What Went Down During The 2021 Elections

It’s still too early for “what this means,” but let’s dip our toes into that pool …

In terms of Virginia, I’m finding myself torn between “this is just normal thermostatic public opinion/movement against party in White House” and “Republicans have a powerful wedge issue in critical race theory and education that lets them dogwhistle without paying a price for it.”

Neither of those are good for Democrats, but do people have thoughts on which is the more accurate takeaway? And on the second one, are we talking about CRT as an issue specifically or education more broadly?

In Minneapolis, City Question 2 — over whether to replace the police department with a department of public safety — is currently losing 58 percent to 42 percent. In addition, incumbent Jacob Frey has 44 percent of first-place votes in the ranked-choice election for mayor; his two progressive challengers combined have only 38 percent.

Yeah, still, keep an eye on the margin in the New Jersey gubernatorial election. Murphy will probably still prevail based on what I’m seeing, but it looks like the margin could be in the single digits. If this happens, it would be a substantial underperformance from Biden’s 16-point margin there in 2020. This could be a sign that Democrats’ struggles aren’t just limited to the particulars of the Virginia gubernatorial race, but that the national political winds are pretty bad for them in general.