So Democrats lost the Virginia governorship and everyone here is acting like we just lost the White House or the sky is falling or something. No folks, we just lost a governorship. It sucks but it is not the end of the world.
It is not the end of the Democratic party. Last I checked, Joe Biden is still president, Chuck Schumer is still Senate Majority leader and Nancy Pelosi is still Speaker of the House.
Now the “liberal media” (har har) will be screaming Democrats are doomed!!! They are doomed I tell ya!!!! This is the final nail in the coffin of the Democratic party!!!
They couldn’t hold Virginia!! It is the end for them!!!!
No folks, it is just one governorship. Incumbent political parties tend do do poorly in these elections, so it is not totally unexpected.
This is not a harbinger of terrible things to come next year. Governorships often go for the political party opposite their presidential tendencies.
Look at Massachusetts, Maryland and Vermont. All these very blue states have very popular republican governors. They all had republican governors during the 2020 election and Joe still won in a landslide in the presidential election in all these states. Louisiana is a deep red state but it has a Democratic governor. Kansas has a Democratic governor.
Virginia is not a blue state. It is a purple state. It is not New York or California. It is not a guaranteed Democratic win in any election.
And a silver lining is that it does have a Democratic majority in the state senate. So hopefully the republican ahole will not be able to pass radical voter suppression laws or radical anti-abortion laws because the state senate will prevent him from doing so.
If you want to blame someone, probably blame the candidate himself, Mcauliffe. Yes, national issues had some effects on the race, but the buck stops with the candidate himself. When he saw he was falling behind, he should have done something to re-energize his campaign. Changed his approach. Come up with a new strategy or something. But he just faded and didn’t right the ship in time.
In case the “liberal media” hasn’t mentioned it, we did manage to hold New Jersey. There were many Democratic candidates of color who won in other races like several mayoral races. It wasn’t that bad.
If anyone was expecting the voters in Virginia to “punish” republicans for giving us trump or for January 6th, well, that ain’t gonna happen. Probably 30-35% are OK with what happened on January 6th. Those who aren’t have short memories. Republicans just never are made to pay for their awfulness.
This does not mean next year will be bad for Dems. That depends 100% on what happens between now and the next election. It has nothing to do with last night.
If Dems want to win next year they still have one year to try to make things better. Pass the infrastructure bill, pass the best BBB reconciliation bill that they can get. The vaccine/testing mandates are helping. More people are getting vaccinated everyday. If the pandemic is much better by then, that would greatly help Democrats. Of course that is a big uncertainty, but if it is better, they can partly run on that.
We can hope that the Virginia loss will act to motivate the Dems to try harder and try to develop a stronger message and to get more stuff done.
It is not the end of the world folks. Tun off the news for a few days while the “liberal press” gloats about the death of the Democratic party and the “Disaster in Virginia” and try to think of some way you can help your Democratic representatives and senators to do better for the next year.