Virginia Governor Election

Virginia Governor

Status: Democrat Open

2020 Presidential Result: Blue State (South)

Outlook: Tossup (R)

Every four years, the eyes of the political world turn its gaze to just outside the Beltway and the election for Governor of Virginia. Perhaps never more so than this year. This race gets outsized and perhaps too much attention the year after Presidential election as a measuring stick for "remorse" over the President who was just elected the year before and as a potential harbinger of the nationwide midterm elections of the next year. Sometimes, there is a larger meaning to be gathered, sometimes there is not. This year though, the race seems nationalized to the extent that even if the race itself comes down to local issues and concerns, the messaging for the winning party will definitely be carrying over into 2022.

As is the case with the current streak in New Jersey, Virginia had a history between 1977 and 2009 of electing Governors of the opposite party of the sitting President of the United States. In 2013, Barack Obama had won Virginia for the second time and Terry McAuliffe won the Governorship for Democrats. At this point, Virginia was no longer the red-leaning bastion it had been considered to be at the beginning of the century. 

A native of New York State, McAuliffe had a long history in politics and had become very rich in his business career. He was best known as the "money man" for Bill and Hillary Clinton and had a long established political and personal relationship with them. After the Clinton Administration ended, McAuliffe become the chairman of the DNC during a difficult time for the party. He raised large amounts of money but saw the party suffer setbacks in 2002 and 2004, after his frequent televised promises of victory, that went along with very personal attacks on Republicans made over those airwaves.

After being the chair of Hillary Clinton's ill fated 2008 Presidential campaign, McAuliffe lost a primary of his own when he finished second in the 2009 Democrat contest for Governor. He worked on his image though ahead of his second attempt and captured the nomination without opposition in 2013. Facing a Republican opponent considered very far to the right, McAuliffe managed to overcome negative perceptions about him but only by a 48-45 victory. Polls had shown he had a larger lead.

As Governor, McAuliffe was popular among Democrats, who continued to to increase their numbers in Virginia, but predictably unpopular with Republicans, and he faced the expected questions about his ethics in office. A major factor in Virginia Gubernatorial contests are that incumbents are ineligible to run directly for reelection. Thus, McAuliffe was sidelined from seeking a second term in 2017. Donald Trump was the surprise Presidential winner in 2016, though he did poorly in Virginia, and the trend of the out party winning was reinstated. McAuliffe considered a Presidential bid in 2020 but opted out of the crowded field. The political bug remained though and he is currently attempting to do something that no former Virginia Governor has done in memory, and that is win a second term.

Over the last few years, the number of new arrivals, government workers, and racial minorities has led to the perception that Virginia has become blue and any Democrat would be favored to win, even after Joe Biden won the White House for his party the year before. Indeed, Biden won by 10 points in the Commonwealth last year. The current Governor is Democrat Ralph Northam, who served as Lt. Governor, (elected separately) under McAuliffe and he is of course ineligible to run for a second term this year. The fact that Northam is still Governor at all is fairly remarkable. In 2019, a picture broke of two men, one in blackface, and one wearing a Klan outfit, in which one was said to be the current Governor, back when he was in medical school in the 1980s. Northam initially handled this scandal with mixed messages and a tremendous amount of awkwardness, such as almost doing the Moonwalk at a press conference. The conventional wisdom was that he would have to resign, and most in the party, including McAuliffe called upon him to do so.

Somehow, Northam survived though to be on his way to serving out his full term. The young African-American Lt. Governor, also a Democrat, who would have been primed to take over, was hit with allegations of sexual assault from years earlier, which he denied. The Democrat Attorney General also admitted wearing blackface as a young man. Suddenly, the urge among Democrats to jettison Northam was no longer urgent and he held on. Now, McAuliffe is calling his Republican detractors racist and campaigning as an ally of Northam, putting aside the racial issues that had led him to call for the incumbent's resignation just two years ago. The Lt. Governor fared poorly in this year's primary for Governor, with less than 4 percent of the vote, and the incumbent Attorney General is in a tough battle for reelection this Tuesday.

