Virginia Democrats Clap Back

 

In May of 2024, Gov. Glenn Youngkin called the Virginia General Assembly into a special legislative session on the budget. The Democrats, who control both houses, slyly left that special session "open." In Virginia, if a special session is left "open," not officially closed by the General Assembly, then technically, the authority to reconvene that session -- just incidentally on the new pressing issue of redistricting -- goes to the state House speaker and the chair of the state Senate’s Rules Committee, both of whom have already admitted their intention to redraw the Congressional map of Virginia to add Democratic seats to make up for the recent NC Republican steal. And they will do that over the objections of Gov. Youngkin, who knows what's up.

But in Virginia, the law for redrawing the map is cumbersome, takes a constitutional amendment, which itself requires enabling legislation passed by both houses of the General Assembly -- not once but twice. The process has to start with a special session, which Gov. Youngkin would never call, but the Democrats did. The special session on a proposed constitutional amendment is now scheduled for next Monday. Theoretically, that gives the Democratic majority in the General Assembly just enough time. They have to vote the proposed constitutional amendment through both houses very quickly. Then after the election next month (Virginia votes in off-years), the next session of the General Assembly must also approve it -- a foregone conclusion, evidently, as the Democrats are polling well. Then put it to the voters in a referendum, who have to vote "yes" in time for a new map to be used in 2026. 

My head spins. So many hoops, so little time. But good on them if they can pull it off.

Now we can discuss the political brutality that gerrymandering brings to a state. Right now, because the spotlight is on their corruption, Republican loyalists love to parry the criticism by saying, "The Democrats did it worse to us when they were in charge." I don't know about "worse," but of course Democrats have pulled off their own outrageous and patently unfair map tinkerings. Which is precisely why the most progressive elements in the Democratic Party have pushed in recent years for independent redistricting for North Carolina. I myself worked on a resolution calling for an end to gerrymandering and the creation of an independent agency to draw fair maps. That resolution passed locally, passed at the district level, then went to the state Democratic convention. 

Admittedly, that was a quaint time when we thought the Republicans should join us in our high-minded opposition to the evils of gerrymandering, because Republican leaders had been calling for independent redistricting for years, obviously under the burden of Democratic gerrymanders that kept them down. But instead of helping to end gerrymandering, Republican leaders were just lying in wait, full of the same spirit of retribution that defines Trump. And they're getting their revenge. 

We're trapped in a revenge tragedy. What's a player to do but unsheath our own swords and start swinging? That's just survival. We can be reform-minded later when -- and if -- saneness reasserts itself.

I Haven't Got Words

 

Brandon Presley

I've been glued to various internet feeds and news sites, catching up on everything that happened last night in several states, including in North Carolina, where it was municipal leadership on the line, and in Virginia, where Democrats flipped back their House and held the Senate and caused Republican "Great-White-Hope" Glenn Youngkin some major agita, and in the whole wide world where Moms 4 Liberty apparently lost bigly. I'm only sorry about Mississippi, where Democrat Brandon Presley impressed me, tearing relentlessly into Republican Gov. Tate Reeves over the expansion of Medicaid and the price of groceries. If Presley had won, or come closer (the margin was about 5 points), he might have proven a political point that Democrats with fight in them do best in the reddest of spots.

I'm glad to give Thomas Mills the floor on what happened and how we might feel about it:

Democrats won up and down the ballot and across the country. Last night should be a cautionary tale for Republicans, but the party is still beholden to a man who lives in a fantasy world of stolen elections and imaginary fortunes. Democrats have messages that work and an organization that’s functioning. Ignore the narratives of Democrats in disarray. Republicans are the ones in the wilderness.

The Importance of Virginia

Virginia State Capitol, Richmond

News&Observer editorialist Ned Barnett got me focused on the vote happening next Tuesday in Virginia, ungerrymandered Virginia (compared to NC), where Democrats rule the state senate 22-18 and Republicans rule the state House also 22-18, and Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin is just itching to sign an abortion ban, he sez, when Republicans also control the senate. The elections for all those Virginia legislative seats happen next Tuesday, and Ned Barnett says it'll be a potential bellwether for North Carolina in 2024. 

