As of this morning, Youngkin has been declared the winner, and the Republican candidates have solid leads (but still too close to call) in the Lt. Gov. and Attorney General's races. Even better, the Republicans look poised to take outright control of the Virginia House of Delegates by gaining 6 seats.
Six months ago pundits were concentrating more on by how huge a margin the now and forevermore solidly blue Old Dominion would bury the Republicans.
Saying there are a lot of very, very shocked people in Virginia right now is an understatement.
Terry McAuliffe ran one of the most tone-deaf dog whistle campaigns I've ever seen. He spent months trying to tie Youngkin to Donald Trump (even going so far as to outright LIE on Tuesday and say that Trump and Youngkin were campaigning together). Well, apparently he was the only one who couldn't see that there were a lot of other topics that were a lot more important to Virginians than the Donald.
McAuliffe also handed Youngkin an incredibly effective hammer in his debate comment in which he said Virginia parents should have no say over what's taught in schools. Incredible political gaffe, one that Youngkin used over and over and one that absolutely resonated with a lot of Virginia parents.
Even better, McAuliffe later ran an ad basically crying how Youngkin was taking his words out of context... and Youngkin turned THAT into an incredibly effective ad to again hammer home the education issue.
The key to Youngkin's victory wasn't just holding previous Republican strongholds, he also outperformed expectations (sometimes by a pretty wide margin) in both red and blue areas of the state. In some of the southwest counties in Virginia he pulled in close to 90% of the total vote, in more than a couple of counties getting an increase of upwards 10% over the 2017 election.
In Fairfax County Youngkin picked up over 3% more votes than the Republican did in 2017, in Loudoun County 5% more. That may not seem like much, but in a tight race swings like that can be huge cumulatively. He also outperformed in other traditionally blue strongholds like Richmond and Norfolk.
Virginia voter surveys appear to show that state voter's concerns are pretty much at 180 degree odds with the national party's activities. Climate change and the like? Apparently dead last for Virginia votes.
Skyrocketing inflation, skyrocketing oil and gasoline prices, skyrocketing food prices? All near the top of Virginia voter concern.
I think as of right now Democrats, both in Virginia and nationally, are pretty stunned, but I'm really hoping that they're too tone deaf and too far down the Socialist path to pull back in time to realign their messages for next year's midterms. I can't wait to hear the explanations coming out of Pelosi, Schumer, and the Squad trying to explain away why Virginia has nothing to do with national concerns...
It's going to be a *expletive deleted*ing hoot.