Three Overlooked Lessons from Election Day
Republicans Showed Up to Vote, and Stopped Fighting the "Last War;" Democrats Didn't. And Glenn Youngkin Replicated Something Ron DeSantis Did
The post-mortems and armchair quarterbacking from self-styled pundits about elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and elsewhere, are rolling in. Republican-leaning pundits see a “path forward” to win more elections in 2022, while Donald Trump claims victory. Faculty-lounge Democrats claim “racism,” (met Winsome Sears yet?) “white backlash,” or the failure to enact the Biden “Build Back Better” $3.5 trillion welfare boondoggle, unaware that most voters don’t like it.
Of course, there are always lessons, often several, to be learned from every election. Sadly, such analysis is often lazy, self-serving (promoting), and replete with confirmation bias, arrogance, or elitist thinking. Occam’s Razor still holds - “when faced with competing explanations for the same phenomenon, the simplest is likely the correct one.”
While much data remains to emerge from electoral battlegrounds (we have no official election results yet, and late-arriving absentee ballots can be received and processed through Friday in Virginia), we know enough now to make some simple observations.
Republicans turned out more than Democrats - voter enthusiasm matters
The outstanding Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP), relying on unofficial returns from all but one of the Commonwealth’s 2,456 precincts show that Democratic turnout rates were, with a couple of exceptions, on par with or even slightly higher (roughly 4-5%) than during the last statewide elections 4 years ago; generally between 50-55%. But Republican turnout was 10-15% higher across the board, hitting close to or over 70% in some jurisdictions.
This nifty VPAP chart tells the story. It’s interactive on their website - each dot represents a jurisdiction.
They’re still counting, “finding,” or double-counting votes in New Jersey, but I strongly suspect the trend will be the same, as with Pennsylvania and other jurisdictions. The Pennsylvania Capital-Star is tracking turnout routes (many counties have not yet reported) for their 2021 elections, but note how poor turnout was in Democratic-rich Philadelphia (18%) compared with most other counties. Populous swing county Bucks County, which swept Republicans into county offices, had a high 39% turnout.
What drives turnout? This is what pundits are focusing on: election dynamics. Candidate quality matters. Their messages and issues matter, and how they resonate with the electorate. And it is hard to claim “voter suppression” (no one is, thankfully) for defeats given how easy it is to vote by mail (a mistake, in my humble opinion, given the likelihood of errors) and 45 days of in-person early voting in Virginia. Voter ID requirements both in New Jersey and Virginia are weak.
The Republicans in Virginia ran on a forward-looking agenda of improving the economy (targeted grocery and gasoline tax cuts, increasing the standard deduction on state tax returns), education (parental rights and school choice), and safe neighborhoods. This is also where Democrats made their second mistake.
Democrats wanted to fight the last war and nationalize the race around Donald Trump
Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin cleverly mocked former Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s never-ending references to Trump with this clever ad late in the election.
Humor, carefully used, is a powerful tool in campaigns. It was no secret that voters upset with schools being closed, being shut out by public school boards, and mad about rising inflation and bare grocery shelves were eager to send a message. And it wasn’t about Trump.
Democrats, especially Terry McAuliffe, thought they could run the last war and keep suburban moms and anti-Trump voters in their camp by tying Donald Trump to their opponents and thus nationalizing the race. Fighting the last war and nationalizing mostly state and local races rarely work. Youngkin and Republicans were not in the mood to take the bait and focused with message discipline on voter concerns. And we know what happened.
Youngkin - like Ron DeSantis in 2018 - Overperformed with Black women over Education and School Choice
I’m no fan of exit polls and even less so of polling by the Washington Post. Both are notoriously inaccurate and unreliable. Perhaps, except, when they’re not. The Post/Schar School exit poll of Virginia’s election suggests that Youngkin outperformed with Black women, increasing his margin to double digits (14%) compared to just 8% for the ticket let by Trump in 2020.
The same thing happened in Florida’s gubernatorial campaign in 2018, when Ron DeSantis narrowly defeated Andrew Gillum. Despite Gillum being Black, DeSantis also captured 14% of Black women votes in that election. Why? DeSantis’ campaign focused - and delivered - on school choice expansion for low-income families. Both DeSantis and Youngkin maintained increasing support levels from Black men, which ar also in double-digits.
Expanding charter schools and public school education choice was a major issue for Youngkin’s campaign. While 14% of the vote may seem low - that’s only one in seven Black women - that’s 50-100 percent more than Republicans typically win. Lower income families do not want their kids trapped in failing schools. Choice and charter schools offer them a way out. We are seeing that play in Camden, New Jersey, one of the nation’s poorest cities. Charter schools in particular, at least there, are more cost effective. Democrats and Republicans have worked together to help turn Camden schools around.
Who’d of thunk it that Education would become an issue that could benefit Republicans? It’s long been seen as a Democratic fortress. But after teacher unions and their political supporters fought to keep schools closed, resulting in dramatically higher truancy rates, not to mention the challenges to working parents, things have changed. Even UNESCO - the United Nation’s education arm - has documented the harm. Mask mandates in schools are also harming children.
Progressives, on the other hand, are doubling down on mask mandates, and against school choice. They were slow to stand up to teacher unions and reopen schools. Tone deafeness on steroids.
Republicans have their opportunities, and many Democrats (just watch MSNBC. Then again, maybe not) are doubling down on delusional reactions. The question is, will Republicans learn from their victories as much as they appear to have learned from their defeats?