Virginia Mega Thread: The Youngkin Administration

[ProgressiveModerate]

Lol the age CNN exit polls don’t make sense. The gap between how young and old people vote gonna be much larger than 15 points

[ProgressiveModerate]

I say this as someone who typically oppose cash bail, and I believe largely abolishing cash bail has been unfairly criticized by some on the right. It was just implemented at bad timing during rising crime rates.

The localities in Nova have largely liberalized on criminal justice issues. The situation is that crime is low in Nova to begin with. So there was not a huge backlash to crime compared to other suburbia. Example of bubble living.

Route 50 can be pretty rough, but is nothing compared to Baltimore or what I saw in St. Louis or Salt Lake City personally.

But VA democrats should campaign and assume that the 2021 results in Nova are standard while adding a couple of points to Loudoun due to local issues and campaign in the rest of the state assuming that.

So basically, the region was lightly impacted by inflation, did not have to live under draconian covid measures unless they went into DC, had a low crime rate, and people here are more "worldly" and blamed many problems on external forces. Combine that with the parties changing since 2004 and demographic change: there was never going to gop revival in Nova in 2021. They did not even have to live through BLM riots except a handful of small disturbances near Manassas.

The voters that switched in Nova were swing voter due to national climate, or pissed off rightfully about school situations, or disliked the state democratic campaign of 2021. And of course a bit of very wealthy Biden only votes that did not vote for Wexton. Most of these switchers will not be reliable Democrats in 2022 or going forward.

Wealthy whites in Fairfax, Arlington,  and Alexandria lean to the Democrats pretty clearly but narrowly. But in rest of nova, they are a strong GOP vote. Maybe a little less than the small white working class in pwc and loudoun though.

But I am going be outta here! I loved it, but it is soul sucking and once I had opportunity that was appropriate in a place that is a more natural I took it. But ill certainly visit Virginia in the future many times !

Interesting analysis. Though I think COVID restrictions def had an impact on NOVA, especially when it came to schools which was seen as a “failure of big government”

NOVA is always a bit weird to analyze since there’s not a ton of polictical or racial geography compared to most metros; it’s really one giant diverse blue leaning bubble.

I suspect Biden got close to maximal NOVA numbers in 2020, at least for now, because he nearly cracked 70% of the vote in Fairfax which is unusual for such a diverse county without a significant African American population or being at the immediate downtown of a city. Also the county has swung left faster than population shifts could account for.

With that being said, Youngkin prolly got close to maximal numbers for an R without a National coalition change. What’s notable though is McAuliffe still did better than Obama and other pre-Trump Dems in Nova suggesting a lot of the gains are here to stay and that normally Dems should be ok in Virginia on the federal level.

Younkin performance in the Virginia Beach area should concern Dems the most as that still would’ve been a respectable performer for an R even 10 years ago. This could matter a lot for the legislature and Dems ability to get a supermajority due to the concentration of swingy seats in the area, plus ofc VA-02 where Luria loses in 2022 imo.

[ProgressiveModerate]

This thread and the election was certainly fun.

Right as Joe Biden won in November 2020, I immediately saw an opening for the GOP to win Virginia in 2021.

My co workers and neighbors were in a Nova bubble and could not see a Republican winning statewide. They do not even have to live among high crime rates, inflation was not as noticeable in the Nova region due to already high cost of living, they did not under draconian measures of other Democratic ran localities during covid. So they were literally in a bubble.

What I saw was a state with a very large rural and southern cultured population, with Joe Biden doing actually relatively in the southern part of the state! A large part of the reason of Democrats winning 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2020, was due to a relatively impressive rural vote. 

Also online, I saw  Loudoun/PwC/Fairfax in 2020 maxed out for Democrats as I did not other potential voters for Democrats to tap in to. Bluntly, they are too wealthy to go much, if at all, above their 2020 performance. But once you go online and see some Republicans call them "Romney-Clinton" counties... uh.... no. Way over simplistic. They seem to forget that about the massive growth in Loudoun and Prince William County. These are not the same as 2004, 2008, 2009, or even 2014. Also the parties have changed a bit since 2004 which flipped some voters.

