While there will be plenty of miscalculations for Democrats to pick over in the coming days and weeks, it’s that last statistic, about the out-party traditionally winning the Virginia gubernatorial race, that provides the architecture of McAuliffe’s loss.
This pattern is not a coincidence. One year after an election, the base voters of the party that just lost a presidential race are going to be pissed off, and wake up each morning dreaming of the next time they can vote against the president’s party. (There’s a critical addendum to this in Virginia’s case, too: Republicans had lost every statewide race for nearly a decade in a state they used to dominate. Each loss irritated them more! They were ready to go this time.) The president’s party’s base, meanwhile, can’t match that level of enthusiasm. The president, about whom everyone was so excited to elect the previous year, takes ownership of national problems and sags, or plummets, from their post-election high. This is also the basic structure of why the president’s party typically loses ground in midterm elections the following year. (Just wait!)…
Terry McAuliffe, a lifelong Democratic operative, is not a generational political talent. But Washington also didn’t give McAuliffe much material to work with. As I write, we are on month… 3… 4… 17?…of congressional Democrats saying they’ll pass a monumental pair of bills any day now. This week? Eh, might have to push it to next week. How does your December look? This meant McAuliffe had little-to-nothing to point toward as examples of what Democrats can get done if you just give them the chance.
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