What Went Down During The 2021 Elections

Oof, Micah with the million dollar question — that’s also incredibly difficult to disentangle.

As we’ve written extensively, both on this live blog and elsewhere, part of what’s happening in Virginia reflects national dissatisfaction with Biden. His approval rating is underwater nationally and in Virginia. That’s also translated to lower Democratic turnout tonight, per exit polls.

But the fact that education as an issue surged in importance toward the end of the race does also, I think, speak to lens through which to view tonight’s race. That is, when it comes to schools, much of the rhetoric Youngkin and the GOP has used has been wrapped up in racist rhetoric and dogwhistles, but also is more complex than that.

I think part of what we’re seeing tonight also reflects, in part, frustration parents had with COVID-19 policies in the state and decisions like getting rid of gifted and talented programs. Virginia was one of the more restrictive states when it came to closing the K-12 system during the 2020–21 school year. Polls haven’t done a great job of distilling these two competing factors when talking about “education,” but I can’t help but think both are muddled in this conversation. Something can be both a dogwhistle and more complex than a dogwhistle.

I realize I’ve been guilty of this tonight, but I have mixed feelings about people saying “education” is what’s motivating GOP voters tonight. I really think this debate should be framed more around race and racism.

That’s a really important distinction. We seem to have decided that if we’re talking about culture wars in the setting of schools, we’re putting that in the “education” bucket. But as I’ve mentioned before, education in the traditional sense has historically been a dud of an issue in elections. So, I’m not convinced that there’s been a major shift in voters’ priorities in the last few years, especially since education did so little to move voters during teacher strikes ahead of the 2018 midterms.