Does Virginia Matter to the Midterms?

Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Robert Wilkie attends a ribbon cutting ceremony with Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe for the Virginia Department of Veterans Services Office at the Pentagon in Washington, Jan. 9, 2018. (DoD photo by Navy Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Kathryn E. Holm)

Virginia heads to the polls today in its quadrennial off-year election. Terry McAuliffe and Glenn Youngkin have battled for weeks, bringing in leaders of both parties to stump for them and trading jab after jab in the media. The latest polls suggest that McAullife has the narrowest of leads, although fears over Democratic weighting of polls have made the Democratic Party just as terrified of losing this race as they have been over every other race in the past five years.

The Virginia gubernatorial race is often seen as a bellwether of political discontent against the sitting president. The thinking goes that Americans are often tired of their newly elected president by the one-year mark and eager to give the other side a chance. For decades, they bucked the sitting party in the Virginia gubernatorial race. In many instances, that Virginia loss predicted a sweeping defeat for the president’s party in the subsequent midterm elections. Bob McDonnell won in 2009 by nearly 18 points while Tim Kaine won in 2005 by more than five; both victories preceded landslide losses by the president. The first governor to break that trend was actually McAullife in 2013, a savvy political operator who has raised a sizable war chest but has hampered himself this time around with a number of gaffes.

However, it is difficult to say whether that trend will continue. Pollsters still do not know if the Trump coalition can propel the Republican Party without Trump’s name on the ballot. As Gabriel Debenedetti of New York magazine notes, “without Trump on the ticket, the specific kind of polling skew that worries them so much — hidden Republican support — could be far less of a problem.” Youngkin has not dazzled them as a candidate either, having made several gaffes of his own and not been able to decide how closely he wanted to support Trump. In addition, Virginia is as blue as it has ever been. The more liberal Northern Virginia suburbs have only continued to grow as traditionally conservative areas in the Tidewater and Southside regions have seen their populations drop.

Furthermore, Virginia’s race has the potential to be driven more by local than national concerns. Many of the issues that have propelled Virginia Republicans are culture war hotspots like “critical race theory” in schools. Fox News reported late last week that “education is now the number one issue with 24% of Virginia voters citing it as such, up nine points from the previous poll taken last month.” There is no concrete evidence that the polling change reflects a newfound concern from swing voters over school curricula. Few significant swing elections have ever been won on the statewide and national level based on what is or is not in a textbook.

What’s more, these issues consistently poll low on the list of concerns of Americans outside of Virginia. The polling disparity may mean that next year’s midterms could be a referendum on American teachings over race in the classroom, or it could mean that Republicans spend time talking about the books of Toni Morrison instead of focusing on more effective messages.

The race in Virginia will undoubtedly be seen as a referendum on President Biden’s first year in office. A win for Biden would show the continued relevance of Donald Trump as a subject for political attack and the further bluing of Virginia. A loss will hopefully galvanize Democrats who have seemed apathetic and slow to respond to the issues that concern Americans. Either way, the only guarantee is that the political media will make these results into the most important election of our lifetime, even if its effects are dwarfed by next year’s contests.