In the past two decades, Virginia has gone from a Republican-biased state to a state that generally votes Democrats across the state. However, the Republican Party hopes to win back the government of Virginia in November, and having maintained full control over the 2014 state legislature until the 2019 election, this is not a bizarre goal in a state with a purplish-blue electoral tendency.
As such, the two parties are currently struggling to decide who should be their nominee, with many of the same trends that we see occurring nationally at the state level. For Republicans, this means a debate about how best to choose a candidate, as the candidate’s rhetoric demonstrates the long-lasting strength of former President Trump, as well as the new Republican Party priorities more broadly. And with ex-governor Terry McAuliffe’s candidacy in the Democratic race, this partly reflects the Democratic Party’s presidential primaries in 2020, in which an older white man and a major establishment hitter faced several women and people of color; ultimately, in 2020, Biden won in part because of primary voters’ fears about “eligibility” and who could defeat Trump, or in this case, “Trumpism”.
Virginia’s recent political trends may give Democrats an advantage, but Republicans can benefit from a more friendly electoral environment because of the potential for reaction against President Biden and Democrats. After all, there is a story of that. From 1977 to 2017, there was only one election – 2013 – in which the White House party won over the government of Virginia. Therefore, Republicans certainly expect anti-Democratic sentiments to appear in Virginia in November and act as a herald of what is to come in 2022.
Republicans: going to Trump – but perhaps not entirely all in
But Virginia Republicans have little to celebrate recently, having lost all 13 statewide job contests since 2012. During this drought, they also exchanged ideas on how best to choose their nominee: a primary or a convention.
The primaries, with their broader constituency, have traditionally been seen as more likely to choose nominees that have more appeal to the general constituency, while conventions with their conservative-activist appeal tend to favor more ideological candidates. But that does not seem to reflect the thinking of the state party this year. State party leaders decided to go with a convention in December, largely to prevent one of their most ideologically divisive candidates from winning: Senator Amanda Chase.
It is no stranger to the controversy – she adopted the nickname “Trump in heels” – Chase made the Virginia Republican Party concerned that she would gather enough support to win with plurality – after all, she led the Republican field in two January polls. But given Chase’s toxic relationship with her own party – she left her party’s political convention in the Senate in 2019 and some of her Republican colleagues supported a vote of censure against her in January – she may have trouble attracting support from Most convention delegates to win the nomination, especially in a race with 10 Republican candidates, about half of whom are serious candidates.
Of course, it is possible that Chase still manages to attract enough support to win the nomination. She is doubling down on an anti-establishment message that the party has tried to defraud the suit against her – even threatening at one point to leave the GOP. But what is most likely to happen is that delegates will choose one of the other candidates, who may not be “Trump in high heels,” but neither is he dodging issues that attract the party’s pro-Trump base.
Consider the widespread Republican belief in the “Big Lie” or Trump’s false allegations about electoral fraud in the 2020 presidential race. While other Republican Party contenders are not necessarily echoing Chase’s claim that the election was “hijacked”, just one – former Del. Kirk Cox – said that Biden legitimately won the election. Meanwhile, the other candidates are playing straight into Republican doubts about the electoral system with their plans and messages. Notably, wealthy businessman Glenn Youngkin launched an “electoral integrity task force” as an important part of his campaign, while technology entrepreneur Pete Snyder also launched a detailed electoral security plan.
The problem in Virginia, however, is that a more aggressive Trump-style candidate may play badly because of the state’s Democratic inclination. Therefore, some Republican candidates are lowering the tone of the messages, although they are still delving into the same themes that national Republicans are refining before the mid-term exams in 2022, such as fears about “culture cancellation”, online censorship and school reopening. . Consider Cox, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives and holder of a suburban chair that Trump was unable to occupy in 2016 or 2020. Running under the “Conservative Winner” label to promote his eligibility, Cox attacked “cancel culture”While promising to hold“ Big Tech ”accountable to protect freedom of expression. In the meantime, Snyder mainly focused his campaign message to reopen schools and businesses, using the social media hashtag “#OpenOurSchools” as part of his outreach efforts. And Youngkin relied on his image of an outsider who is not just another politician, having never before applied for a job.
