My thoughts on VA

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

First, I'd like to congratulate Jill Vogel and John Adams on their excellent campaigns. Both outperformed the top of the ticket, which is a clear accomplishment given that Northam clearly had coattails (see the HoD). Had Gillespie actually managed to give Northam a close race, it's very possible that one or both of them would have pulled through. Unfortunately their races were not winnable in a Northam +9 environment, but they could very well still have some sort of political future after tonight.

Now, on to the governor's race. First, a pumping of the breaks on conservative worry about what Northam might do. Northam is a mainstream democrat, just like Gillespie is a mainstream republican. He is cut from the same mold as Obama, and would not impose bernie policies on the state. VA can and will prosper under his leadership. I call on the republicans in the legislature to put aside the partisan games. Regardless of who wins control of the HoD, republicans will still control the state senate, meaning we are entering an era of divided government. The gubernatorial campaign highlighted several challenges the state of VA faces, and in this era of divided government, it's important for everyone to work together to find real solutions for the state.

Gillespie's 9 point loss in VA was clearly an embarrassing performance and he should be ashamed of himself. I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize for my justification and disregarding of Gillespie's campaign tactics Re: MS-13 and Sanctuary Cities. These tactics were underhanded, nuclear, dishonest, and completely ineffective. Trumpism is not a winning tactic in Virginia, and given the margin, likely not a winning tactic for the country as a whole. Nor was it a necessary 'drug' for republicans to win back the presidency, Rubio or Kasich would have beaten Hillary too. Republicans best path forward is to reject Trumpism and return to the establishment-driven model that served them well in senate elections in 2014 and 2016. Republicans can and will recover from this night, but only if they realize that no matter how much certain sects of primary voters may like Trumpism, it is not a winning prescription or even an american prescription for the country, and firmly leave it behind. If they continue to embrace Trumpism, they can kiss the house goodbye in 2018. And they can also kiss my support goodbye, for if I could live through this race again, knowing what I know now, I would endorse Northam, and I will be very reluctant to endorse anyone in the future who embraces the tactics of Trumpism.

[Holmes]

For what it's worth, Virginia isn't entering an era of divided government, it's just continuing to be a divided government, albeit by a much narrower margin.

And if they can get a state senator to flip, or Northam appoints a Republican state senator to some position which prompts a special election, who knows.

[uti2]

There was a late tea party element to 2014. Ben Sasse was originally elected, believe it or not, as a late Tea Party-style candidate.

As for 2016, you can thank Hillary for her GOP courtship strategy, this purposely damaged the DNC downballot. It was more about Hillary's strategy of pandering to republicans than intrinsic GOP strength.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/rubycramer/how-a-decision-in-may-changed-the-general-election

Gillespie's campaign tried to do both the Jeb/Rubio style pandering combined with Trumpist red meat tactics (which is basically what Cruz tried to do):

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/06/ed-gillespie-virginia-governor-race-244605

In fact, Hillary's original strategy was to literally run as a populist continuation of Obama 2012, while Jeb/Rubio wanted to run a campaign based on superficial pandering to suburban democrats (Hillary in reverse).

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

You do realize that Toomey ran against Sanctuary cities and triangulated on guns in the Philly burbs, to win reelection to the Senate, right?


Ron Johnson voted against Comprehensive Immigration Reform, as did Roy Blunt, Rob Portman and so on.

This is a nice narrative you have hopped on Wulfric, but it is bullsh**t.

[Donerail]

Nobody asked

[Ebsy]

Nobody asked

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

You do realize that Toomey ran against Sanctuary cities and triangulated on guns in the Philly burbs, to win reelection to the Senate, right?


Ron Johnson voted against Comprehensive Immigration Reform, as did Roy Blunt, Rob Portman and so on.

This is a nice narrative you have hopped on Wulfric, but it is bullsh**t.

Did any of them run ads comparable to what we saw from Gillespie?

[Fuzzy Says: "Abolish NPR!"]

Gillespie ran as something he is not.  Had he really been a Trump acolyte, he may well have won.

