You all know that I don’t live in VA, I live in NV. And just having gotten up, I haven’t talked to anybody from VA today yet either. But in looking around for diary fodder, I came across an article in Politico that gave me pause, and hope for the future.
It dealt with 5 takeaways from the Virginia primaries yesterday, but the first one was the one that caught my eye, because the comparison was striking. First of all, Democratic enthusiasm isn’t just limited to protests, it is real, and the enthusiasm and GOTV effort showed up yesterday;
The number of ballots cast stunned operatives on both sides: Democratic turnout skyrocketed, reaching nearly 170 percent more than the last time there was a contested primary in 2009.
170%?!? For a primary in the middle of June? This cannot all be the result of a spirited GOTV campaign, it certainly helped, but it has to be more than that. Democrats are flat out riled up, and ready to take a little time from their day to have a say as to who they think can do the best job for them in the legislature. If turnout is this good in June, If the Democrats stay focused, and if the anti Trump feelings of anger and righteous vengeance, fueled by the Orange Buffoon himself hold up for the next 5 months, November could be a very good month for Democrats in Virginia.
The second thing that snagged me dealt with the Republicans. The congress in Washington isn’t the only GOP thing that’s fractured, it even spreads to the state level, at least in Virginia. Ed Gillespie, who seemingly has been a Republican operative since the Lincoln administration was supposed to have a cake walk against an underfunded, unheralded, confederate statue loving Trombie Corey Stewart. Instead, with almost all of the votes counted, Gillespie’s winning spread will be about 1.2%. This is going to force a serious re-calibration in the Gillespie strategy between now and November;
For mainstream Republicans, it might mean that their turnout models need tweaking, as they consistently underestimate the enthusiasm and turnout of Stewart-style Trump voters. For Gillespie, it means the coming months will likely have to be spent trying to win over voters he assumed would be with him, rather than tacking to the middle against Northam.
Gillespie barely mentioned Trump during the primary. But faced with a much lower GOP turnout for the primary, and needing to scrape up every vote he can against a surging Democratic enthusiasm, Gillespie is going to have to tack hard right to woo the stubborn pro Trump Stewart voters. What effect that will have on Gillespie’s more moderate, less Trump enthralled base will have to be seen.
If the Virginia Governors race is anything to go by, the pattern may be emerging. Trump has energized Democrats for the long run, he’s been around for almost 5 months now, and Democrats are not letting up on the gas. And at the same time, despite his sinking popularity nationwide, his diehard base, while still a minority in the GOP, are strong and pesky enough to make trying to run as a mainstream Republican in 2017, and most likely 2018 a very challenging proposition, which may well be why McConnell is having so much trouble trying to recruit top flight candidates to run in Democratic held Senate races in 2018. Onward to GA-6 next Tuesday!