The convention battle will not take place until May 8, which leaves a lot of time for things to change, but now, the lesson is this: Chase is an underdog against the rest of the camp for his party’s nomination. But his combative form of politics and acceptance of Trump’s policy offers an important lesson: Republican voters everywhere like and are shaping what our elections will look like in 2022 and beyond. The question now is how far the Virginia Republican Party will go to balance its Trumpian impulses with messages that can attract more voters in the middle, which is likely to be necessary if Republicans want to end their losing streak in Virginia’s purple blue.
Democrats: a favorite favorite and a family party divide
On the Democratic side, the über-establishment candidate McAuliffe is trying to regain his former position, having won the government in 2013 and serving as governor until now. Ralph Northam succeeded him after the 2017 election. (Virginia does not allow governors-elect to seek re-election immediately.) So if McAuliffe won, he would join an exclusive club. Only one other governor of Virginia won two non-consecutive terms: Mills Godwin, who won as a conservative Democrat in 1965 and later as a Republican in 1973.
But McAuliffe’s entry into the race sparked the ire of some Democrats – including former governor Doug Wilder, the first African-American elected governor in the United States – because McAuliffe, with his high profile and $ 5.5 war box million, it could flood several color candidates in the party’s June 8 primary. Most notably, two black women in the state legislature who threw their hats in the ring: state senator Jenniffer McClellan, who had been positioning himself for years to compete, and now ex-Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy, who resigned in December to focus on his campaign for governor. In addition, Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, a black man, is also running, although his candidacy appears to have been severely hampered by previous allegations of rape that first emerged in 2019, while Northam experienced a scandal of his own, involving blackface in a school yearbook.
But, as an older white man facing several black candidates, McAuliffe’s presence in the race certainly raises the question of “eligibility” – or that he is more likely to win because he is a white man. As McAuliffe himself likes to point out, he is the only candidate to win the Virginia government in the past four decades while his party was in the White House, having won the 2013 general election while Barack Obama was president. The eligibility debate was a common theme in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, however, and if McAuliffe’s candidacy is any indication, it will remain a problem for Democrats in the future.
However, perhaps reminiscent of Biden in 2020, McAuliffe also has significant support from black Democrats, including more endorsements from black members of the state legislature than McClellan or Carroll Foy. (McAuliffe’s voting rights record, a controversial issue, may also help to soften some criticism that he excluded candidates of color by restoring the voting rights of hundreds of thousands of criminals convicted during his government, including those of many Afro American.) And like Biden, McAuliffe is also, without a doubt, the most well-known Democratic candidate. His high level of name recognition certainly helped him to start with considerable leadership in the first public and internal campaign surveys as well.
But it’s not just about name recognition; there is also a question of how progressive Virginia candidates want. Historically, establishment-oriented politicians have tended to win in Virginia, at least across the state, which is good news for McAuliffe, who leans towards the center-left. But this year, McAuliffe faces at least one serious challenge from his left in Carroll Foy, which has the support of several labor groups, the pro-Green New Deal Sunrise movement and Justice Democrats. (To a lesser extent, McClellan may also be running to McAuliffe’s left, although she has more establishment-oriented credentials and calls herself a “progressive practice.”)
In turn, McAuliffe acknowledged that progressives have become a stronger political force in Virginia and has even promised “big and bold” plans to address inequalities in education and promote a clean energy economy. But progressives in the state still largely criticize him. Justice Democrats argued that Virginia “cannot go back” to the “pro-corporate policies” of previous administrations, while Carroll Foy attacked McAuliffe as “a former head of a multimillionaire political party” who is out of touch with ordinary Virgins . However, Carroll Foy may face some criticism for not being the most left-wing candidate in this field. A fifth candidate, Del. Lee Carter, is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America and may also gain some support from the left.
Ultimately, McAuliffe is betting that his winning record and relatively popular government, along with some strategic tactics for the left, will make him more attractive to Democratic voters in the primaries than his opponents – an approach that worked for Biden in the contest. party nomination in 2020. And as long as Virginia doesn’t turn too far to the right before November, that may be just enough to put McAuliffe on the course to make an unusual return to the Virginia government.