Barnett wrote the words (which I turned into a more graphic display):

The Virginia vote will show whether ...

(1) new state abortion laws are a decisive issue for Democratic performance?

(2) whether right-wing attacks on school diversity policies is still motivating voters like it did in 2022?

(3) whether Black voters and young voters are motivated enough to turn out and vote?

I have not researched any of the Virginia legislative races this year, so I'll have to rely on mass media come Wednesday morning for numbers and analysis. 

On the potency of the abortion issue for Democratic performance, North Carolina has already done -- banned abortion after 12 weeks -- what Glenn Youngkin in Virginia promises to do (though Youngkin is more comfortable with 15 weeks).  We expect the resentment against the abortion ban to remain strong in urban and suburban North Carolina, but this state is much more blatantly gerrymandered now for partisan advantage, with "communities of interest" "cracked and packed" to smithereens.

I'll be watching Virginia, you bet!

If You Dine With the Devil, Better Use a Long Spoon

Roe on the left, with Youngkin

Jeff Roe is a Republican political consultant who guided Glenn Youngkin's recent successful campaign to become Virginia's governor. Roe had a fraught history with Donald Trump going back to the 2016 Republican primary when he was working for the Ted Cruz for President campaign. He advised Youngkin to enthusiastically embrace Trump during the primary and then get the hell away from him for the general election -- which actually worked and which majorly pissed off DJT.

The Washington Post recently reported that Roe was forced to get himself to Mar-a-Lago to smooth Trump's ruffled feathers. Trump was said to believe that Roe had "belittled" his role in Youngkin's win. And it's true enough that "after winning the GOP nomination and Trump’s endorsement, Youngkin stopped dropping Trump’s name."

Trump had told the “John Fredericks Radio Show” ("America's Godzilla of the TRUTH!" which broadcasts out of Goochland, Va.) that “the only guys that win are the guys that embrace the MAGA movement. When they try to go down a railroad track … ‘Oh, yeah, love Trump. Love Trump. Okay, let’s go, next subject.’ When they do that, nobody, they don’t — they never win. They never win. They have to embrace it.”

Youngkin was still walking that tightrope when he gave his first post-election interview to Fox News's Tucker Carlson (the faint praise for an unnamed DJT got noticed): “We had help from everybody. We had a huge support from the Latino community. You know, the president made a call and asked everybody to get out and vote. And we had big turnout in southwest Virginia. We saw parents turn out.”

When you have an ego as large as Trump's and you're mentioned after the Latinos -- why, boy, you got some groveling to do!

"Roe told others privately that he did not want Trump to visit the state and that it would be harmful to Youngkin, according to a political operative who spoke with Roe about it. Trump told Roe that he would like to see his supporters publicly given more credit for the victory, two people familiar with the meeting said. Trump called Youngkin several times to give him advice in the race and talk about the numbers in the state...."

Youngkin's win, without throwing himself into Trump's arms, is supposed to signal that Trump's influence in the Republican Party is fading. That's a fiercely debated topic. But when you have to make your pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring, you're not a free man.

Virginia Democrats Dodge Progressives and Nominate Establishment Types for Statewide Offices

 

Yesterday in their primary election, Virginia Democrats eschewed the more progressive candidates for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general and opted for "safe" establishment Democrats.

Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe easily won the primary for governor, besting not one but two Black women candidates. 

Although Hala Ayala, who won the race for lieutenant governor, is a multi-racial woman of color, she's somewhat notoriously backed by Virginia’s largest electric utility, Dominion Energy, which gave her $100,000 in the closing days of her campaign against the progressive candidate Sam Rasoul.

Incumbent Attorney General Mark R. Herring won his primary against Black challenger Jay Jones, who was interestingly endorsed by the sitting Virginia governor, Ralph Northam. Jones had criticized Herring for turning a blind eye on police misconduct.

