What Went Down During The 2021 Elections

Simple math points to why Youngkin’s Trump and Not Trump balancing act might be enough to win. As The Washington Post’s David Byler pointed out earlier today, if you give Youngkin the best Republican margin in each city or county from either 2020, when the party was led by Trump, or in 2012, when it was led by Mitt Romney, Virginia works out to be about tied if each place casts the share of the statewide vote it cast in the 2020 presidential election.

That’s a great point, Alex — Trump’s inability to post on most mainstream social media platforms also prevents him from intervening in the race in ways candidates such as Youngkin might not like!

To your point, Nathaniel, I also think it’s harder for Democrats to run a national campaign against Trump because he’s banned from most mainstream social media platforms and he’s not in the White House, so he’s largely out of the public eye.