Virginia Postmortem
Glenn Youngkin will be the next governor of Virginia, a scenario that struck me as highly unlikely even a few months ago. Only a year ago Biden won Virginia by a wide margin, and it’s been trending blue over the last several elections. Since McAuliffe had been a reasonably popular governor before, I fully expected that the polling would turn out to be off and he’d squeak out a win. But clearly, I was wrong.
I’m hesitant to write an election post-mortem because so many others have done so already, but I disagree with a lot of the takes I’ve seen so we’re doing this. Let’s get right to the point:
Media asymmetry and the lack of a robust effort to create a left of center narrative cost Democrats Virginia. If drastic steps aren’t taken to change our strategy beyond traditional campaigning we’re DOA in the midterms, an election where we’re already at an extreme disadvantage thanks to Gerrymandering, voter suppression laws, and the refusal to end the filibusters.
This is perhaps a simplistic view, especially in light of where both the Infrastructure and Build Back Better bills were on Election Day. You could make the argument that Democrats not being able to pass legislation and follow through on their campaign promises cost them Virginia, but the more I thought about this the more I pondered if we had passed these bills would we have the ability to communicate…
