With a week to go before Virginia’s governor’s election, Democrats were wringing their hands.
Republican Ed Gillespie was gaining on Democrat Ralph Northam in the polls and a series of ads attacking Northam as weak on crime and immigration had seemingly put the Democrat on the back foot. President Trump’s surprise win last year, in defiance of all polling data, intensified liberal fears of a Gillespie upset.
They shouldn’t have worried. On Tuesday evening, Northam didn’t just defeat Gillespie—he and his party exceeded Democrats’ wildest hopes. Northam’s nine-point margin of victory was nearly double the margin by which Hillary Clinton carried the state last year. Behind that victory, Democrats swept the statewide offices of governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. They also flipped at least 14 seats in the 100-member House of Delegates, and could pick up four more after recounts. They needed 17 to take control of the body for the first time since 2000. Before the election, Virginia Democrats were looking down the barrel of total Republican control of the state government; now, they may end up controlling everything but the state Senate (which held no elections this year).
“In Virginia, it’s going to take a doctor to heal our differences, to bring unity to our people, and I’m here to let you know that the doctor is in,” Northam, a pediatrician, said at his victory party in Fairfax City. “Whether you voted for me or not, we are all Virginians. I hope to earn your confidence and support.”
Democrats have been craving a win like this for a year, so you can forgive them a little crowing. But in reality, it’s hard to say what national lessons can be gleaned from Tuesday’s results—Virginia’s off-year elections are notoriously poor predictors of broader electoral trends.
In the shorter term, however, Gillespie’s loss will teach Republicans one brutal lesson: getting the GOP’s quarreling factions to unite behind a single candidate is going to be very, very difficult. In Virginia, Gillespie, a former chairman of the Republican National Convention, thought he could manufacture a new GOP base by seasoning his boring, conventionally Republican policy proposals with sensational, Trumpian rhetoric on red-meat issues from confederate statues to violent Central American gangs to kneeling NFL players. At the same time, although he campaigned with Vice President Mike Pence, he declined to extend an invitation to Donald Trump, who is deeply unpopular in the state.
The result? Gillespie won fewer votes and lost by a wider margin than both of the other statewide GOP candidates. He was routed in the D.C. exurbs, including Loudoun County—a county he won during his failed 2014 Senate bid.
There’s an argument to be made that Gillespie, who years ago argued that Republican anti-immigration rhetoric was a “political siren song,” simply wasn’t the right candidate to test “Trumpism without Trump.” But it’s equally true that Gillespie has shown himself to be an incredibly canny political operative throughout his career, and he executed his strategy as well as anyone could have been expected to.
Meanwhile, the president himself hasn’t taken kindly to such a strategy—at least since it failed. Trump kept quiet about not being asked to campaign with Gillespie while the campaign lasted. But Trump can’t abide a loser, least of all one who declined to bend the knee:
Ed Gillespie worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for. Don’t forget, Republicans won 4 out of 4 House seats, and with the economy doing record numbers, we will continue to win, even bigger than before!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 8, 2017
The cold war between Trump and congressional Republicans is on hold as they work together to try to pass tax reform. A Gillespie win would have further smoothed relations between the Trumpian and establishment wings of the party going into next year’s important midterm elections. If anything, Tuesday’s loss will probably make them worse.
