Virginia Democrats have returned to their majorities in the General Assembly in an attempt to rescue the Commonwealth from the clutches of the vile policies of the GOP. When sworn in, these Democratic majority members will spell certain relief for the progressives struggling to expand freedom in the Old Dominion …
Election 2019: The Democrats Strike Back
Well, hell.
They went and did it.
Virginia Democrats flipped both the House of Delegates and the state Senate.
And now they have trifecta control of state government (House + Senate + gov).
- The last time that was a thing was 1993.
- You know what else was a thing in 1993?
- Jurassic Park.
- Robin Hood: Men in Tights.
- Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).
- The X-Files.
- Democrats haven’t had a majority in the House since 1997.
- They lost control of the Senate for the first time in 1995, though they won it back for a hot second in 2007—only to turn around and lose it again in 2011.
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Anyway, I haven’t been waiting for this for the full 26 years, but … yeah, I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.
You see, the Democrats of the Virginia General Assembly are the whole reason I do this.
All of this. Any of this.
- I was a wee baby Virginia Democratic Caucus intern way back in 2000, and that experience gave rise to a lifelong fascination (… okay obsession) with state politics.
- Democrats were barely out of power at that point, but they teetered on the precipice of epic post-redistricting losses with GOP hands on the map-drawing pen for the first time … well, pretty much ever.
- On election night in 2001, I watched so many Democratic lawmakers I’d developed affection and respect for lose their seats as the 100-member House went from 47D/52R (plus one independent) to 31D/67R (plus two independents). It was the most devastating election night for me ever … until 2010.
Okay I’d only been voting for a couple of years at that point but still
- This also gave rise to my fixation on redistricting and gerrymandering.
- I stayed involved in Virginia politics forever after, and in 2010, I expanded that involvement to all 50 states when I went to work for the DLCC for the first time.
- … just in time to watch Democrats lose majorities in 21 chambers on the eve of redistricting.
- Democratic down-ballot fortunes in Virginia waxed and waned over the decade and a half that followed my initial foray into the space.
- In 2007, House Democrats rose from their 2001 nadir of 31 to a pre-2017 high of 44.
- Senate Democrats flipped the chamber that year.
- The remaining House election before the next round of redistricting was a gubernatorial year, and statewide elections usually mean good things for Democrats.
‘Twas extremely not so in 2009.
The 2010 GOP wave lapped at the shores of Virginia that year, and instead of flipping the six seats they needed to end the Republican House majority, Democrats lost five seats.
- In 2011, the first post-redistricting election in the Old Dominion, Democratic House membership fell to just 32 of 100, and Republicans retook the Senate majority.
- Virginia Democrats’ down-ballot election slog continued through the decade … until 2017 changed everything.
Fifteen House seats. Freaking amazing.
But I had to wait a WHOLE TWO YEARS for Democrats to maybe flip the legislature, and that’s, like, a political eternity. Anything could happen.
Make no mistake: Democrats flipped the Virginia General Assembly despite Ralph Northam, not, as he has inexplicably tried to claim, because of him.
- In the age of Trump, the half-life of pretty much any scandal is measured in days, not resignations.
- By the time election season kicked into high gear, polls revealed voters didn’t much care about how Northam’s claim that he wasn’t wearing blackface in a yearbook photo was predicated on the fact that he definitely wore blackface to win a dance contest dressed as Michael Jackson.
But … what happened? How did Democrats pull off what seemed basically impossible just a handful of years ago: legislative majorities and trifecta control of state government?
- Yes, let’s be real, Trump helped. He’s tarnished the GOP brand to an extent most Virginia voters find unpalatable.
But there was so much more to it than that.
I sat down yesterday and wrote down my MANY THOUGHTS on this for Gen by Medium, and you should extremely definitely go read it.
But the nuts and bolts are thus:
- Democrats needed to flip just two seats in each the state House and the state Senate to win majority control of the Virginia legislature.
