VA-GOV 2017: It's a Wave (GE: Nov 7th - Thread #2)

[Fudotei]

Eh, if the data supports Northam by 2, then the reasonable guess is Northam by 2.

Northam by 2 is still a pretty solid run considering that we should be seeing backlash for Republicans eventually given approval ratings. The economy's good, but it's hard to tie that to Gillespie and tying anything to Trump is difficult.

Put it this way: Cuccinelli lost by 2.5%. If Gillespie can keep that margin after a much less friendly national environment and an general boost in the Dem electorate, 2018 probably won't be as brutal as some people are expecting.

If Gillespie manages to improve on 2.5% or even win the election outright, all hell breaks loose. No way an election held Nov 2017 should be better or even comparable for a Republican compared to Nov 2013.

[Fudotei]

Northam by 2 is a pretty good result for Republicans - it shows that hard-on-immigration campaigns energize the GOP base but won't significantly alienate the Dem base to the point that it negates the edge.

2013 was a much better year for Republicans than it was now. What a hypothetical Dem operative wants to see is Northam up by like 9. That'd be somewhere near the national margin the Dems need to be playing with in order to have a home run midterm like some metric indicate.

Gillespie improving on Cuccinelli's margin in the shift in landscape would be nothing less than miraculous. This election (and how exactly Guadagno falls to Murphy) should give folks in the RNC a good idea whether to run on a national anti-sanctuary message in 2018.

Maybe the trick for Paul Ryan is to move a bit to the right on cultural issues.

[Fudotei]

All of Virginia's Congressional districts are getting gerrymandered and there's nothing you can do about it because of rain lmao

[Fudotei]

Northam by the same margin as Mac isn't a great result for Northam. What Dems should see -- and what is otherwise probably attributable to local differences or the genuine success of the anti-sanctuary plan -- is Northam up by 10.

2016 Congress was Republicans by 1 point. If Democrats hit their polling for 'generic ballot' they should be up in the range of 9.

Northam by 2 shows the atmosphere hasn't significantly changed -- in Virginia, a swing state -- from 2013 to 2017. That's not good news, not the type of sweeping news the Dems want to hear.

[Fudotei]

Absolutely fantastic result for the Democrats, who have in a single night resolved several issues:

• Can you run moderates like Northam and still benefit from the D anti-Trump wave? Yes, liberals are energized and not exclusionary (at least in Virginia).
• Do Democrats have a chance of winning back the House? Yes, because while Republicans can pull out edges in single-shot special elections, the broad attention of a statewide vote (which all 2018 is)
   brings out the Resistance.
• Can otherwise establishment Republicans go law-and-order to boost white turnout? Not really, SWVA doesn't trust them, destroys sympathy in NoVA, and boosts nonwhite turnout.
• Are the polls accurate? Yes, and sometimes underestimate the Democrat (see 538's First Rule of Polling Error)
• Can initiatives overcome existing Republican resistance? Sometimes (Maine) but not when the position is highly opposed by existing outside interests (Ohio).
• In 2009 Republicans turn the Virginia House from a 55-43 Republican split to a 61-39 R split. The Dems turned 34-66 to 50-50 this year.
• Could 2018 be brutal for Paul Ryan? Yes.

I'm not sure of the "need to swing rural areas to win the legislature" - didn't the Ds just flip this legislature? Gerrymandering creates lots of seats which are hard to reach but can be hit (you concentrate all the D votes in one area to create margins, not blowouts, for R districts). Doesn't that process combined with a D wave create a lot of uneasy Republicans?