That slate will be up against a Trump-endorsed Republican team in a test this fall of any lingering penumbra of power associated with the former president. Will progressives turn out?

For a Republican To Win Virginia's Governership, He Needs To Hide

 

Interesting analysis by Laura Vozzella appeared yesterday in the WashPost documenting how Republican nominee for Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin has gone all moderate-by-means-of-omission since winning the Republican nomination. The piece is headlined "Glenn Youngkin, GOP nominee for Virginia governor, goes mum on guns and abortion."

Whaaa! No guns and abortion? But that's the essential GOP kindling for a bonfire of the vanities.

But smart(er) Virginia conservatives are going "Shaaa! It's more important to win the suburbs than continue to stroke Jimmie Sue and Radley Joe in their post-rural cultural crusades. Youngkin's just being strategic." Also dishonest.

Get this: Youngkin didn't fill out a single candidate survey from interest groups, including the very long one from the National Rifle Association -- "a first in recent memory for a successful statewide GOP nominee." And his campaign website has no "issues" page, where he might stand a chance of scaring the soccer moms.

And he's gone cagey with the press: "Asked during an interview with The Washington Post on Friday how he would like to change state laws on guns and abortion, Youngkin repeatedly evaded the topics. When pressed, he noted that he is 'pro-life' and that he will 'stand up for our constitutional rights.' But to every request for specific policy goals on abortion and guns, two of his signature issues, Youngkin offered the same jobs-schools-safety mantra."

Will it work?

That depends heavily on who the Democrats nominate, which will happen in the June 8th primary. I tried to write thumbnail profiles of all the diverse Democratic candidates here. The eventual winner could end up being a dynamic Black woman, Jennifer Carolyn Foy. Or Terry McAuliffe.

Virginia Republicans Pick a Trumpist to Run for Governor, Though Not the Trumpiest

 

Glenn Youngkin.
Photo by Bill O'Leary, WashPost

Last Saturday, at their disassembled state convention, Virginia Republicans nominated Glenn Youngkin as their candidate for governor in this year's state elections. Youngkin is the former co-chief executive of the Carlyle Group, a global private equity giant, and he had emphatically embraced the politics of Donald Trump. Worth an estimated $254  million, the political newcomer highlights his up-by-the-bootstraps biography, including a stint in his teens washing dishes at a Virginia Beach diner to help support his family. Youngkin claimed that he had raised $1 million from supporters in the first 10 days of his campaign.

Youngkin is a Trumpist running in a state that has turned decidedly bluer during the last several elections, but he wasn't the most dangerously Trumpist of the candidates running last Saturday. That would be Amanda Chase, currently the pistol-packing "Trump in high heels" who occupies a seat in the state senate (a seat recently encased in a plastic shield -- no, really -- because Chase refuses to wear a mask) who earned herself a bipartisan censure from her fellow senators for praising the Capitol insurrectionists as "patriots." She's the principal reason Republican Party leaders were desperate to keep this race out of a primary. They were terrified she could win a primary and go on to crash the whole party in November. 

Now that'll be Glenn Youngkin's job.

Footnote: The most qualified Republican candidate for the job, Kirk Cox, was eliminated from contention in an early round of ranked-choice voting. He's been in the Virginia House of Delegates for three decades, and in his party's salad days, he served as majority leader and then as Speaker of the House. His voting record is not that different from Amanda Chase's, but Cox tries to project a non-Trumpist and "sane conservative" image. His one striking departure from Republican orthodoxy: He swerved on the issue of expanding Medicaid in the state under the Affordable Care Act, so to the Trumpists he's a traitor.

Improved Voting Access in Virginia; North Carolina, Eat Your Heart Out!

 

Virginia General Assembly

With Democrats in unified control of Virginia since the elections of 2019 (governor and both houses of the state lege), they made easier access to voting their top priority, and look at what they accomplished:

Open absentee voting for anyone who wants to cast a ballot early or to vote by mail, not just those who have an acceptable excuse. Almost 60 percent of voters cast absentee ballots last year. 