And of course online.... I saw.. virtually all Dems calling it a solid bloo state... based off of tenuous results and data.

November 2nd, 2021 was a fun night for me. At least the "va is a solid blue state" and "nova only voted dem due to trump" takes have not been widely mentioned since.

But Democrats can not be an effective national party with their messaging and with ceding the white working class. The suburban strategy will not always work. Most suburbs are not Nova and there is a limit to high Democrats can perform in very wealthy areas elsewhere in the country. Note that Henrico County had a higher margin for the Democrats compared to Loudoun. Depending on who moves into and out of Loudoun, I expect Henrico to consistent vote to the left of Loudoun and probably Prince William.

Local campaigns, candidate quality, etc still matter even in this hyper partisan age. But it is why Youngkin, running the best campaign I have ever seen, was only able to defeat the Democrat by 1.9 points, and the GOP was unable to defeat any Nova Democratic incumbents. The anti-intellectualism GOP is a huge turn off in Northern Virginia. Also, I tend to dislike takes like "post dobbs" ratings, but if the current Supreme Court puts limits on the executive branch and over reaches in their rulings, I could see impacting Virginia more than other states. I still have it a bit to the left of the country, and as a pragmatic state. So right wing judicial activism is not going to play well here, especially if the federal government is attacked on its power. Which impacts people directly or indirectly in Nova.

I also have been seeing more a return lately of decisive racial and religious rhetoric in the GOP. Yea.... that is not going to play well in Northern Virginia. It is part of the reason of the huge swing from Obama to Clinton in 2016.

Nova will be a solid Dem voting block for a long time.

People did play the "I am not from here card". Sometimes, when you are completely unbiased and disconnected, you can make better judgements.

But still:

Clinton won it by 5 with Tim Kaine on the ticket and Trump pulled out of the state in 2016. It was winnable for Trump in 2016 statewide, though difficult.

Democrats: Please do not try to max out suburbs and cede the white working class nationally.. it did not work in VA in 2021 (but usually will work in this state), but it would make a place like Michigan impossible.

how could you have seen trump winning virgina in 2016

Well, Trump did pull out of the state and virtually conceded it.

It was a bit less diverse back at that time and if Trump was able to obtain more of the rural vote and have it vote more comparable to southern rural areas, he could have won it in a close finish.

In hindsight, I don't think Trump would've ever won VA in 2016 unless for some reason he was doing a few points better nationally. He still got very solid swings in most of rural VA and if he put more resources into the state, Clinton would've also put more to counteract it.

Long term, Rs really shouldn't invest in the state on the federal level. Nice for them if they win it, but it's not a state they need and just has too many factors working against them at this point.

[ProgressiveModerate]

This is a wedge issue that really means nothing and has little impact on anyone's daily lives. Next.

[ProgressiveModerate]

SD-31 is Youngkin + 1 and Biden + 13; would be a very tough carry for any GOP challenger, but a lot of money certainly helps.

Honestly I find it interesting how in Loudon County, you actually have some "exurban" of even "rural" D support from a few wealthy communities, likely with some level of ties to DC.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I wonder if we’re underestimating the possibility that results mostly converge with federal partisanship, and Dems win decent majorities (like 58-42 and 23-17). It seems like in 2022, Dems really didn’t run much behind Biden numbers in state leg races even in suburbs that saw downballot lag in 2020. Infact in places like Johnson County KS Dems won Trump seats in the state leg.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I wonder if we’re underestimating the possibility that results mostly converge with federal partisanship, and Dems win decent majorities (like 58-42 and 23-17). It seems like in 2022, Dems really didn’t run much behind Biden numbers in state leg races even in suburbs that saw downballot lag in 2020. Infact in places like Johnson County KS Dems won Trump seats in the state leg.

That would put Dems just a seat or 2 short of winning everything Biden won in both chambers, which would be an astounding result relative to recent history.  Biden's performance was the all-time Dem peak in VA in a close national election.  Biden won VA by 10%, then Youngkin won by 2%, then House Dems cumulatively won by 3% statewide in 2022.

