My thoughts on VA

[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.

[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.