Legislators also approved ballot drop-off boxes, prepaid postage for ballot return envelopes, and a formalized process allowing voters to correct errors in their paperwork.

Repeal of Virginia’s mandatory photo ID rule, making registration near-automatic through the DMV, and passage of a state-level voting rights law that creates a stricter review process for any local election changes that might discriminate against racial or linguistic minorities. 

A proposed constitutional amendment that, if approved by voters, would automatically restore felons’ voting rights upon release from prison.

A bill allowing ranked-choice voting in local races.

 Legislation allowing same-day voter registration is scheduled to begin for the 2022 general election.

 

Who Will Be the Next Governor of Virginia?

 

Virginia is a weirdo state in so many ways, going from Old Confederacy red to progressive blue in just a handful of election cycles. Both senators are Democrats. Both houses of their state lege, ditto. Governor, lieutenant guv, attorney general -- all Democrats. And the state went decisively for Joe Biden last fall.

Virginia is also weird in that its major state elections are in odd-numbered years, like this one, when it will elect a new governor (and the rest of its statewide officers and members of the state lege). So there's a scrum of candidates for governor on both sides. The Trumpists are predicting a MAGA resurgence; the Democrats are hoping for continued forward momentum. It's kind of a circus with lots of clowns.

The Democrats

The Democratic nominee for Governor of Virginia will be decided in a June 8 primary election. It's gonna be something to watch.

Terry McAuliffe

Yes, that Terry McAuliffe, the former govenor (2013-2017). Another weirdness: Virginia allows only a single 4-year term for its governors but allows them to come back for a 2nd go after someone else holds the job. McAuliffe is an old pal of the Clintons and served as their pick to head the Democratic National Committee, so he has a fat rolodex of potential donors. He's raised the most money so far, some $6 million just since last year. A slick operator, McAuliffe spent his years out of office raising big money for other Democrats running in the state, so he's got plenty of friends. He's been endorsed by many in the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, ironic considering the next candidate down this list. From all I can discern, he was a popular governor, free of major scandal, but he's now a pain in the ass to younger, more progressive Democrats for returning for a second dip in the pool.

Jennifer Carroll Foy

Elected in the first blue wave of 2017 to the Virginia House of Delegates. She resigned her seat in December to concentrate on her race for governor. She's raised a respectable $1.9 million. She received her bachelor's degree from the Virginia Military Institute (and thereby hangs a tale of tough perseverance, surviving the hazing of all those white boys who didn't think she belonged). She earned her law degree from the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego. Her professional experience includes working as an attorney and public defender, serving as an adjunct professor of criminal law at Northern Virginia Community College, and serving as a magistrate. She also founded a nonprofit organization called the Foundation for Foster and Orphan Children. She's gotten lots of national attention as another potential Stacey Abrams.

Justin Fairfax

Currently the lieutenant governor of Virginia, Fairfax might have been considered "next in line" for the top job, but a sexual assault scandal has hurt him. Two women came forward and accused him of separate incidents of sexual assault from the early 2000s. Fairfax, a former federal prosecutor, has repeatedly denied the charges and called for law enforcement to investigate. Lawyers for both women have said they would rather participate in legislative hearings, a prospect Fairfax’s team has called a “show trial.” Probably as a result of this cloud, Fairfax's fundraising has been noticeably anemic.

 

Jennifer McClellan

The other Black woman in the race. A long serving member of the House of Delegates, she was elected to a Virginia Senate seat in the same 2017 wave that put Carolyn Foy in office. McClellan's law degree is from the University of Virginia School of Law, a pedigree that propelled her into a prominent career as a corporate lawyer. She's currently third in the money race with $1.1 million. She's considered "steady and cerebral," and she opted to keep her seat in the senate while campaigning for governor.  She highlights her work on significant legislation, such as sponsoring the first Voting Rights Act to be approved by a Southern state. She could split the Black vote with Carolyn Foy, thus advantaging Terry McAuliffe.

