Going into yesterday’s elections in Virginia, all of the pollsters had the legislative races running neck and neck. Governor Glenn Youngkin had talked himself hoarse at campaign stops and countless television interviews across the state for weeks on end, pushing people to embrace early voting and then working to drive every last Republican to the polls that he could. I’d heard his speech so often that I could recite it in my sleep. ‘We need to hold the House, flip the Senate, and save our state!’ It was a good plan, but when the dust settled, the opposite had happened. The Democrats held the Senate, flipped the House, and drove a stake through the heart of Youngkin’s vision. Despite much progress having been made in Virginia under his leadership, Virginia Democrats kept a death grip on a single message that got them over the finish line. If you turn the state over to the “MAGA Republicans,” they’re going to outlaw abortion. And it worked. (AP)

Virginia Democrats who campaigned on protecting abortion rights swept Tuesday’s legislative elections, retaking full control of the General Assembly after two years of divided power.

The outcome is a sharp loss for Gov. Glenn Youngkin and his fellow Republicans, who exerted a great deal of energy, money and political capital on their effort to secure a GOP trifecta.

“It’s official: there will be absolutely no abortion ban legislation sent to Glenn Youngkin’s desk for the duration of his term in office, period, as we have thwarted MAGA Republicans’ attempt to take total control of our government and our bodies,” Virginia Senate Democratic Caucus Chair Mamie Locke said in a statement referencing Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.

It wasn’t as if Virginia’s voters were unable to see the progress that had been achieved under Youngkin’s leadership. Job growth has been steady, private sector wealth increased, and crime rates have been coming down. But in the end, none of that mattered. The Democrats kept repeating their mantra about the Republicans passing an abortion ban and that was enough to get their people and many persuadable independents out to the voting booths.

This is precisely the sort of thing I was warning about back in April when I wrote, ‘Don’t let the Democrats make the next election about abortion.’ In the end, that’s what the races in Virginia came down to. As you can see above, the very first words out of the state Senate Democratic Caucus Chair last night were a promise that no abortion ban would make it to Youngkin’s desk for the rest of his term. This is the strategy they will employ all across the nation next year as well. Just look at the results in Ohio last night. Issue 1, creating a constitutional right to abortion, sailed through and it really wasn’t even close. The ‘yes’ votes carried the night by more than ten points. (They also legalized marijuana by the same margin.)

This albatross will still be hanging around the necks of Republicans next year and if they’re not careful, the same pattern could and very likely will carry over at the national level. For a certain percentage of voters, the border crisis, rising crime rates, inflation, and a foreign policy situation that is inching toward a world war can all be set aside if Democrats dangle the threat of an abortion bad in front of them. Don’t be fooled into believing that Virginia and Ohio were just outliers in an off-year election.

This remains an intractable puzzle for the GOP. Most of the base is pro-life to one degree or another and the party can’t abandon that position without gutting its own core. Polling has repeatedly shown that a solid majority of the country is open to limited bans on late-term abortions, but support for full bans starting anywhere in the first trimester is a distinctly minority position today. And it’s hard to have a conversation with voters explaining that you’re only supporting “a partial ban” under specific circumstances when a Democrat immediately comes rushing up with a bullhorn screaming, ‘You heard him! He said ban! Burn the witch!’

If I had a perfect solution to offer the GOP today I would gladly put it forward, but I don’t. This is the Democrats’ Golden Ticket and at least for now, it doesn’t appear to have an expiration date. Republicans were dancing in the streets when the Dobbs ruling was handed down, but it might turn out to be the best thing to happen to Democrats in a generation.