Senate Democrats on Capitol Hill lamenting former Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s election loss in Virginia on Tuesday blamed their own party’s inability to pass infrastructure and social spending legislation before the election.
Their arguments, though, are colored on which side of negotiations they are on and their preference for whether an infrastructure bill should have been passed in the House without a reconciliation bill agreement.
“I’ve been saying for literally two months, we needed to show here in Washington that we could govern in a pragmatic way,” Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, a former governor of the state, said. “And the first step of that would have been … getting the bipartisan infrastructure bill to the president’s desk. And I think that was a — that was a mistake.”
The Senate passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill with bipartisan support earlier this year, but it has stalled in the House while progressives refuse to vote for the bill until Senate Democrats can all agree on a $1.75 trillion spending bill covering social programs and a number of Democratic priorities.
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“I was disappointed but not surprised. Terry McAuliffe was pretty explicit in the closing weeks of the campaign that our failure here to reach an agreement was felt by the voters of Virginia,” House Majority Whip Dick Durbin said on Wednesday.
Republican Glenn Youngkin won Tuesday’s gubernatorial election against McAuliffe, who was seeking a second, nonconsecutive term. He became the first Republican elected governor in Virginia since 2009.
McAuliffe had expressed his frustration with President Joe Biden’s sagging approval rating dragging his campaign down. He argued that the Democrats’ conflict in Congress deprived the party of much-needed wins that could excite voters, scoffing at “their little chitty-chat up there” in Washington.
“Why haven’t we passed the infrastructure bill? It passed the U.S. Senate with 69 votes two months ago,” McAuliffe said on CNN in October, saying voters want the kind of provisions in the bill. “Get it done this week. Do your job.”
Sen. Tim Kaine, also a former Virginia governor, said there is nothing in the final “Build Back Better” reconciliation bill being finalized this week that could not have been finished at the beginning of October or earlier.
“Imagine Terry McAuliffe talking to suburban voters about ‘we’re going to have affordable childcare and universal pre-K that speaks directly to the concerns you have right now.’”
Kaine said: “He would love to have done the work or sell a transportation infrastructure bill: ‘Here’s what it’s gonna mean for the poor. Here’s what it’s going to mean for all these projects that I know extremely well, because I was the governor for four years.’ I mean, he could have had a really great wind at his back if Democrats had been willing to get the deal done.”
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who is a key Democratic centrist holdout on many of the provisions that his colleagues are trying to get in the bill, took the Virginia election to mean that voters want to see agreement in Washington rather than division or quickly passing massive legislation.
“The country’s very divided. They’d like to see us come together, and I think they’re speaking loud and clear at the polling places,” Manchin said.
Democratic strategists, though, were skeptical that it was spending bill negotiations on Capitol Hill that sunk McAuliffe.
“Every politician will hear in the results the message that benefits their personal agenda,” said Jared Leopold, a Democratic operative with extensive experience in Virginia politics. While either bill might have been helpful to McAuliffe, he said, “passing an infrastructure plan in October wouldn’t have been a magic button that would have vaulted Terry McAuliffe into the lead.”
Instead, a general sense that Washington was squabbling likely hurt McAuliffe.
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At least one Democratic senator agreed.
“I hesitate to connect the two because I don’t know anything about Virginia,” Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey said. “I think for our side, the key is don’t overanalyze it, but don’t ignore some of the warning signs.”
