Virginia election-talk me down off the ledge

Why, it’s almost as if a normal moderate-Dem campaign that focused on normal moderate-Dem social issues in combination with the continued commitment to a normal moderate-Dem economic policy could have won in Virginia, like it did the last 13 times, and the decision to instead focus the entire race on an extreme, deeply unpopular education policy was a baffling own-goal. Imagine if someone had been saying that.