I'm coming around toward a halfway scenario where they win everything Biden won by at least 7%, which would be something like 22D/18R in the senate and 52D/48R in the HoD.  The polls we have seen so far all look like 2022.  Republicans can reasonably hope to hold the HoD and the probability of a tie (which cannot be broken without a party switch) is meaningful.  I don't think Republicans can reasonably hope to flip the state senate anymore.  They can get to 19 by winning tossups, but the final seat is just too hard.

I disagree with the idea Biden's 2020 performance was the all-time peak of Dems federally in VA. Warner literally outran Biden; Kaine in 2018 did so by a lot. Sure those races weren't seriously contested, but show it's feasibly possible for Dems to outrun Biden 2020 numbers in VA.

Not saying that'll happen here in the legislative elections, but with the exception of maybe 2 seats, all the Biden 2020 State House seats in VA are either safe/likely blue or have been shifting left. It's not hard to see Dems getting like 57 seats even if the statewide environment is only like D+6 or smtg. 58 is probably on the upper end of realistic, but def not impossible.

Agree State Sen is prolly a harder lift for Rs than the statehouse, especially since even Dem's seat 21 is to the left of the state in most recent election results. In the statehouse there are a ton of Biden + 7ish statehouse seats Rs have a fighting chance in.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I wonder if we’re underestimating the possibility that results mostly converge with federal partisanship, and Dems win decent majorities (like 58-42 and 23-17). It seems like in 2022, Dems really didn’t run much behind Biden numbers in state leg races even in suburbs that saw downballot lag in 2020. Infact in places like Johnson County KS Dems won Trump seats in the state leg.

That would put Dems just a seat or 2 short of winning everything Biden won in both chambers, which would be an astounding result relative to recent history.  Biden's performance was the all-time Dem peak in VA in a close national election.  Biden won VA by 10%, then Youngkin won by 2%, then House Dems cumulatively won by 3% statewide in 2022.

I'm coming around toward a halfway scenario where they win everything Biden won by at least 7%, which would be something like 22D/18R in the senate and 52D/48R in the HoD.  The polls we have seen so far all look like 2022.  Republicans can reasonably hope to hold the HoD and the probability of a tie (which cannot be broken without a party switch) is meaningful.  I don't think Republicans can reasonably hope to flip the state senate anymore.  They can get to 19 by winning tossups, but the final seat is just too hard.

I disagree with the idea Biden's 2020 performance was the all-time peak of Dems federally in VA. Warner literally outran Biden; Kaine in 2018 did so by a lot. Sure those races weren't seriously contested, but show it's feasibly possible for Dems to outrun Biden 2020 numbers in VA.

Not saying that'll happen here in the legislative elections, but with the exception of maybe 2 seats, all the Biden 2020 State House seats in VA are either safe/likely blue or have been shifting left. It's not hard to see Dems getting like 57 seats even if the statewide environment is only like D+6 or smtg. 58 is probably on the upper end of realistic, but def not impossible.

Agree State Sen is prolly a harder lift for Rs than the statehouse, especially since even Dem's seat 21 is to the left of the state in most recent election results. In the statehouse there are a ton of Biden + 7ish statehouse seats Rs have a fighting chance in.

1.I don't think Biden would even win Virginia by 6 if the elections were held today, given the polling.

2.Virginia is definitely redder at the state level than the federal level.

I could see Democrats flip the House narrowly and win 22-18 in the Senate, but my current prediction is 50-50 House and 21-19 Senate, with Republicans still in the game for a trifecta if late deciders break R as they did in 2021/2022.

1. Don't think Biden will fall much in VA unless Dems are having big, big turnout/persuasion problems nationally. VA isn't the type of place there are significant swaths of the types of voters Biden has been polling poorly with (at least in a relative sense), and if anything tends to have a disproportionate share of the groups he's been polling strongest with.

