What Went Down During The 2021 Elections
I wrote a little while ago about how Democrats had axed paid family leave as part of their big spending bill — well, it looks like that might not be the case anymore. Now there are reports that Democrats are adding four weeks of paid family and medical leave to their reconciliation bill. It’s possible that the timing is coincidental, but it’s really interesting to think about this move in the context of their loss in Virginia last night, and the role of education and parental anger in that race. Is this an attempt to show parents who are running on fumes after 20 months of unpredictable-to-nonexistent childcare that Democrats are there for them? A way to prevent some of the clear frustration that parents are feeling from backfiring against them again? If that’s the case, I’m not sure that four weeks of paid leave will do the trick — but it’s interesting to think about the political chess here.
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.