Lee J. Carter

Currently a member of the House of Delegates, Carter proudly dons the mantle of Bernie Sanders and calls himself a socialist. He's raised little money. But he's described as a "red-headed fiery populist" on the liberal, pro-worker-rights spectrum. He's an ex-Marine, which adds a little punch to his gospel of the "have-nots" needing to rise up against the "haves." “For too long, we’ve listened to career politicians and pundits tell us that there is no other way,” Carter said in his launch video. “But no more. In this primary we can finally pick a governor that will fight for the rest of us.”

The Republicans

The Virginia Republican Party is split and fighting right now over how to even select their candidate for governor. The non-Trumpists are trying to force the nomination into a convention, while the Trumpists want a bare-knuckles primary. Here's background on that.

Amanda F. Chase  

Currently the pistol-packing "Trump in high heels" who occupies a seat in the state senate (a seat recently encased in a plastic shield -- no, really -- because Chase refuses to wear a mask) who earned herself a bipartisan censure from her fellow senators for praising the Capitol insurrectionists as "patriots." She's the principal reason Republican Party leaders are desperate to keep this race out of a primary. They're terrified she could win a primary and go on to crash the whole party in November. As of the end of 2020, Chase had about $235,000, cash on hand.

 

Kirk Cox

He's been in the Virginia House of Delegates for three decades, and in his party's salad days, he served as majority leader and then as Speaker of the House. His voting record is not that different from Amanda Chase's, but Cox tries to project a non-Trumpist and "sane conservative" image. His one striking departure from Republican orthodoxy: He swerved on the issue of expanding Medicaid in the state under the Affordable Care Act, so to the Trumpists he's a traitor. As of Dec. 31, Cox had about $691,000 cash on hand. Cox and Chase are the only two of the six Republicans running who've ever held public office before. 

Glenn Youngkin

Youngkin is the former co-chief executive of the Carlyle Group, a global private equity giant. Worth an estimated $254  million, the political newcomer highlights his up-by-the-bootstraps biography, including a stint in his teens washing dishes at a Virginia Beach diner to help support his family. Youngkin claimed that he had raised $1 million from supporters in the first 10 days of his campaign.

 

Pete Snyder

Snyder is a pioneer in social media marketing who unsuccessfully sought his party’s nomination for lieutenant governor in 2013. The establishment favorite then, Snyder now touts endorsements from hard-right figures including former state attorney general Ken Cuccinelli. A multimillionaire, Snyder has the ability and willingness to self-fund.

 Peter Doran

Doran is the former president of the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington, where he says he helped former Soviet bloc countries rebuild after “the ravages of socialism.” He’s promising to phase out the state’s income tax.

 Sergio de la Peña

De la Peña, a retired Army colonel, was born into poverty in Mexico and rose to a Pentagon post under Trump as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Western Hemisphere affairs.

 Note: Characterizations of some candidates, particularly the last four Republicans, taken from WashPost.

This Woman Wants To Be Governor of Virginia

The Virginia State Senate just censured Amanda Chase. The vote was bipartisan, 24-9, with several Republicans either voting "yea" or abstaining to signal their disapproval of her.

"Trump in High Heels,"
Amanda Chase.
Photo: Bob Brown, Richmond
Times-Dispatch

She's a long story. She was initially famous for wearing a .38 special on her hip in the Virginia Senate chamber. Check. You recognize her willingness to bully, right, as the hallmark of a Trumpist (even before there was a Trump on the national scene)? She especially savored, like Trump, defecating on the Republican "establishment." 

She was subsequently removed from three of her Senate committee posts last year "after her decision, in late 2019, to quit the Senate Republican Caucus to protest the reelection of caucus leaders who had criticized her after a string of controversies, including cursing at a Capitol Police officer over a parking spot."

A week ago she lost her last committee. The full Senate voted to dump her ass.

And now this. Censure, by a vote of 24-9, with at least eight fellow Republican senators aligned against her.

