OK so a lot of people are really anxious about Virginia
But there’s also New Jersey, NYC, Atlanta and surely a whole bunch more localities, so how about we all follow up here?
Polls just closed in VA.
(and BTW, c’mon Discourse, there is only so many words, of course my topic header will be similar to others…)
I don’t think I can watch this. So far, Virginia is not looking good for Democrats.
I already want to cry.
I know it’s early but Virginia looks like a bloodbath so far.
Chill, Virginia always looks like a bloodbath at first. Rural, red areas report early. It could go badly for McAuliffe, but it’s too early to tell as yet.
True – if he loses it won’t be that badly as the first batch of numbers portray.
Happened on a larger scale in 2020, IIRC.
Meanwhile one interesting bit… In Georgia Atlanta is voting under the new laws that allow that if a county shows “deficiencies” in their elections procedures, the state can take over its elections operations.
They should be closing around now as is New Jersey. NYC goes until 9pm.
McAuliffe is running behind what he needs to win pretty much everywhere. It would require more than the usual shift for him to pull ahead. Not so much that it’s impossible, but it’s at the point where it’s pretty unlikely. He probably loses by around 2%.
Yeah, now I’m willing to believe that it’s time to worry. Would be interesting if the statewide offices split – the Democratic LG and AG candidates are running a little ahead of McAuliffe, and it looks like it could be tight enough for that to make a difference.
Have the early votes been counted or do they get stacked at the end like in 2020? That could be a huge difference.
They’ve been counted in some places and not in others, but even in the places where nearly all of the votes (of all types) are counted, McAuliffe is sucking wind compared to what he needs to win the state.
Uggh.
No it’s going to be significantly more than that. With 60% of the vote counted he is currently losing by 10%. Maybe 5% for the final results?
And the polls were telling us it was going to be a tossup.
As we saw in 2020, being a non-Trump Republican isn’t a bad place to be right now. It’s just Trump himself that is toxic to the general electorate.
Democrats need to decide very quickly what they want to run on in 2022 that isn’t “not Trump” or they will have a very rough mid-terms.
Just to confirm, by “non-Trump Republican,” you mean “Republican who is not physically Trump” or “Republican who does not endorse and advance Trump’s agenda and beliefs”?
Right. Even in those places where he has what in any other election would be called a decent lead, he was supposed to have them running away. And where he was supposed to be a bit behind he’s well behind.
The fast overtaking really happened only over the last three weeks – it had been only a slow closing before. So the Republicans did a superior job of timing their campaign.
Yeah it’s looking like the top ticket in 2020 was a referendum on Trump, and on Trump alone, that even so was tight enough to enable tantrums and whingeing. But meanwhile Republicans gained in everything, save for the Senate – and may have held that if not for Donald’s own interference.
A lot of McCaulliffe campaign material involved reminding the audience that Trump had endorsed Youngkin. But that did not seem to move the needle with anyone. And Youngkin was smart enough to just let the endorsement speak for itself and not make a Big Deal of it.
Face it: “but, but, TRUMP!!!1!!11” Is. Not. Enough. Been saying it since '16.
I’m not 100% sure, to be honest. Clearly being physically Trump is unelectable in Virginia. But being endorsed by Trump and having policies virtually identical to Trump’s is not disqualifying.
I think the open question is how candidates that endorse/support the big lie and the Jan 6 insurrection will fair. I fear that just being physically not Trump may be enough for them to do well as well, at least in many regions.
Over at fivethirtyeight, the commentary indicates that counties in Northern Virginia that Biden won massively in 2020, McCauliffe is double-digits behind that. Which, my WAG, is suggestive of the segment of voters who show up for a national marquee contest but are not around for the state/local elections.
Even so this election is expected to have a much higher turnout of an odd-year election than the 2017 and 2013, so there is higher than usual motivation for the odd-year election. Just not enough to bring in the “national” voters.
…
Meanwhile…
To nobody’s surprise, Eric Adams has already been called as the winner in New York City, feeding Curtis Sliwa his beret 73%/22%
I thought it was an interesting piece if data over there that exit polls were showing a split 50/50 for trump Biden voters indicating roughly 10% of Bidrn voters skipped this election over the rate of trump supporters. Then on top of that the vote totals are showing a lot of the Biden voters that did vote ended up voting republican.
Meanwhile, on a smaller scale, I don’t have any strong feelings in any of the three local races I voted on (city council, school board, and a judge), but I’m watching three races from neighboring Cleveland: The city’s longest-standing mayor is stepping down, so there’s an open race for his replacement; a neighbor of my mom’s was appointed to finish a term on the city council and is now running to keep the seat; and (most relevantly on the national scale) there’s a ballot initiative to establish a citizen police oversight board which, if it passes, will be the first major city in the country to do so.