A bad omen for Democrats and 4 other election night takeaways

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Virginia Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin arrives to speak at an election night party in Chantilly early Wednesday. Youngkin topped Democrat Terry McAuliffe, flipping the Virginia governor’s office back to the GOP.

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Republican Glenn Youngkin wins Virginia’s governor race, dealing Democrats a blow

National
In heavily Democratic New Jersey, the governor race is surprisingly close

All of it has added up to a decline in Biden’s poll numbers and political capital. The cherry on top is Democrats losing an election in a state Biden won by 10 percentage points in the 2020 presidential election and being essentially tied in a state Biden won by 16.

Here are five takeaways from the results Tuesday night:

1. It’s a bad omen for Democrats’ hopes in 2022

It’s one night, and you never want to over-read the results.

That’s especially true of Virginia, which had been getting so much outsized attention because:

It was essentially the only game in town, apart from New Jersey.

History is on the side of the party not in power in the White House, because the Virginia election is one of the first chances for opponents of the sitting president to register their frustration. New Jersey also has a history of bucking the system — no Democratic governor has won reelection in the state since 1977.

And McAuliffe certainly had his problems as a candidate («I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.»).

Politics
Here’s why the other 48 states care who’s governor of Virginia and New Jersey

But this one’s obvious.

Democrats had won every statewide race in Virginia since 2009 and the last four presidential elections, including Biden’s double-digit win. While the New Jersey race had appeared to get closer in recent days, Murphy was still seen as the odds-on favorite.

Democrats were already fighting an uphill battle to retain control of the House in next year’s midterms, and this result won’t help morale among members. Do we start to see additional congressional Democrats jump ship and retire? Watch for that.

2. The suburbs are still swing areas

During the presidency of Donald Trump, the suburbs shifted toward Democrats. They took over the House in 2018, for example, largely because of their wins in center-right-leaning areas.

As a result, many thought college-educated suburbanites might be permanently in Democrats’ camp.

But Tuesday night’s results in both states showed that’s not quite the case.

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Democratic gubernatorial candidate and former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe speaks at an election night rally Tuesday in McLean.

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Politics
The Brewing Political Battle Over Critical Race Theory

He’s talking about the academic framework taught in law schools that examines how racism is embedded in society. It’s not generally taught in elementary or high schools, if at all, but that hasn’t stopped mostly white, conservative parents, who have overrun school board meetings across the country, from accusing schools of doing so.

Youngkin rode that wave and owned the issue. It was a key part of his messaging at campaign events and in ads. Exit polls showed that parents who thought they should have a lot of say in schools broke for Youngkin by a wide margin.

Some Democrats would lay blame at McAuliffe’s feet, pointing out that he stepped in it with his answer at a debate that parents shouldn’t influence what schools teach. They can chalk it up to a one-off, but the lesson Republicans are going to learn from this race is that the messaging on education and race worked and to use it over and over again.

Belcher called it the latest way Republicans are trying to «tribalize an electorate, to drive up the white vote. … We’re going to see this again in the midterm and it’s going to be problematic.»

Democrats are going to have to figure out a way to respond that breaks through and doesn’t continue to put them on the defensive.

5. Demographics aren’t necessarily destiny

Even though Virginia has trended more Democratic over the last decade or so — largely because of huge demographic shifts — that’s not everything.

People aren’t compelled to vote, and they don’t always break how they traditionally have. Especially in off-year, lower-turnout elections when a party is facing political headwinds, the on-the-ground work becomes much harder.

Politics
The Democratic coalition will be tested in the Virginia governor’s race

In the weeks leading up to Election Day, community leaders on the ground said they were dealing with a degree of cynicism and apathy that made it harder to motivate some base Democratic groups to get out and vote.

What makes this Virginia election unique, however, is that McAuliffe actually got more than 200,000 more votes than outgoing Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam did in 2017, but still lost.

That indicates that while Democrats largely hit their marks with some base voter groups despite the reported apathy, they weren’t able to keep pace with a Republican base that was on fire.

Demographics are important and can generally tell the direction a state is heading politically. But destiny is not automatically steered by demographics, especially in an election when Republicans were able to get to more than 85% of the votes they got in the presidential election for an off-year governor’s race.

It’s also a reminder that — right or wrong — anger motivates, whether it’s about education, race or mask mandates.

That was certainly true of Democrats getting out to vote when Trump was on the ballot, and it was true Tuesday in both states for Republicans.