2. Not sure if this is true; I'd say Virginia tends to be overreactive on the State Level due to the elections being held in off years. You also have some degree of downballot lag across the state, it just so happens that most of the swingiest parts of the state (suburbs) tend to have R-favorable downballot lag, and other parts of the state that are swingy (whites v non-white communities), non-whites tend to see poor relatively turnout in off years.

Honestly it can be hard to conclude if really any state is fundamentally bluer/redder down ballot when you're dealing with a relatively small sample size of recent elections which all occur in different years, and its hard to tell to what extent a swing in results were due to a change in circumstances between cycles vs the state just being fundementally redder or bluer for different types of elections.

[ProgressiveModerate]

FWIW Susanna Gibson overperformed the fundamentals.  That was the best Dem result in the state in a Biden +5 seat.

In fact the night was not so good for the dems: if biden does the same result, he loses the election.

I'm getting tired of reading this.

*Democrats flip a chamber* -> "Here's why that's bad news for democrats"

Down ballot races aren't always good proxies for national races. Virginia Republicans still have strength down ballot and Biden winning the state by double digits wasn't a normal occurrence.

The absolute outcome in Virginia is good for Democrats; the only thing really at stake was whether Dems would get a majority in each chamber and in the end they won both.

However, they still have a lot of room for improvement; they lost a ton of Biden + 5-10 seats due to factors like being outspent and low black turnout which were at least somewhat in the state party's control.

It's the same way in Mississippi, from an absolute standpoint the only thing that mattered was Reeves won the Governorship, but his relatively weak performance suggests Rs in the state have work to do.

[ProgressiveModerate]

FWIW Susanna Gibson overperformed the fundamentals.  That was the best Dem result in the state in a Biden +5 seat.

In fact the night was not so good for the dems: if biden does the same result, he loses the election.

I'm getting tired of reading this.

*Democrats flip a chamber* -> "Here's why that's bad news for democrats"

Down ballot races aren't always good proxies for national races. Virginia Republicans still have strength down ballot and Biden winning the state by double digits wasn't a normal occurrence.

The absolute outcome in Virginia is good for Democrats; the only thing really at stake was whether Dems would get a majority in each chamber and in the end they won both.

However, they still have a lot of room for improvement; they lost a ton of Biden + 5-10 seats due to factors like being outspent and low black turnout which were at least somewhat in the state party's control.

It's the same way in Mississippi, from an absolute standpoint the only thing that mattered was Reeves won the Governorship, but his relatively weak performance suggests Rs in the state have work to do.

The VA HOD is likely to be pretty solid for Dems going forward.  Dems were able to get a majority there without winning a single seat that Biden won by less than 12 points.  This was probably Republicans’ last real shot at a majority there under current coalitions.

I would agree with that.  There were bunch of narrow misses in the HoD in significantly Dem trending areas (Henrico/Chesterfield/Williamsburg), and Dems still took control without the.  The PWC seat they flipped may be vulnerable given less favorable trends there (D's basically ran even with McAuliffe 2021 throughout PWC while obviously doing better elsewhere), but there's also an outer Loudoun seat that was only won 53/47 by the R this week after being tied between Biden and Trump, so it's probably screaming left.   55D/45R in the HoD seems totally achievable in 2025 (they pick up 57, 75, 71, 82, and 89).  The ceiling is also really high in a Dem wave, approaching 70D/30R.

The State Senate math actually looks worse than expected for Dems.  With PWC drifting back right vs. statewide, they will need to make progress somewhere else to make up for SD-30 being more of a toss up than expected.  One way to do that would be winning LG in 2025, because 20 of the 40 seats were quite clearly left of the state.  SD-24 appears to have trended right, and SD-17 trended right dramatically.  SD-27 probably looks the most promising for Dem expansion given it was only a 2% R plurality win with a left-leaning independent taking 4.5%?   Also, interesting how close SD-4 in Roanoke was, 53/46 R win in a Trump +1 seat, and without anything close to a top tier investment in the Dem.

Is PWC County really “drifting right”. Dems uniquely bad 2023 performance could just be due to low non-white turnout and local issues; it’s been pretty consistently shifting left at the Pres level for the past few decades and is still seeing growth from Dc.