What Went Down During The 2021 Elections

Youngkin has done a good job of threading the needle between being Trumpy and being “not that Trumpy,” as Sarah said. Some of that is to do with how he looks and talks; he comes off as “suburban dad” much more than he does “hothead real estate tycoon” (even though he’s worth half a billion dollars himself). But he also benefitted from the GOP nominating convention being a month earlier than the Democratic primary, which means he got a month’s head start on the general election. And his personal resources meant he could introduce himself to general election voters immediately and on his own terms (just a regular, fleece-wearing, basketball-playing dude) before McAuliffe started tying him to Trump.

But, to play devil’s advocate to myself a bit, Republicans have run horror ads featuring Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama even when they weren’t on the ballot, and I don’t think it’s hurt them per se. I think running against Trump would be a fine strategy, as long as it’s not your only strategy.

I think Democrats may have expected too much out of their Trump-first strategy. Virginia may be becoming a blue state, but it’s not California, where Biden won last year by 29 points, rather than 10. I think Virginia still isn’t a state where Democrats can run a base strategy. Clearly, some Americans have changed their minds since 2020 (at least about Biden), and I don’t think I’d assume that Biden would win a head-to-head with Trump there today? Well, he probably would, but it would be close — close enough that you wouldn’t want to model your own campaign on it.