2021 Election Recap
My thoughts on the recent elections in Virginia and New Jersey
On Tuesday 2 November 2021, voters across the United States went to the polls to vote for several local offices and ballot propositions. The results of these elections paint a troubling picture for President Biden and his Democratic Party in the upcoming 2022 midterms. This article will go over what the what, why, and the ‘where do we go from here’ for both of the parties
What was up for election on Tuesday?
2021 is an off-year, situated exactly in the middle of a presidential and midterm election year. There are no elections for federal offices during an off-year; many Americans don’t even know that there were elections held in their area this year. However, various jurisdictions do hold local elections; my hometown in Connecticut held elections for all town-council and Board of Education seats. However, there are two states that take this off-year more seriously:
The Commonwealth of Virginia elects all statewide executive positions (Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Attorney General), as well as all 100 seats in the Virginia House of Delegates (the state’s lower house). In 2021, incumbent governor Ralph Northam (D) was term-limited, and could not run for governor again.
New Jersey elects their Governor, as well as all seats in both houses of the State legislature. Incumbent governor Phil Murphy (D) was running for re-election
Heading into 2021, both states had Democrats holding all executive positions and majorities in both chambers of the state legislatures. In addition, in 2020, Virginia gave Democrat Joe Biden 54.1% of the vote and New Jersey had given him 57.3%. Both of these states were considered pretty solidly Blue, and most pundits, both expert and amateur, did not believe that the GOP had a good chance in either of these states. One only needs to see the replies Dave Wasserman, one of the few political experts to disagree with this assessment, got when he tweeted in May that the Virginia gubernatorial race could be close. He was excoriated in the replies, with one of the most liked replies at the time reading
“Nope: not when Biden approval ratings are 60%+ Dave; and not if @TerryMcAuliffe is the Dem nominee; and not when the R nominee is someone who tied themselves to Trump all thru [sic] the GOP nomination process. Will not even be close.”
In addition, New Jersey’s Gubernatorial race was placed at either Safe Democratic or Likely Democratic, depending on the rating service. Most expected a margin that would mirror 2020.
Until the very last moment, most pundits universally agreed that Virginia would move even further to the Democratic column. Even when polling narrowed in the final weeks of the race between Terry McAuliffe (DEM) and Glenn Youngkin (GOP), most did not believe that the Republicans were favored to win; Sabato’s Crystal Ball was the only rating service that officially put Virginia into the ‘Leans Republican’ column before election night.
What were the results?
Virginia
Glenn Youngkin (GOP) defeated Terry McAuliffe (DEM) by around a 1% margin, putting an end to eight years of Democratic governance of the state. This victory was powered by an approximately-uniform 10 point swing towards Youngkin throughout the state. In addition, Democrats were also defeated in the races for Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General, albeit by narrower margins. Furthermore, Republicans flipped 7 seats in the House of Delegates, regaining control of the body they lost in 2017. Notably, Republicans were only able to flip one Democratic-held seat in the suburban North of Virginia; the Democrats collapsed in the more coastal southern part of the state which is slightly less college-educated than the northern suburbs. Exit polling suggested that many minority groups moved towards McAullife, and so did college-educated whites, albeit by small margins. On the flipside, Glenn Youngkin was able to achieve a 25% swing in the non-college-educated white vote towards him, which is what has powered the GOP wave this year across the board.
New Jersey
In New Jersey, incumbent Democrat Phil Murphy won just over 50% of the vote, which is a worrying margin in a significantly blue state like New Jersey. In addition, many Democrats in the state legislature, particularly ones from South Jersey, lost their seats; the most notable one being the seat of the State Senate Majority Leader, who lost his seat to a truck driver who spent $153 on his campaign. Similar to Virginia, the Democrats have seemingly been decimated by non-college-educated white voters.
Why did Democrats underperform?
One of the main reasons may be Joe Biden’s lackluster approval rating. According to FiveThirtyEight, Biden sits at around 42% approval, with 51% disapproving. Compared to all presidents since Dwight Eisenhower (GOP, elected 1952), this is the lowest approval rating nine months into a presidency for any President except for Donald Trump. There are various factors contributing to this; people of diverse political stripes will probably emphasize different reasons.
Conservatives will point to an inflationary dynamic that has raised the cost of living via higher gas prices and other staples. In contrast, some progressives assert the seeming inaction of the Biden administration as the reason why; on Election Day, there had been no significant legislative victory for the President since March (the American Rescue Plan), and Biden’s spending plans had been massively whittled down. The truth probably incorporates some of both. Many voters are justifiably unhappy with higher gas prices, supply chain issues, and consumer-price inflation, and are also rightfully frustrated with the inability of the Biden administration to achieve much of what they promised.
In Virginia, disputes surrounding public-school education also cost Democrats. In the final weeks of the race, a pre-existing debate around the presence of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in public schools re-emerged, to the detriment of the Democrats. CRT is an academic study in college investigating how race intersects with American law from a post-modern Marxist lens; certain tenets of the theory are highly controversial as critics accuse it of encouraging race essentialism and anti-Americanism. Many Republicans claim that CRT has entered the curriculum of public schools around the country; several high-profile incidents of parents protesting their school boards at public comment sessions went viral. In response, the American Federation of Teachers has argued that CRT is not part of curriculum, and claimed that conservative attacks against school boards were an attempt to intimidate teachers from encouraging academic freedom, with the end goal of stifling discussion around the country’s racial history. This broadened the dispute to one concerning how much control parents should have in deciding the curriculum of public schools. All this came to a head, when Democrat Terry McAuliffe declared in a debate, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” A controversial statement, it ended up alienating many parents, rallying Republicans, and bringing many hesitant voters on board to the Youngkin effort. As opposed to the general malaise around the Biden presidency, this issue especially energized the Republican base and created a bipartisan discussion.