On June 8, Democrats had a primary for Governor and despite the high name recognition and deep pockets of McAuliffe, several other candidates lined up to try to stop his comeback effort. The former Governor was the easy winner with 62 percent of the vote, but all things considered, that number was not exactly a sign of political dominance. The opposition to him was divided though. Two African-American female state legislators finished behind McAuliffe with 20 and 12 percent of the vote. As mentioned, this was still well ahead of the sitting African-American Lt. Governor.

The Republican nomination process was even more convoluted. The party controversially chose to nominate candidates via convention instead of primary. Many feared this would lead to nominee considered too far to the right to win a general election being selected after various ballots eliminated contenders. A mixture of conservatives who emphasized their support of Donald Trump mixed with more establishment figures at the May convention, with ranked choice ballots cast remotely at different locations. Businessman and first time candidate Glenn Youngkin eventually prevailed on the sixth ballot after also finishing first in all previous ballot rounds. His final vanquished opponent was a businessman considered more of a Trump acolyte who had trailed Youngkin 33-26 in the first round, and then lost 55-45 on the final ballot. It is worth noting that the result would have been the same without ranked choice voting, but politics definitely played a role as former candidates seemingly disliked the candidate Pete Snyder and helped move their supporters to Youngkin. Ironically enough, state Senator Amanda Chase, the most pro-Trump of all the candidates, who went back and forth between running for Governor as an Independent or Republican, finished third at the convention, might have helped swing things for Youngkin, and then still held out the possibility of running in November as an Independent. Ultimately, she did not though.

When all the dust was settled, Republicans throughout the country breathed a bit of a sigh of relief over Youngkin being nominated. He was considered a promising campaigner, who was harder to portray as far right, but still without any sort of elected office record to attack. Also nominated, while running in separate races were an African-American woman for Lt. Governor and a Cuban-American candidate for Attorney General. All three are considered to be in very tight races down the homestretch, though Youngkin is considered the best bet of the three to win.

A big factor in this race is still Trump. Like the case in New Jersey, Youngkin has had to walk a fine line between not embracing Trump outright and not doing anything to earn the ire of the man himself or his supporters. The former President has released several statements since May endorsing Youngkin, and the GOP nominee has embraced though endorsements. For a while, the candidate for Governor chose his words very carefully in regards to whom he believed was the legitimate winner of the 2020 Presidential election. Needless to say. McAuliffe and his allies and surrogates from around the country have been working non-stop in trying to tie Youngkin (or Trumpkin as many say) to the unpopular former President. Youngkin has not invited Trump to visit Virginia on his behalf and has tried to steer clear of any sort of event in which Trump is directly involved.

 

It makes political sense for Democrats to try to tie Youngkin to Trump, but there are limits to the effectiveness of it and the fact that this race is close at all in Virginia is a sign that maybe it has been too much of an emphasis. Local issues, especially related to education have become the focus of the contest and the amazingly fast-falling approval for Joe Biden, even in a state he easily won, also appears to be at play. McAuliffe himself was caught on tape admitting a few weeks back that Biden is unpopular and a drag on this race. This caused an uproar at the time and the Democrats have since brought in Biden and Kamala Harris to campaign alongside their nominee. The dysfunction in Washington D.C. regarding the Democrat controlled Congress also being unable to pass any sort of infrastructure or social spending legislation to this point is also a  factor. Republicans are said to be far more motivated to vote than Democrats on Election Day. Still, there is belief that Democrats have easily outdone Republicans again on early voting. There is also the chance that some Trump die-hards now believe all elections are "rigged" and may not vote at all. The polls speak for themselves though. For months, McAuliffe had a steady but modest lead, but down the homestretch, they have closed up and some now show Youngkin moving ahead. Late last week, a Fox News survey even had the Republican up by eight points, which is perhaps a bit overly optimistic for his chances.