And flipping just two seats in each chamber might have looked simple enough on paper.
But a variety of factors baked in to politics in the Old Dominion made this lift heavier than it appeared.
Factor 1: Majorities matter.
- So, yeah, Republicans held on to at least one of Virginia’s legislative chambers since the mid-1990s.
- For most of that time, the GOP enjoyed control of both chambers.
- In state legislatures, power is measured by majorities.
- You have 48 of 100 seats? Cute. No one cares.
- Crossover may happen on some issues (as it did last year when the Virginia General Assembly, despite still being narrowly controlled by Republicans, passed Medicaid expansion), but when it comes to issues of real power—rules, committee assignments, a bill’s journey to the floor, redistricting—majority rule is law, so to speak.
- And in Virginia, the land of No Donation Limits, money follows power.
Which brings us to ...
Factor 2: Money matters.
- Corporate and lobbyist donations to Republicans have well outpaced donations from those same sources to Democrats over the past couple of decades.
- GOP lawmakers used these gifts to build massive war chests, which meant Republicans in the House and Senate began 2019 with much more money than their Democratic counterparts
- … to say nothing of their challengers, who mostly started the cycle with zilch.
- Republican fundraising outpaced Democratic fundraising, generally speaking, until the past couple of years.
Factor 3: Maps matter.
- Republicans have been running on state legislative district maps that favor them for almost 20 years.
- The GOP controlled redistricting completely in Virginia in 2001, and Republicans almost completely dominated it in 2011.
- Democrats had a majority in the Senate then, but with a Republican governor and House, they maps they ended up with were … less than ideal.
- These maps slowed Democrats’ rise in the 2000s (they rose from a House nadir of 31 seats in 2001 to a 2007 high of 44) and then gutted them again in the 2010s.
- Difficult Democratic maps had a lousy side effect: discouraging Democratic candidates.
- Just four years ago, 10 of the 21 Senate Republicans coasted to reelection unopposed, and 39 GOP House members did the same.
- But in 2019, just one Republican senator lacked a Democratic opponent, as did a mere seven Republican delegates.
Factor 4: Turnout matters.
- Virginia holds its elections for non-federal offices in odd-numbered years, and these elections tend to get less attention, and, consequently, draw less voter turnout than federal, even-year elections.
- Historically, lower turnout tends to benefit Republicans, and the Virginia GOP’s fortunes were no exception to this tendency.
But so what? Democrats won big on Tuesday, so do these things, like, really matter?
You bet they do.
But all these factors ended up turning in Democrats’ favor this cycle.
Here’s how.
Majorities:
- Statehouse majorities are synonymous with power, but when voters aren’t happy with how you’re using that power, they’re sure as hell gonna take it out on you.
- In the wake of the mass shooting in Virginia Beach earlier this year, Republicans used their majorities to stiff-arm the Democratic governor when he called a special session shortly after to deal specifically with gun safety issues.
- The GOP ended the session after just 90 minutes without considering a single piece of legislation.
- Gun policy emerged as a top issue for voters this fall, and blame for lack of action was rightly placed on the party in power.
Money:
- It's important, but it doesn’t necessarily win elections.
- Take soon-to-be-former Del. Chris Jones, chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee.
- He entered 2019 with over $600,000, and he raised another $627,000 over the course of the cycle.
- He spent over $1 million trying to hold on to his seat.
- His opponent started the year with $0 and spent barely more than Jones raised—just $675,000.
- Democrat Clint Jenkins defeated Jones 56-44%.
- And while Virginia Republicans absolutely dominated the corporate and lobbyist cash game, Democrats—incumbents and challengers alike—annihilated the GOP when it came to small-dollar donors (those giving $100 or less during the cycle).
- In 2019, the top 16 recipients of small-dollar donations were all Democrats.
- Meanwhile, the top five recipients of business donation dollars were Republican incumbents.
- But in the end, money sure doesn't hurt.
