What Went Down During The 2021 Elections

Many narratives will emerge regarding what tonight means for Democrats moving forward, given that Youngkin narrowly defeated McAuliffe in Virginia — a race that until the last few weeks of the campaign had been McAuliffe’s to lose, according to the polls — and the New Jersey governor’s race remains too close to call. In Virginia, it’s notable just how much Youngkin overperformed counties’ and cities’ 2020 benchmarks. Geoffrey and Ryan wrote about this extensively on the live blog, but Youngkin overperformed in most of Virginia’s largest cities and counties, which the table and map below show:

Part of this shift undoubtedly had to do with the fact that the electorate was very different than the one that voted in the 2020 presidential election. That is, in a state that voted for Biden by 10 percentage points, voters said in exit polls that they were evenly divided in who they voted for in 2020. Forty-six percent said they cast their vote for Trump and 46 percent said Biden, suggesting that at least some Biden supporters sat this contest out. In terms of what motivated voters, per exit polls, the number one issue in Virginia was the economy (33 percent) followed by education (23 percent). While it’s easy to focus on the role education played in the race, given Youngkin’s success in campaigning on it, the story there seems to be more complicated given that voters, per these exit polls, broke for Youngkin at similar rates, regardless if they cared about the economy or education more. And given how close the race is still in New Jersey, it does seem as if what happened on Tuesday is a story of both macro- and micro-trends. On the one hand, we saw what happens in an election when there’s an unpopular Democratic president in the White House; on the other hand, we must now unpack what contributed to that environment. The answer is more complex than just Biden’s approval rating alone. We’ll be back tomorrow to give you updates on the race in New Jersey, but in the meantime, stay tuned for our late-night podcast that should hit your feeds by tomorrow a.m. and our reaction to the Virginia governor’s race.

If Democrats want to have a fighting chance at bucking history in the 2022 midterms, the biggest lesson they can take from Virginia might be that they need a positive, cohesive message of their own to run on next year. McAuliffe spent far more time trying to tie Youngkin to Trump than he did talking about his own record as governor or any of the accomplishments of the unified Democratic state government over the last two years (of which there were many!). That’s a strategic decision that will likely come under a lot of scrutiny in the coming weeks, especially given the contrast with Youngkin, who was relentlessly on-message in the closing weeks of the race. Right now, Democrats don’t look like they’re for anything, only against Trump. That may have been an effective message in 2018 and 2020 when Trump was a presence in everyone’s life, but he’s not now. What Democrats’ new message should be, I don’t know. But the mishegas on Capitol Hill, where the contents of the Build Back Better agenda seemingly change hourly, doesn’t seem to help.

Well, this could be interesting. We didn’t actually get to learn much about what Youngkin thought about most major political issues during the campaign. Rather than running as a “moderate,” he ran more as a blank slate. He’s certainly embracing conservative principles in education in this speech, but it’s a far cry from the Trumpian rhetoric of the campaign. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what he actually wants to see happen.