In addition, Terry McAuliffe made a deliberate attempt to bring Donald Trump into the race; this seems to have backfired, as many voters felt that McAuliffe used anti-Trump rhetoric to dodge providing substantive policy positions on other fronts. Throughout the race, McAuliffe made constant references trying to tie Glenn Youngkin to Trump, and reminding Virginians of the dangers of Trumpism. He even distributed leaflets that tried to assert that Youngkin was proud of the “complete and total endorsement” he received from Trump. This constant attempt to associate Youngkin with Trump actually ended up doing Youngkin a massive favor. McAuliffe, by taking over the effort to turn out Trump supporters for Youngkin, allowed the Republican candidate to largely direct his campaign to moderates who were not enamored by Trump but held slightly conservative viewpoints on pertinent issues. Furthermore, given how Trump has kept a relatively low-key presence outside of conservative media, many felt that bringing up Trump was a stale issue for McAuliffe, especially when Youngkin made no effort to campaign on Trumpism. McAullife’s constant attempt to bring up Trump clearly cost him, which became apparent when McAullife attempted a U-turn two days before election day. The CNN headline detailing that reversal, “McAuliffe says Virginia election 'is not about Trump' after making former President central figure in campaign,” says all anyone needs to know about how McAullife’s 180 was perceived by voters: as a hypocritical statement.
It is still unclear to many observers why New Jersey was so close. To be fair, New Jersey had never re-elected a Democrat since the 70s until now; the statewide environment for gubernatorial races may just be closer than the federal margin suggests. Similar environments exist across the South, where Democrats can often win governor’s mansions despite getting shellacked in federal elections. Many of Murphy’s advisors are saying that they simply failed to turn out their own base, not anticipating how close the results were going to be. In addition to the current issues surrounding high gas prices and supply-chain delays, NJ specifically is known for high property taxes, a perennial issue that motivates Republicans to vote. Incidentally, comprehensive exit polling was not done in New Jersey, as few expected the results to be as close as they have been. Therefore, analysts should be circumspect about drawing strong conclusions from the New Jersey results.
What can both parties do before 2022?
From a Democratic perspective, the most important thing right now is to get ‘stuff’ done. Democrats in both Virginia and New Jersey ran on opposing “Trumpism” and suffered embarrassing reverses; it’s clear that Washington Democrats need to give their state counterparts something substantive and positive to run on. This effort could be seen on Friday night when the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework (BIF) bill Biden was championing cleared the House of Representatives, its formerly final obstacle to becoming a law. In addition, Democrats will probably need to figure out a way to bring gas prices and supply chain issues under control. While Washington is not entirely responsible for these problems, there are clearly some things Biden can do to partially alleviate the worst parts of these crises. Finally, Democrats will need to figure out some way to counter GOP attacks on CRT and regain the narrative on education. Unlike McAuliffe, Democrats must tackle the issue head-on, conveying a clear message that a large part of what the GOP is painting as CRT is actually an honest reckoning with certain aspects of American history. In addition, Democrats must assure parents that they will work with them to craft a quality education for their kids, and not against them.
From a GOP perspective, the best path forward is to create a coherent message uniting all Americans around the travails of the working-class as it faces an inexorable rise in the cost of living. On social policy, the GOP should have a focus on public school curricula and pedagogy, and a debate around who has the last word: parents or school board “bureaucrats.” This would construct a solid two-pronged attack with both strong economic and social issues driving the agenda. Also, the GOP would be well advised to actually explain what they would do with expanded power. In 1994, then-Republican House Leader Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia) released the “Contract with America'' which clearly laid out the principles and policies on which the GOP would act on if they were given a majority in the House; this was widely seen as a very successful move, as Americans took very well to the clear articulation of the Republicans. A similar document outlining what the GOP stands for in 2022 could serve the same result.
One unknown variable is the role Donald Trump will play. While, as mentioned before, he has been mostly on the sidelines throughout 2021, he has promised that he will play a more prominent role in 2022. Trump remains immensely popular among the GOP base and has the power to potentially swing several primaries heading into the midterm. The question that remains to be answered is if Trump will use his power to boost Youngkin-like pragmatists or Majorie Taylor Greene-style ideologues. It should be noted that the Virginia GOP does not give its members a primary to select their candidates; Youngkin and other Republican nominees were picked by senior members of the state GOP at a convention. Many debate if someone like Youngkin, who made a deliberate attempt not to bring Trump into any of his rhetoric, could survive a primary, especially against a Trump-backed candidate. All cards currently lie in Trump’s hands going into the midterm primary season: he will eventually reveal how large of a role he plans to play, and what type of candidate he proceeds to endorse.
In conclusion, the results from 2021 bode very well for the Republicans. Democrats will need to do a lot of work to save themselves from the specter of significant losses in the House of Representatives come 2022. The GOP has an opportunity between now and 2022, but they could still squander it by not articulating a positive message or focusing too much on the past. And as is obvious, Donald Trump stands to play a significant part in determining the GOP’s fate in the upcoming midterms.
A very comprehensive analysis. I caught teasers on your Twitter feed, and this rounds it all up quite nicely!
As always, you’ve summed it up so eloquently Parakram. Indeed D’s have much work to do if they are to stave off a complete rout in 2022 with the Trump shadow looming large. It will be interesting to see if they pull up their socks and go to work placating the liberal faction of the party and bringing them to the table, or just wither away and get slaughtered