The Virginia gubernatorial election, along with elections for other statewide positions and its legislature, is taking place this November. It, along with New Jersey, are the only two states that hold regular elections for governors in off-years. Virginia has been trending Democratic, with Republicans failing to win any statewide races in recent years, but the results of this race could still foreshadow what might go down in the midterms next year.
Virginia was once a solidly Republican state, before becoming a swing state and now, a likely state for the Democrats. Since Barack Obama flipped the state blue in 2008, breaking a 44-year-streak of the state voting for Republican presidential nominees, the state has only gotten bluer since. The last time a Republican won statewide was Bob McDonnell in 2009.
The 2009 victory win for Republicans foreshadowed the absolute bloodbath the Democrats would face the next year in the midterm elections. McDonnell won by 17 percentage points over Democrat Creigh Deeds, a state senator. The next year, Republicans won 63 seats in the House, seven in the Senate, and flipped 20 state legislative chambers.
Since then, Democrats have also flipped the state legislature blue and a majority of the state’s federal congressional districts blue. In 2020, President Joe Biden carried Virginia by a 10-point margin, the best since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s landslide victory in 1944. The rapid diversification of the state, especially in and around the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area in Northern Virginia and the cities of Richmond and Norfolk have allowed the state to trend more Democratic.
The results of this race could have massive implications on how the midterm elections next November could play out for both parties. In 2017, Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam won the state in a blue-leaning political environment by 9 percentage points, with Donald Trump — an unpopular president — in the White House. The results of that race predicted what happened in the 2018 midterm elections: the Democrats won back the House, flipping 41 seats. Thus, if Democrats underperform — or Republicans make an upset win here — it could indicate a red wave next year. On the other hand, if Democrats overperform, we may see a history-defying midterm cycle next year, since midterms typically go against the president’s party.
Virginia law disallows governors from running for consecutive terms, so Northam will not be able to run for reelection. However, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who was governor before Northam, is the Democrats’ nominee, which gives the party some name recognition, and, to an extent, an incumbency advantage, considering he held that position before.
On the flip side, Virginia Republicans are running Glenn Youngkin, who was selected as the nominee after a messy effort to stop Donald Trump loyalist Amanda Chase from winning the nomination, fearing that it could hurt their chances there, considering Trump’s historic loss there in 2020.
However, despite Youngkin’s best efforts to distance himself from Trump, Trump has still chosen to endorse Youngkin. Democrats have been quick to use Trump’s endorsement to attack Youngkin in ads, hoping that they can use Trump as a galvanizing issue to convince people to vote here.
In fact, Youngkin seems to be making a number of wrong moves here by focusing more social issues such as vaccine mandates and abortion, both of which he says he opposes. This is a problem for him as most people in Virginia believe abortion should be legal, and given Democrats’ relative dominance in the state, most are supportive of vaccine mandates.
Unfortunuately for him, Youngkin is too concerned with losing support from the Trump wing of the GOP than to become more moderate for the state. Had he chosen to become more moderate, he would have had a much better chance at winning as it could have attracted moderate voters dissatisfied with the Democrats. Becoming more moderate also would not have resulted in lost votes from the Trump wing, since there is no other candidate for them to vote for.
Another factor against Youngkin is the fact that the Democratic legislature has extended pandemic mail-voting measures to allow anyone to request a mail ballot. Mail voting kicked off on Friday, beginning a 45-day-long period of voting until the final day of in-person voting on Nov. 2. Considering a higher turnout typically benefits Democrats, extended mail voting (a system in which Democrats are already more likely to use) is likely to help McAuliffe.
Early voting on Sunday was also expanded. This was commonly used by Black churches to lead “Souls to the Polls” events that encouraged Black churchgoers to go vote after attending church services on Sunday.
These have been used by McAuliffe’s campaign to try and encourage higher turnout. McAullife has been running ads encouraging voters to vote by mail and request a ballot.
As of now, Democrats are definitely favored to win the race, but by how much is still anyone’s guess. Newshacker Blog is rating this race as lean Democratic, meaning that we expect McAullife to win by anywhere from 1 to 5 percentage points.
We will be posting more updates on this race as voting proceeds in Virginia. Stay tuned to this blog for more information.
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