It turns out Democrats in the Donald Trump era were only renting the suburban vote rather than owning it.
That’s one of many sobering lessons for the party after Republican Glenn Youngkin won Virginia’s governorship Tuesday.
At the same time Republicans likely won the offices of lieutenant governor, attorney general, and captured a majority in the House of Delegates — all in a state where Democrats have dominated for the past dozen years.
GLENN YOUNGKIN WINS VIRGINIA GOVERNOR’S RACE, RIDING ENTHUSIASM WAVE ON EDUCATION ISSUES
Terry McAuliffe, Virginia governor from 2014-18 and Democratic National Committee chairman 20 years ago, won the suburbs around Washington, D.C., and the state capital of Richmond. But not by nearly wide enough margins to offset Youngkin’s strong edge in votes in more rural, conservative counties.
The suburban vote drain offers a political road map for how Republicans can win, or at least minimize losses, in the suburbs, which in many parts slipped away during Trump’s presidency. All of which leaves Democrats in a tough spot and positions Republicans for big wins in the midterm elections one year from now.
The victory by first-time candidate Youngkin, along with Virginia Lieutenant Governor-elect Winsome Sears and state Attorney General-elect Jason Miyares, comes as President Joe Biden’s popularity craters. The president’s signature infrastructure plan has been stalled for months amid internecine fights between centrist Democrats such as Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, and hard-left party colleagues in the House who want a much higher level of social spending.
After the Democrats’ thumping in the Virginia elections, seen as a key bellwether of public opinion as Biden’s presidency reaches the one-year mark, lawmakers on Capitol would have good reason to shy away from the White House’s more left-wing proposals.
And the results show the limits of Democrats continually tying Republican opponents to Trump. McAuliffe used the former president as a foil of his campaign. But Virginia voters, polls showed, cared much more about issues related to education and the economy.
Trump himself was quick to gloat about the situation, on Tuesday.
“It is looking like Terry McAuliffe’s campaign against a certain person named ‘Trump’ has very much helped Glenn Youngkin. All McAuliffe did was talk Trump, Trump, Trump and he lost! What does that tell you, Fake News? I guess people running for office as Democrats won’t be doing that too much longer. I didn’t even have to go rally for Youngkin, because McAuliffe did it for me. Thank you to the MAGA voters for turning out big!”
The 2022 midterm elections will be the biggest political test of Biden’s presidency yet. House Republicans need to net only five seats in the 435-member chamber to reclaim the majority they lost in 2018. The Senate is also sure to be closely fought political terrain, with Democrats trying to expand their razor-thin majority by winning seats held by Republican senators in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere.
Senate Republicans, though, are eager to claw back the majority they held for six years until a pair of Jan. 5 runoff elections in Georgia gave Democrats control of the chamber. And the Virginia results provide Republicans a road map on making inroads with suburban voters and minorities, posing a threat to, among others, Democratic Senate newcomers Mark Kelly of Arizona and Raphael Warnock in Georgia.
Governor races, meanwhile, will feature prominently in the 2022 political landscape, as 36 state chief executive offices are up for grabs next year. Once Youngkin assumes office in January, Republicans will hold 28 governorships to 22 for Democrats.
Virginia gubernatorial elections are usually, though not always, good predictors of the national political mood a year out. In 1993, Republican George Allen won the governor’s office a year ahead of the Republican wave that secured the first House majority in 40 years. A dozen years later, Democrat Tim Kaine’s gubernatorial victory presaged his party’s romp in the midterm elections, winning the House and Senate, which proved a stinging blow to President George W. Bush during his final two years in the White House.
To be sure, off-year elections have their limits as predictors, whether before or after a presidential race. In 2019, Democratic governors won in Louisiana and Kentucky — deep-red states where Trump later beat Biden by 18% and 26%, respectively, even while losing his reelection bid.
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Still, based on the serious inroads Republicans made with suburban voters in Virginia on Tuesday, 2022 is looking like a rather blue year for Democrats. And not in the manner they’d prefer.
