THE VIRGINIA ELECTIONS PART I: DEMISE OF THE DEMOCRATS? NOT SO FAST!

                                                             

A Republican victory in Virginia’s off-year elections (and a closer than expected win by incumbent Democrat Phil Murphy in New Jersey’s governor’s race) prompted a spate of media stories about the Democratic Party’s supposedly dismal

electoral prospects. Coupled with President Biden’s falling poll numbers, the loss by former Governor Terry McAuliffe to Glenn Youngkin and GOP gains in the Virginia legislature generated rampant speculation about Democratic prospects in the 2022 midterms and through 2024.  Some

pundits suggested it’s a foregone conclusion we’ll have a Republican Congress in 2023 and a Republican in the White House in January 2025.   We don’t subscribe to the hype, but we recognize the Virginia outcome merits discussion of where Democrats stand and what they must do so they can keep a sufficient numerical advantage.

The question takes on so much importance because

of our fractured political landscape. Republicans seem bent on destroying Democracy. Only the Democratic Party obstructs the way. It’s essential, therefore, to evaluate where Democrats stand with the electorate

and understand how the country maintains this precarious equilibrium and doesn’t buy into the Republican zero-sum game.

 

The Narrative

Virginia has trended increasingly Democratic in

recent years. Biden won the state 54-44 in 2020. George W. Bush, with a 53-45 victory over John Kerry in 2004, was the last Republican presidential candidate who won the state.  Both Virginia’s Democratic senators, 2016 vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine and Mark

Warner, easily won reelection the last time they ran (Kaine, 57-41 in 2018 and Warner, 56-44 in 2020). In 2017, in addition to the 53-45 gubernatorial victory of Ralph Northam, Democrats won majorities in both houses

of the Virginia legislature. A year later, they flipped control of the state’s congressional delegation. Because of these outcomes, the view of Virginia as a swing state eroded. Before the 2021 elections, many observers saw it as safe Democratic territory.

                                              

That prognosis, however, masked another truth

about Virginia. In its quirky odd-year races that follow election of a new president, the candidate of the party that lost the presidency usually wins the Virginia governor’s chair the next year. That happened when Northam won in 2017 following Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential victory. After Barack Obama won the White House in 2008, the next year Republican Bob McDonald took the Virginia governor’s race. In 2001, after George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential triumph, Warner captured the Virginia governorship. Republican George Allen won in Virginia in 1993 after Bill Clinton took the White House in 1992. Democrat Doug Wilder, the state’s first black governor, won in 1989 after George H.W. Bush captured the 1988 presidential election.

Virginia’s voters apparently like this arrangement, since they’ve engineered it so often. Perhaps analysts need not look beyond the history books for an understanding of the 2021 outcome.    

 

The Other Explanations             

Despite the history, however, political observers offered other explanations for Youngkin’s win and McAuliffe’s defeat:

·    The fact House Democrats didn’t pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill before the election. They approved it a few days later, but Warner asserted McAuliffe might have won if he could have campaigned on the roads, bridges, and other improvements the state would receive under the bill.

·    The Critical Race Theory boogey man. Despite no evidence any Virginia school district teaches Critical Race Theory or anything like it, Youngkin capitalized on the concerns of white parents about what’s being taught about race in public schools. McAuliffe made things worse with a tone-deaf comment that he didn’t “believe parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

·    Biden’s performance as president. This explanation begins with the messy Afghanistan exit. McAuliffe tied himself closely to Biden. Some conservative commentators argued that as Biden’s poll numbers fell in the wake of the bad Afghanistan optics, McAuliffe suffered some of the fallout.

·    Economic anxiety. Even if the economy is doing reasonably well in bouncing back from the pandemic, fears about inflation have ramped up. Some thought that hurt McAuliffe as well.  

 

Virginia and Malcom Gladwell

We’ve taken note before of the work of social commentator Malcom Gladwell who observed in

his 2008 book Outliers: The Story of Success, that one thing seldom causes an airplane crash. Instead, most air disasters result from a cascading series of events piled on top of each other. We think that also applies to political outcomes. Races one candidate should win but doesn’t – as happened with McAuliffe – usually have many explanations, not one.

Our list of what may have created the Virginia result probably isn’t all inclusive. Other things could have played a role.  But the cause is important in light of the question we began with: What does the Virginia outcome say about where the Democratic Party stands with the electorate as the 2022 midterms and the 2024 presidential cycle approach?

We adhere to Gladwell’s basic principle – one thing seldom causes a disaster. We point to the things we’ve listed and raise the possibility that winning

in 2022 and 2024 requires that Democrats look at the question in an entirely different way. While not ignoring the list of  possible reasons for the 2021 Virginia loss, perhaps Democrats should focus on the broader question of what policies they must offer that will insure their

standing with the electorate in the upcoming elections. Just on the politics, the Virginia outcome suggests Democrats are not now in a good place with voters. In our next post, we’ll offer suggestions about how they might rectify that situation.