Virginia Dead Heat Shakes Democrats’ Cool

After Joe Biden’s 10 percent margin over Donald Trump in the state last year, prevailing opinion held that Virginia had turned blue. Northern Virginia, the most populous part of the state, has for years been a Democratic stronghold.

Former governor Terry McAuliffe, a longtime Clinton associate and archetypical Democratic establishment figure, seemed assured of victory until a few weeks ago. The Republican challenger, businessman and political neophyte Glenn Youngkin, has run an effective campaign and is giving McAuliffe a run for his money. Two months ago, McAuliffe led Youngkin by 8 percent, but now the race is a statistical dead heat. Joe and Jill Biden, Kamala Harris, and even Barack Obama have made campaign swings for McAuliffe in an attempt to rouse Democrats out of their complacency — a true challenge, given that Donald Trump is nowhere on the ballot.

“Virginia is trending in a Democratic direction,” says Josh Kraushaar, senior national political columnist for the National Journal Daily. “There are more suburban voters that lean to the Democratic Party, but Virginia also has always been a moderate state. The Democratic Party has nominated moderate middle-of-the-road candidates, and I think it’s fair to say that the Democratic Party now has full control of Virginia politics, of the state legislature, and they have held the governorship since 2013.

“But there is a widespread backlash against a lot of the decisions being made in Richmond. The fact that it’s not just President Biden in Washington that’s in power, Democrats in Congress that are in power, but for the first time in almost 20 years, Democrats have had full power now in Virginia politics, and there’s a backlash against some of the decisions being made in Virginia that are much more liberal in direction.”