To further reinforce that normal wins elections, consider two of the Democratic candidates who didn’t win their Virginia races. First, Jeremy Rodden, a big backer of Chesapeake’s “After School Satan Club,” which my colleague Amber Athey has written about extensively, and is hardly the most appealing way to advertise your atheism to voters. And second, Susanna Gibson, who narrowly lost in Goochland and is now free to set politics aside and return to the far more dignified professions of nursing and camgirling. Demonology and Chaturbate might be an outré way to spend a night on the internet — they aren’t what swing voters want on the ballot, yet.

The election is now less than a year away — and both parties have their work cut out to offer the decisive voters a convincing “we’re the most normal” case. Ensuring “candidate quality” and avoiding scandal at the primary is the first hurdle. The Biden administration has been mostly effective at reigning in or sidelining its crazier colleagues — the odd fire alarm pull excepted. But public perception of Israel’s war on Hamas could offer Republicans an opening to put the likes of Rashida Tlaib front and center. Other openings will come too, whether courtesy of culture wars or actual wars. Is a Republican Party helmed by Ronna Romney McDaniel, Mike Johnson and, as seems likely, Donald Trump, capable of convincing the voters that matter of its normalcy? We shall see.