- And outside spending generally benefitted Democrats in a HUGE way this year—to the tune of about $12 million more invested in races by progressive groups than by GOP-aligned groups.
Maps:
- At long last, Virginia’s legislative district maps finally ceased to benefit Republicans this year.
- In the case of the state Senate, this shift resulted from the changing nature of the suburban electorate.
- Once a bastion of GOP support, educated suburbanites increasingly oppose the party of Trump, and the districts most ripe for Democratic flips had been drawn in the D.C. and Richmond suburbs (SDs 13 and 10, respectively—which did, in fact, flip).
- In the House, a court had ruled the racially gerrymandered districts Republican lawmakers had drawn to maximize their own numbers unconstitutional earlier this year.
- Judges approved a new map that un-gerrymandered 25 of the House’s 100 districts, and many of those seats shifted in Democrats’ favor.
- Even under the old map, Hillary Clinton carried 51 of 100 seats, but under the new map that more equitably distributed black voting power, Clinton won 56 districts.
- While they don’t totally line up with those districts Clinton carried in 2016, Democrats won 55 House seats on Tuesday.
- … so the new maps weren’t destiny, but they sure as hell helped Democrats.
- And that side effect of recruitment?
- Well, it’s drastically favored Democrats in state elections since 2015.
- Not only did Democrats contest dozens more General Assembly races this year (as well as in 2017), but they contested them with women, candidates of color, and LGBTQ candidates.
- Women have risen as a determinative force among the Democratic electorate over the past four years, as well, and especially so among voters in those suburbs Democrats needed to win to flip the House and the Senate.
- Democratic recruitment continued to tap into this strength by building on women’s record-breaking success in 2017.
- 11 of the 15 House pickups that year were by women, resulting in a Democratic caucus that was nearly half women.
- In 2019, Democratic women replaced another four Republican men.
And finally, turnout:
- Turnout typically suffers in Virginia’s odd-year elections relative to their federal, even-year counterparts, and that tends to be especially true in the off-off-year elections without elections for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general.
- The House of Delegates is up every two years, but the state Senate is on the ballot only in those odd-numbered years—years without a statewide election to help boost voter interest and participation.
- In 2015, when Democrats gained just one seat in the House and held at 19 in the Senate, voter turnout was a paltry 29% in the commonwealth.
- In 2019, early tallies have it at 40% statewide, though it varied drastically from district to district, topping out at over 56% in some of the mostly hotly contested races.
- In 2017, with a marquee gubernatorial election motivating voters, turnout across Virginia was 47.6%.
So now, after decades in the wilderness, Democrats will son be running the show in Virginia.
And they have a wicked ambitious agenda: ratifying the ERA, establishing LGBTQ protections, passing gun safety measures, expanding voting rights, raising the minimum wage, legalizing marijuana …
But being in charge brings its own challenges.
- Making the political and strategic shifts necessary to go from being the minority party to an effective majority one is difficult—especially when you’re as out of practice as Virginia Democrats are.
- Democrats are already fighting over who’ll get to hold that super powerful Speaker’s gavel.
- Gov. Northam, though a Democrat, is most definitely a stitch to the right of the new guard in his party’s House caucus.
- Joe Morrissey remains a potential wild card in the state Senate.
- And Virginia’s budget looks good for the time being, but with the U.S. economy slowing down amid Trump’s irresponsible trade and fiscal policies, it’s not much of a stretch to believe Democrats will find balancing the state’s budget a brutal endeavor in the not-too-distant future.
But in the end, these are okay problems to have.
Virginia Republicans would give their eyeteeth to be facing these issues right about now.
Congratulations! You made it to the end of this especially weedy, totally Virginia-focused epic. I hope you’ll stay tuned next week, when I’ll be returning to regularly scheduled programming. Like, with stuff from states that aren’t Virginia. But for hanging in like a champ, you deserve to get an early start on your weekend. Pop a bottle for Virginia Dems and take tomorrow off. Just print this out and show it to your boss, I bet she’s way ahead of you.