2021 Gubernatorial Predictions

[ElectionsGuy]

CA-Recall 2021: Likely No (D)

Despite some polling suggesting the race tightening, and Republicans disproportionately energized, I highly expect Newsom to be retained. The margin will still probably be a bad sign for Democrats in 2022, but I think a final push by Democrats in the last few weeks will be more than enough to save him. And even then, is it even guaranteed a Republican would win the 2nd ballot? Elder is currently leading, but there's a ton who say their "undecided" (aka Newsom supporters) and whether they vote on that question at all or coalesce behind a Democrat would make a decent difference.

VA 2021: Lean D

I had previously thought of this as Likely D, but even the polling has been surprisingly close. I do think that Virginia has trended so far to the left that it's still a long shot, but a narrow win by Youngkin is possible if everything goes right. I expect McAuliffe to win by more like 4-7.

NJ 2021: Likely D

Not much to say, Phil Murphy should win pretty easily, but not in a landslide. I don't think Phil Murphy is getting any crossover appeal and New Jersey still has a large base of Republicans (typically low 40's), so I rate it Likely D just in case a freak accident were to occur in an off-year with the disproportionate turnout.

CA-Recall 2021: Likely No (D) --> Safe No (D)

It looks like Elder will win the alternative vote, but the recall will not come close to succeeding. California reaps what is sows.

Final Prediction: 58% No, 42% Yes.



I expect No (Newsom) to do worse relative to Biden the most in Latino heavy and working-class areas that will see the biggest drop in turnout. I expect him to hold up the best in the white wealthiest areas of the state.

Virginia and New Jersey remain the same. I expect these races this year to obfuscate the fact that it's increasingly clear the Democrats are in trouble regarding 2022.

[ElectionsGuy]

Tightening my Virginia prediction slightly (Lean D)

McAuliffe: 51.5%
Youngkin: 48.0%

Tightening my New Jersey prediction as well (Likely D)

Murphy: 53.5%
Ciattarelli: 44.5%

[ElectionsGuy]

Final 2021 Prediction

NJ - Rating: Likely D

Murphy: 53.0%
Ciattarelli: 45.0%

This race has been mostly quiet but has tightened even more than I would've thought over the past 2 months. It does make sense though, that we're seeing McAuliffe slide at the same time as Murphy, suggesting this is environmental rather than candidate-based. Don't know how much third-party vote will impact this race, so I just guessed 2%. Could be wrong about that.

VA - Rating: Toss-Up/Tilt D

McAuliffe: 50.0%
Youngkin: 49.0%

This has been an interesting race, to be sure, with lots of national implications. I've said for months now that if Youngkin wins this race, there is no positive spin that can come out of that for Democrats. If it happens, Dems will likely get bogged down in a red wave environment similar to 2010 and 2014, unless they can really repair Biden's image and the overall national mood (large numbers of "wrong track" now vs beginning of 2021). The problem is that has shown no signs of repairing for Democrats over the past 3 months since the fall of Afghanistan. I'm guessing if or when it happens, we're going to hear a whole lot of spin saying it's just one election and McAuliffe ran a bad campaign and uniquely underperformed, whatever it is it's going to be another excusal/dismissal

What I'm predicting isn't much better though, a 9 point Republican swing from 2020's presidential results is still massive, and I'm predicting a similar swing in New Jersey (I do believe the two are somewhat linked by margin). What ultimately led me to air on the side of McAuliffe is the state's base partisanship + polls in Virginia with current party coalitions are probably some of the most "accurate" in the nation + some of the right-leaning pollsters still barely have Youngkin ahead, and it just wasn't enough for me to feel comfortable predicting him winning. However, I'm not confident in how accurate polls will be one way or another. I could be underestimating Youngkin because polls underestimate the "out" party in off-year/midterms, more or less. I could be underestimating McAuliffe because of that large college-educated block in Virginia being more reliable for Democrats than other state Dem coalitions. Although it does look like black voters do need to turn out on election day for Democrats as their early voting numbers aren't that high. But I do understand that I (and a few others) will be under much larger scorn if we underestimate Democrats rather than underestimating Republicans. A balanced prognosticator would do both, but overpredicting Democrats has been the accepted norm now for some time.

For months, political prognostication and hundreds of posts on this forum have assured us that Virginia is a safe blue state, anybody suggesting the race would be competitive is delusional and stupid, and the polls that these same people trusted so generously in 2018 and 2020 (because they showed Democrats winning) are now suspect because in 2017 there was a 6 point polling error in favor of Republicans, so the same polling error should occur here. Only in these last two weeks did a large chunk of people take the chance of Youngkin winning seriously, when now he's leading in the polling averages. There is ample reason you shouldn't expect (but shouldn't necessarily rule out) polls to have the same error: One is the enthusiasm gap, which is real and does affect elections, contrary to some posters who refuse to believe so. It often can explain some polling errors too. Dems had it in 2017, R's have it today. There is also an incumbent president underwater by 10 points in polling averages and a souring national mood that is starting to look pretty distressing. Another is that a 6 point error in favor of Republicans is just rare, it almost never happens and the Virginia 2017 race was one of the few you could point to over the last decade or so of it happening. The polls in the 2017 were also were more varied, with some tied and others being accurate at nearly Northam +10. These polls in this year are far more narrow in range and closer in margin, with the only outlier being Fox (which again, is a crappy pollster nobody should trust).

In a red wave environment that we saw back in 2010 and 2014, Virginia would be a toss-up state. It is a D+5-6 state now so with a R+5-6 margin, could be winnable for Republicans, if Republicans can get an elastic enough swing. Warner almost losing in 2014 actually was quite a Democratic overperformance considering that Virginia was still purple at that point. So if what we're seeing right now is a precipice of a red wave, it makes sense Virginia is a toss-up. And I've seen polling where the generic ballot in Virginia looks very similar to the Youngkin/McAuliffe numbers. If we're more likely to see a more mild R-leaning year, McAuliffe will probably win by 3-6 points. It also makes sense Virginia would be close because it has a tendency to go back and forth, with only McAuliffe's win over Cuccinelli (then cast as a very weak, extremist candidate) being the exception, and even then he underperformed polls that suggested he would win by at least 6 points. So while I'm not confident in terms of a winner of this race, the fundamentals suggest we're not going to be seeing Northam/Biden type margins in this race, but we can see McAuliffe win by 5 or so in a sigh of relief for Democrats, or say Youngkin winning by 4 in a huge blow to Democrats.

And even though I have the person on ignore, there is a passive-aggressive person sniping at me that I see randomly through quoted posts. If that person thinks I'm going to delete any posts, or be ashamed if I'm wrong, they clearly don't know me. If they think the California Recall prediction was embarrassing for me, they're wrong. Why would I still have it up? Why would I still have my 2020 prediction up? I don't delete any of my posts lol I pretty clearly said from the outset the race was not very competitive, and Democrats would ultimately close the race strong, which they did, and I pointed out the racial/class trends that ended up being accurate. I did get the margin 8 points off, with a weird election timing, varied polls that underestimated the No vote. I was not that shocked the recall failed by 24 points, I wasn't expecting some narrow range of results, and more importantly, I didn't berate people and call them insults because they didn't agree with my exact prediction. That's the toxic culture some on this forum continue to engage in and why I take long breaks from this place. I'm an elections nerd built for this type of forum but 20-30% of you guys make me never want to post here.

Also I plan to do an analysis of the California recall vote at some point, but overall it has very mixed implications and definitely does not weigh more on 2022 than these Governor races do.

edit: I read this over and realize I made a pretty large error and forgot the "not" in front of going. That's consistent with what I've been saying for weeks anyway.