What Went Down During The 2021 Elections

We’re going to spend a lot of time talking about why certain issues mattered in the election, but the long and short of the Virginia result mostly comes down to Biden being unpopular as well as differential turnout, whereby Republicans turned out at somewhat higher rates than Democrats. The exit polls showed the electorate’s recalled 2020 vote was Biden +2 in a state that the president carried by 10 points. Many Virginians and Americans in general aren’t happy with the status quo, and that showed.

Youngkin is the official winner in Virginia’s gubernatorial race, thanks to him beating his benchmarks across the more populous areas of the state. Youngkin overperformed across most of the state’s eastern counties and cities, which drove the highest proportions of the statewide vote in the 2020 presidential election. Those pink counties in the southwest corner of the state are relatively smaller, rural GOP-friendly areas — so even though McAuliffe did relatively better there, GOP margins were still quite large. Any improvement compared to Biden’s 2020 results weren’t enough to offset Youngkin’s overperformance in more populous suburban areas.

As you wave at, Jacob, there’s already some chatter that the Republican upset in Texas’s special election runoff tonight might foreshadow large GOP gains in south Texas next year. As Geoffrey and I have written before, Hispanic voters trending further right in metro areas, specifically, could be an obstacle for Democrats — especially if Republicans continue to make inroads with Hispanic voters here and voters along the border, too. As such, it was already in Texas Republicans’ best interest to improve their margins in Hispanic communities in more populous areas (like HD-118) that lean Democratic.