What Went Down During The 2021 Elections

You could not be more right, Jacob, when describing the aesthetic Youngkin has tried to hone. It’s definitely a throwback in part to the GOP days of old, which is why I don’t understand why McAuliffe didn’t try and go after him for being wealthy and out of touch with voters? That was a very effective line of attack against now-Sen. Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election and strikes me as something McAuliffe/Democrats could have used more to their advantage?

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.