What Went Down During The 2021 Elections

In Virginia, I was struck by the extent to which Youngkin was able to improve double-digits on Trump’s performance in many different counties across the state. It wasn’t just one demographic or region where he was able to make significant inroads — he gained in urban, suburban and rural areas. He gained in counties with high percentages of college-educated whites as well as in counties with high percentages on non-college-educated whites. There’s also some evidence suggesting that he may have gained a decent amount of ground with Black voters. This suggests that Republicans might be able to contest a wide array of districts and states in next year’s midterm elections if the political environment stays poor for Democrats.

If anything, I was surprised by how the results in Virginia fell pretty neatly into the big, macro patterns we’re used to! Everyone is looking for reasons that Youngkin won — when, as we’ve been discussing, if you look at the fundamentals, that’s exactly what you’d expect to happen. So, I guess my wet-blanket take is that even at a time when everything feels unpredictable, we shouldn’t write off the extent to which American politics is pretty cyclical and predictable.

Readers, we’re going to transition our live blog coverage to focus on the outstanding governor’s race in New Jersey, but before we go New Jersey all the time, I wanted to ask our live blog crew one more time for their thoughts on Virginia, as the 🔥 takes have startled to trickle in. For example, it was all about Biden. It was all about education. It was all about Trump.

As we’ve said on this live blog, it’s really hard to land on just one explanation for why an election unfolded the way it did — or, to borrow Micah’s words, the macro versus the micro trends here are still related. But, knowing that, what one thing surprised you about the governor’s election in Virginia, and how will it shape — or not shape — your understanding of the national environment moving forward?