First, I did say before election day that the pundits were overreacting to polling data in part because of 2013, and ignoring other key data, such as the surge in early voting (in person absentees) in heavily Democratic areas (especially the larger jurisdictions in NoVa).
Second, when I saw the exit polls at 5 PM it was clear to me this was going to be a good night for Dems. The number one issue, at 37%, was healthcare. The next most important issue was only at 17%. That was going to be a huge advantage for the Dems. Despite the figures on Confederate statues, over which some agonized, I thought it was a relatively minor issue for most Virginians, and the binary choice masked the fact that some who in the exits were listed as favoring keeping the statues would have been happy either to see them moved to museums or to place them in situatons with more complete context as to the history. Despite Richard Spencer and his White Nationalist buddies, and support from Trump and Gillespie, this is simply just not all that important to most Virginians.
Third, I think the criticism of Northam for not being a dynamic candidate entirely misses a key point at least in Virginia — we do not need someone pundits view as a barn-burner to support strongly. Everyone talks about how this was the biggest Dem gubernatorial win sine 1985. That race was won by the Attorney General Gerald Baliles, who like Northam had a soft-spoken voice, a clear Virginia accent, and at times was considered to be too cerebral.
Yes, there are things to criticize about Northam’s campaign, but he at least did not, unlike his opponent, run nasty attack ads. That still matters in Virginia. And yes, there are a lot of us who did not grow up in the Old Dominion, especially in NoVa where I have lived since 1982, and to a lesser degree in the Hampton Roads area where some who spend time in the military there choose to stay after their service. But there is a tradition of a certain amount of civility in Virginia politics, and given Trump’s bluster seeing a bit of a reversion to that was not unexpected.
Also, Virginia Dems were united. Gubernatorial primary loser former Congressman Tom Perriello, who is a somewhat dynamic campaigners, worked tirelessly and then some for the entire Democratic ticket, helping narrow 2013 AG winner Mark Herring win comfortably and helping Justin Fairfax becoming only the 2nd African-American to win statewide office in Virginia.
The Democratic ticket put more resources into ground game than I have EVER seen in Virginia, and that made a difference.
Also key, and possibly leading to the biggest upset of the night — Dems put up candidates in the large majority of Republican held seats in the House of Delegates, while our opponents left many of the Dem held seats unopposed, in part because those Dem seats had been gerrymandered to be heavily Democratic. That perversely allowed Dems to shift resources from their safe seats to more competitive seats elsewhere. We went into the night needing 17 seats to take control of the House of Delegates, with 17 Republican-held seats having been won by Clinton last year. As I write this shortly after 5 AM on Wednesday, it looks like this: Dems have absolutely won at least 15 and seem to have won a 16th, which would indicate a 50-50 split among the 100 members. Ben Tribbett, known in Virginia as Not Larry Sabato, opined before Midnight that based on the evidence he thought the most likely final result would be 51-49 Democrat. Considering that we went into the evening with 66-34 Republican edge with heavily gerrymandered districts, that might seem surprising to some people. But consider: in order to get that edge in the House, Republican districts often had smaller margins of voters committed to be Republican — that is one factor people tend to forget. I would add that Dems were contesting so many seats may have added 1-2% to the statewide Dem margin, as Dem leaning voters who normally had less reason to turn out did turn out.
As an addendum on this, when I saw on Twitter that Nate Cohn was suggesting the final margin in the Governor’s race could be 8% (It was almost 9), I wrote that at 7 or 8% the House of Delegates could well be in play and turn.
TURNOUT TURNOUT TURNOUT — Nate Cohn had predicted an increase of 8% over 2013. It apparently was more than 15%. That was a key. UPDATE: those figures might be incorrect. Statewide it may have only increased by 5-6%, but worth noting that turnout in NoVa increased more than in some of the more Republican areas, and in those areas, the increase may have been weaker Democratic voters. I have not looked at the actual exit poll data on this, but on Morning Joe I heard that self-identified liberals were up by 8%. (end of this update)
Remember, in Virginia we do not register by party. We have now identified even more Democratic leaning voters. That has some real implications going forward.
And IF Dems take control of the House, we would need to flip only one Republican Senate seat to have a 20-20 Senate with Fairfax able to break ties. That would in theory give the opportunity to redraw Congressional lines before next November’s election. Fairly drawn lines could change our Congressional delegation from 4 Dems and 7 Repubs to exactly the opposite.
Even without flipping the Senate, and possibly without gaining total control of the House, expansion of Medicaid seems likely. Remember, health care was the major issue, and for a fair number of Republican held Senate districts Northam won comfortably.
And now I have to go to school.
Peace.
UPDATE some thoughts that occurred to me while driving to school. Attempting to gerrymander in a state where the voter registration lists do not include party registration (officially we are all independents in Virginia and can vote in either party’s primary) is somewhat dicier than doing it in states where you have official party registration. Thus there is an argument that the gerrymandering was not as big a stumbling block as some pundits made it.
And another thought — I said that in general Virginia appreciates civility. I want to offer two additional comments on this. First, I am a graduate of the flagship program of the Sorensen Institute of Political Leadership at the Miller Center at UVa. That Political Leaders Program has cohorts with several dozen people spanning the Commonwealth by geography, political orientation, age, gender, etc. The idea is to build an increasing cohort of people who can work across divides that would ordinarily keep them apart in order to benefit the Commonwealth. It is worth noting that an increasing share of the General Assembly (legislature) from both parties are graduates of Sorensen, including people who went through the program when already in the House of Delegates.
Second — listening to Morning Joe as I drove in and he made what I think was a cogent comment about what happened in Charlottesville. Regardless of where people may have stood on the issue of removing Confederate statues, there was strong revulsion first at the Alt-Right protests leading to the death of one person and an even stronger negative reaction to how Trump reacted — the idea of good people on both sides.
Also worth noting, as one of the pan el (Van deHei?) that of the people who decided close to the election they broke heavily for Northam. Seems like Trump and Bannon’s involvement turned out to be a negative?