What Went Down During The 2021 Elections

The polls are now closed in Virginia, as well as a handful of other races we’re watching, such as the Democratic primary in Florida’s 20th Congressional District. Now we sit back and wait …

To help understand the Virginia governor’s race as the votes are tallied, we created benchmark vote margins for each county and city using their 2020 presidential vote share. The way the benchmarks work is simple: If a place is voting more Republican than its 2020 benchmark, that’s a good sign for Youngkin; if it’s going more Democratic, that’s a positive development for McAuliffe.

Here are the benchmarks, based on the two-party vote in the 2020 presidential election (so just the Democratic and Republican votes) and ordered by each locality’s share of the statewide vote:

A few things to keep in mind. First, the numbers are based on the two-party vote, so it excludes third-party and write-in votes, which will probably constitute, at most, around 2 percent of the total vote. We did this because the Democratic and Republican votes are all that matter in a race without a significant third-party presence. (Not to say the lone third-party candidate couldn’t have an impact, as progressive candidate Princess Blanding could win a few left-leaning votes).

Second, these benchmarks are calculated based on Biden’s 10-point win in Virginia last November, but adjusted to represent a 50-50 race. Yet they are also based on the share of the vote each locality had last November, and some places might make up a larger or smaller share of the vote than they did in 2020. If bluer or redder places turn out at a very disproportionate rate, that’ll affect these benchmarks.

Lastly, we know that election officials will mostly report absentee votes first, which will be Democratic-leaning, so the types of votes each locality has reported will be an important caveat to keep in mind. As such, we plan to carefully contextualize these benchmarks tonight to avoid misleading you about how the race is going.

In case you needed further proof that targeting “wokeness” is still political catnip for the GOP, look no further than the Virginia governor’s race, where Youngkin is pledging to ban critical race theory on his first day of office if elected the commonwealth’s next governor.

Indeed, education battles — like the aforementioned culture war to debates over mask mandates in schools — have been the focus of each candidate’s final push to capture the governor’s office, with Youngkin hoping to tap into conservative voters’ fears around what their children are being taught. In recent weeks, Youngkin has run a number of advertisements hitting his opponent on education: one attacking a comment McAuliffe made in a debate when he said that parents should not decide what schools teach, and another featuring a woman who sought to have the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Beloved” — which is about slavery in America — banned from Virginia’s school curriculum.

As governor, McAuliffe twice vetoed a bill that would have given parents the choice to opt their children out of sexually-explicit reading assignments. But McAuliffe has so far discounted much of the talk about critical race theory — which is not part of Virginia’s public school K-12 curriculum. During an interview with CNN, he accused Youngkin of just trying to “divide” voters.

Still, there’s evidence that education issues are especially animating Virginia voters. A recent poll from the Washington Post-Schar School found that education is a top issue for likely voters, with 24 percent saying this is the most important issue to them. And a Monmouth University survey found that 41 percent of likely voters ranked schools and education as one of the two most important issues in deciding their vote — second only to jobs and the economy (45 percent). Furthermore, according to a separate Suffolk University poll, a majority of likely voters (50 percent to 39 percent) said parents should have more of an influence on a school’s curriculum than school boards.

Since targeting critical race theory has energized Republicans nationally, it makes sense that this has been a focus of Youngkin’s campaign. He’s already received some outside support, too, so it’ll be interesting to see if Youngkin’s investment in the charged debates engulfing some of Virginia’s public schools pays off tonight.