No one likes a phony.  No one likes a poser.  Gillespie is a career Establishment Republican with some appeal to independents and moderates.  Had he run a more localized race and not tried to be something he was not, he wouldn't have been blown out (and he WAS blown out).

Northam isn't my idea of an exciting candidate, and I didn't think his switching on Sanctuary Cities was a smart move, as it made Northam look a bit phony.  But Northam was who he was more than Gillespie was, at least in the mind of Virginia voters.  And it appears that Virginia's Democrats actually harnessed some of the lightning in the bottle that was working in their favor.  I see Virginia now as a Democratic state for 2020, not quite like Massachusetts, but much like Minnesota, and moreso than Michigan and Wisconsin at this point.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Nobody asked

This is an incredibly rude and unconstructive post.

[BuckeyeNut]

Nobody asked

[Statilius the Epicurean]

There is no need to create an individual thread for your own thoughts when you could have posted this in the general

[Devout Centrist]

You grandiose moron

[Stranger in a strange land]

Gillespie ran as something he is not.  Had he really been a Trump acolyte, he may well have won.

No one likes a phony.  No one likes a poser.  Gillespie is a career Establishment Republican with some appeal to independents and moderates.  Had he run a more localized race and not tried to be something he was not, he wouldn't have been blown out (and he WAS blown out).

Northam isn't my idea of an exciting candidate, and I didn't think his switching on Sanctuary Cities was a smart move, as it made Northam look a bit phony.  But Northam was who he was more than Gillespie was, at least in the mind of Virginia voters.  And it appears that Virginia's Democrats actually harnessed some of the lightning in the bottle that was working in their favor.  I see Virginia now as a Democratic state for 2020, not quite like Massachusetts, but much like Minnesota, and moreso than Michigan and Wisconsin at this point.

We saw in 2016 that voters don't punish politicians for talking out of both sides of their mouth, though this might have changed when the Trumpists showed their true colors after Charlottesville. I maintain that Corey Stewart would have done as bad or even worse.

[Antonio the Sixth]

cool story bro

[Donerail]

Nobody asked

This is an incredibly rude and unconstructive post.

nowhere near as rude and unconstructive as thinking that your third-rate #analysis of an election is so valuable as to warrant a separate thread

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Gillespie lost because of 3 things.


1. Cyclical: Virginia has always elected a Governor from the Party that doesn't hold the Presidency going back to 1981, with the exception of 2013 (and that was because of the Gov't shutdown). Even when Bush had a 90% approval rating, Republicans still lost the VA Governorship when VA was a red state. Trump had a 40% approval rating and a trifecta that has failed to deliver any major successes.

2. Structural: Virginia is a blue state now. Larry Sabato said it yesterday. The people who used to deliver Republican margins in Nova are either dead, or still there in smaller numbers. The vast preponderance of Democratic Voters are young people who weren't voting back then, or people who moved in from out of state. The state has gotten more diverse, the states economic base has shifted Northward as the rest of the state has declined, making Gov't the dominant industry. Taken together, that means you have a Millenial dominated NOVA population that is more concerned about Student loan debt and gov't jobs, than tax cuts. Remember, 2014 was the lowest turnout election in 70 years and that is how Gillespie was able to almost win and come so close in those suburbs, the Democrats stayed home.

3. Trumpism doesn't make you immune from normal political cycles or structural difficulties. And we can play these silly games and say we need to go back to the time of Bush when things were so great for the Republicans in Virginia that they lost the Governorship twice and lost both Senate seats over the course of those 8 years and watched Fairfax go from 50-50 to 60% Dem and Loudon go from almost 60% GOP to 55% Dem. Driven in large part by the unpopularity of the Iraq War, which energized a whole generation of voters for the Democratic Party. To some extent, Ed lost because of his former boss's actions, just as much as he did because of Trump. George W. Bush, erected a giant Blue Wall in NOVA, that only can be climbed in elections when they don't turn out.

[smoltchanov]

Nobody asked

This is an incredibly rude and unconstructive post.

nowhere near as rude and unconstructive as thinking that your third-rate #analysis of an election is so valuable as to warrant a separate thread

May i see your first-rate analysis?