In my Wednesday essays, I normally wait to see what’s in the Wednesday newspaper to pick a topic to write about. Today I broke my self-imposed rule: I knew I was going to write about Tuesday’s election today. My tentative title was “We Did It/We Didn’t Do It.” Win back the Virginia General Assembly for the Democrats, that is. But I saw something on “Threads” this morning that gave me this title.
For a little background – Glenn Youngkin is the current governor of Virginia. He won this office in 2021, defeating former governor Terry McAuliffe in a campaign that was at best lackluster from the Democrat’s side. Youngkin is another lateral entrant into politics; after 25 years with the private equity firm The Carlyle Group (he was CEO when he decided to run for governor), he decided to run for governor. His claim to political prowess was based on his success as a businessman (Forbes estimated his fortune at roughly $470 million when he ran for office in 2021). Where have we heard that before? He is about 6’5” – he played basketball for Rice University – and campaigned in a signature fleece vest. He was advertised as Trump without the baggage. This was successful for him in 2021.
Here is the issue facing Youngkin: because Virginia’s constitution does not allow the governor to serve more than one term, he knew he would be out of a job after his term ends in 2025. Virginia has what I call the “Governor to Senator” pipeline; when a governor ends his term, he often runs for the Senate as the next logical state-wide race. Both sitting U.S. Senators – Tim Kaine and Mark Warner – are former Democratic governors of the state. Neither of them has announced plans to retire, so this path would be difficult for Youngkin. Because celebrity is often confused with political prowess (particular in the cult formerly known as the Republican Party), pundits and party officials quickly began talking about him as a potential 2024 POTUS nominee. Before Tuesday’s election, most people assumed that Youngkin’s future would depend on these results. A GOP victory would increase his stature and possibly encourage him to enter the presidential nomination field as Republicans begin (finally!) to search for alternatives to #PO1135809. On the other hand, a defeat would almost certainly put the kibosh on his political future.
So we get to the results of this year’s election. The entire General Assembly was on the ballot – 100 seats in the House of Delegates and 40 seats in the State Senate. Before the election, the Democrats controlled the Senate by a margin of 22-18 and the Republicans controlled the House of Delegates by a margin of 52-48; the following two charts shows the results from Tuesday’s election.
Note: much of the information I’m providing here is from the Virginia Public Access Project, a non-profit corporation that is focused on providing non-partisan, verifiable information intended to help provide residents of Virginia with the information they need to understand what the government of Virginia is doing. You can subscribe to their free daily newsletter here.
Voter turnout is the big story in these elections. Before the Democratic Party attained a governing trifecta in 2019 (meaning they controlled the Governorship and both houses of the legislature), Virginia was ranked 48th out of the 50 states in voting rights. When the Democrats came to power, they passed legislation authorizing 45 days of early voting (we had no early voting days before this), same-day voter registration, and easier access to mail-in and absentee voting. They also began the process of creating an independent commission to draw legislative boundaries after the census, and this was enacted as part of the state constitution in 2021. In 2020, the Democratic governor Ralph Northam issued an executive order making Election Day a state holiday. When our legislative districts were redrawn by the commission last year, the Princeton Gerrymandering Project gave the State Senate map a “B,” the House of Delegates map an “A,” and the House of Representatives map an “A.” by contrast, the maps for Ohio, Georgia, Alabama, and so forth got an “F.” Surprise, surprise.
As a result of these changes, voter turnout in Virginia has skyrocketed. Virginia’s yearly elections focus on an evolving set of contests. Here’s an example:
2020 – National elections (President, House of Representatives, United States Senate)
2021 – Governor and other statewide offices, House of Delegates (lower house of the General Assembly
2022 – National midterms (House of Representatives and United States Senate
2023 – House of Delegates and State Senate.
A quick look at voter turnout proves an obvious case – when you make it easier to vote, more people vote. Duh! (This, by the way, is precisely what Republicans don’t want.)
I haven’t been able to find final information about yesterday’s turnout yet, but the pattern is set (the 2022 midterms are an outlier because there was only 1 race on the ballot – our seat in the House of Representatives – and the election didn’t motivate voters very much). Based on some district-level turnout stats I’ve seen, I think turnout for this election cycle will be something north of 55%.
There are lots of stories I could focus on to write about these elections but I want to drill down to one election: the race for the House of Delegates in the 71st District of Virginia, which encompasses all of Williamsburg, much of James City County, and all of nearby New Kent County. An incumbent Republican, Amanda Batten, was challenged by a political newcomer, Jessica Anderson. Jess ran one hell of a race and came within a hair of defeating Amanda in a race that most pundits assumed would be won handily by the incumbent. But Jess did a couple of things differently; she ran a social media campaign the likes of which I had not seen before, she door-knocked incessantly, and she campaigned hard on the campus of the College of William and Mary. Amanda did none of these things.
Here’s what the result was in one precinct yesterday:
If you didn’t click on this link, go back and click on it. You’ll feel good about the future if you do. One thing we know — voting at a young age matters. Data shows that once people have voted one time, they are much more likely to vote in subsequent elections. And once they’ve voted for one political party, they are much more likely to vote for that party in subsequent elections. This explains the dominance of the FDR-driven New Deal Coalition, which kept Democrats largely in control of Congress for almost 50 years (1930s-1980s).
I’ve never seen anything like what happened in this precinct yesterday. By the most recent count, over 700 new voters registered and cast provisional votes at this precinct yesterday. By contrast – in the precinct where I worked yesterday, we had a total of four same-day registrations. Because the students didn’t have to go to class yesterday, they had time to stand in line to exercise their right to vote. How exciting for the students and the election officers!
Note: this precinct is located in the Williamsburg United Methodist Church, just across the street from the campus. We used to attend this church and I recognize this building.
Another note: I’ll bet a lot of money that the Williamsburg Office of Elections is going to sponsor on-campus voter registration going forward. This kind of thing is very hard on the election workers and the voters, and there are ways to make it better.
Now, back to Jessica. When I first met Jessica back in January, when she was just beginning her campaign, I saw long blonde hair, a nose ring, and eyelashes. Within a few minutes, however, I saw intelligence, energy, and passion. The Williamsburg Indivisible Group, which I was leading at the time, hosted her at several events — she attended a couple of meetings and came to our book group. Some of our members ended up volunteering for her campaign, so I feel like we helped her campaign. Like I said, she ran a very strong campaign. Here’s what she posted this morning:
NOTE: If you didn’t click on this link, go back and click on it. You’ll see why I’m so enthusiastic about our political future.
So I’m very optimistic about the political future, both in Virginia and throughout the country. The MAGA agenda lost across the country yesterday – in Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. #PO1135809 is on the ropes in various venues, and the media are (too gradually) televising his continuing clown show as dangerous rather than entertaining. The Democrats have begun a systematic campaign to derail the “Biden is too old” narrative by showing that “#PO1135809 is also old, but he’s also crazy.” It’s working, as yesterday’s election results confirm.
We can do this, my friends. Find (or recruit) candidates you can support and then work for them. Democracy won’t save itself.
I was ready to disagree about Youngkin’s future thinking he would be a good strategic choice for VP if he could deliver Virginia to the GOP. But Trump would never select him because Youngkin is taller than Trump…
"Because celebrity is often confused with political prowess (particular in the cult formerly known as the Republican Party)". This is my favorite part of your post. Congratulations on the great news out of VA. My sister in Ohio is equally psyched!