There is no way that I could possibly cover every aspect of the race in terms of developments or possible deciding factors but I must take a moment to say that if Democrats lose by one or two points, blame might be pointed towards an Independent candidate. In several races in recent cycles, the Libertarian candidate might have hurt Republicans, but in this case it could be Liberation candidate Princess Blanding. The African-American LGBT candidate is running on an unabashedly leftist platform including defunding the police. She is not expected to do any better than winning a point or two but in a razor tight race, every vote could matter.

The main reason why the race has seemed to have a major shift in momentum is likely due to McAuliffe's gaffe at a debate. This issue of "Critical Race Theory" in education is a complicated one but it has played a major role in this race and likely will be a major part of the 2022 midterms in both state and federal contests. It is a complex one, and an issue in which the right-wing exaggerates and the left-wing soft-pedals. For someone like me, that is all disconcerting, but the practical politics of it are likely to favor Republicans and could help them gain back lost ground due to Trump, in the suburbs. Education used to be a major advantage for Democrats, but now could sink them in Virginia with the eyes of the political world watching. Without getting too far into the weeds, McAuliffe claimed in a debate that he did not want parents telling schools what to teach. One can go back and forth over whether he meant something else or not and how exactly parents should go in regards to setting curriculum, but it was a boneheaded thing to say politically. Immediately, Youngkin and his allies had this statement featured in ads and McAuliffe has seen his poll numbers drop. 

For months, this was a "Leans D" race that become a Tossup in October. Up until a few days ago, I would have still given a slight edge to McAuliffe, but now I think the momentum is with Youngkin. This could go either way but I have to think the Republican is now a slight favorite. McAuliffe has certainly been acting like a desperate candidate (putting aside the videos of his horrificly goofy dancing and fake jovial personality which seems like an obvious distraction from the fact that he is a long-time politically driven ultra-partisan with a nasty streak.) The Democrats are seeming to bet everything on race in the state that had the ugly display at Charlottesville back when "T-Mac" was Governor and Trump was President. Last week, there was a political stunt, in which the Lincoln Project a group of professed NeverTrump conservatives (similar to myself) claimed responsibility for in which young political workers were dressed up for an early Halloween as tiki torch carrying white supremacists (even as some were not white.) As a NeverTrump conservative, I saw this as a horrible and totally dumb ploy that could do nothing but backfire against the target. There is perhaps much to criticize Youngkin on, but if he wins, it will be worth giving him a shot to see if he can govern as a post-Trump Republican.

If this race-based tactic works, even narrowly, it will be because Virginia is a fairly blue state these days and Youngkin was hurt by being tied to Trump. I think he could have definitely afforded to put more space between Trump and himself. If the polls are to be believed, he is already winning a good chunk of Biden voters anyway and could have gotten more. The Trump voters are unlikely of course to vote for someone like McAuliffe and may have been motivated by cultural and education issues anyway to still vote for Youngkin.

If this strategy does not work, it will show that even in places where Trump lost, Democrats will need to have a more compelling message than "Orange Man- Bad." Trump himself may have not and likely will never get over his 2020 defeat but the voters just might have and are focused on the next election.

Youngkin might just be in the right place at the right time. He campaigns (to the derision of his opponents) in khakis and a fleece vest and does seem to be a "kinder and gentler" version of a Trump like businessman outsider. Whatever happens, this is a highly intriguing election that will be talked about for years.

The results will come in on Tuesday and it remains to be seen if anyone concedes. If Youngkin loses, we can expect Trump and his acolytes to allege fraud, whether there is evidence or not. He will demand Youngkin fight to overturn the election and attack him if he does not do so.

 

 What if McAuliffe loses though? He certainly has a history of claiming elections were "stolen", such as when George W. Bush was elected President or more recently when Stacy Abrams lost a race for Governor of Georgia and refused to concede before Trump followed suit two years later. If McAuliffe loses and starts alleging fraud and threatening lawsuits and recount efforts, it will put his party in a tough spot.