" but was left with nothing. Seems like a reasonable analysis.

Personally I disagree with the analysis, but saw him on MSNBC when the first wave of exit polls was coming in and he was making a similar point.

So at least he is consistent, but IMHO that's more of a "Beltway take" than what actual voters were thinking when they went to the polls.

The machinations in Washington aren't something that people care about, but voters *Do* care about their elected officials getting things done.

Manchin and Sinema's stonewalling made the Biden administration look ineffective. That almost is something that voters noted and disliked.

[LabourJersey]

1 year to course correct.

1 year.

Otherwise, well, I know some of y'all are too young to really remember 2010. Let me just say it is PAIN.

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1455709997887787009?s=20

Can't really compare it to 2010 given that the economic situation then was substantially worse. 2014? Possibly, but 2010 was a unique confluence of economic and political discontent that's hard to replicate

[LabourJersey]

REALLY close in NJ. 49.8-49.4

Essex and Union barely have any results yet.

[LabourJersey]

New ad dropped by Younkin's super PAC, hinting at a presidential run to "pursue Reagan's legacy".

Do Resign-to-Run rules apply to VA?

https://twitter.com/GlennYoungkin/status/1659167200316407808?cxt=HHwWgIC23eXxxYY...

Supposedly this ad is "only" for Youngkin's PAC which is focusing on the November legislative elections. But it's blatantly a presidential campaign ad.

Odd timing given how he very recently said he won't be running.