The censure resolution catalog: "Chase accused Democrats of 'treason' for their role in a 'stolen' presidential election; dismissed the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic; used social media to launch attacks on members of both parties that allegedly led to threats from the public; and said Sen. Jennifer L. McClellan (D-Richmond), who is also running for governor, couldn’t represent all Virginians because she helps lead the Black Caucus."

One of Chase's fellow Republican senators, who abstained from the vote, said that Chase's actions “represent to me a bit of a call for help, and I hope that she gets that help.”

 

She attended the Stop the Steal rally with President Trump at the Ellipse on January 6th but is said to have left before the storming of the Capitol. After she heard about the riot, she called the participants "patriots" and otherwise blamed all the violent acts on Antifa (who were presumably "in deep cover").

Shortly before the censure vote yesterday, and

at the urging of other lawmakers, Chase did, finally, denounce any white supremacists who might have had a role in the attack on the Capitol. And she said she was “sorry that I’ve hurt a lot of your feelings.”

But it was not enough to head off the vote.

 

Her Campaign for Governor

She first announced for the governorship almost a year ago, in February of 2020.  “I can’t take it anymore,” she said at the time, referring to “the liberal, socialistic agenda that has taken control of the Capitol.” Since then, she's expanded the things she can't take any more to establishment Republicans, and perhaps sensing that maybe she's a total longshot in a Republican primary, she says she'll run as an independent if the Republicans don't want her.

The Republicans of her Senate District 11 (mainly Chesterfield County, south of Richmond) seem to want her. They returned her to Richmond for a second 4-year term in 2019 with 54.5% of the vote. She attributes her staying power to being Trump "in heels" and plays to the authoritarian mindset: “People look at me and they say, ‘You know what? This girl’s got some brass balls,’ ” she said to laughs. “So you can throw whatever you want at me. ... I know with God, all things are possible and I won’t back down for anybody.”

As far as I can find, she has no campaign website (yet?), but she does have a Twitter account, where she suggests that we can best follow her on Parler.

Here's the Proposition and the Question

Looks like a purge of Trumpism by the Republican establishment in Virginia. If Virginia traditional Republicans get away with this, without suffering either physical or electoral damage, it would send a message to other Republican establishments in other purple-to-blue states that there really can be an end to "Trumpism" after all.

Dr. Cameron Webb, a Stand-Out To Flip a US House Seat in VA

I've paid attention to first-time Democratic candidates in our state and in the two states that flank us, north and south. Several of them won their seats 2 years ago. They, and the new young and not-entirely-young Federal candidates of 2020 elevate my spirit -- a pool of talent that's brimming, not drying up. (For the Talent Pool Census, you should add in all the first-time Democratic candidates for NC House and Senate that I've been nattering about all year long. For Federal office:

North Carolina

    Deborah Ross, in the 2nd CD 

    Kathy Manning, in the 6th CD

    Patricia Timmons-Goodson, in the 8th CD

    Cynthia Wallace, in the 9th CD

    Moe Davis, in the 11th CD

    Cal Cunningham, for US Senate 

South Carolina

Joe Cunningham, in the 1st CD

Adair Boroughs, in the 2nd CD

Moe Brown, in the 5th CD

Jaime Harrison, for US Senate

Virginia

Elaine Luria, in the 2nd CD

Cameron Webb, in the 5th CD

Abigail Spanberger, in the 7th CD

Jennifer Wexton, in the 10th CD

I check in on these folks sporadically, trolling for video usually, as I do appreciate production values. Tickled to find this new introduction to Cameron Webb up in the 5th District of Virginia. Way back in the spring, he shared a headline here after his surprise (and out-sized) primary win in the 5th District of Virginia: "The Wow Factor".

I don't know who produced this, but it's good. Highlights a detail for me that sticks because it illuminates character -- that Webb actually served out the end of his White House Fellowship in the  Trump administration and found a way to stick with it, despite the Trump animus toward a hold-over Obama admin advisor. He says they treated him with suspicion, moved his desk into the hall and then took it away altogether, yet when the White House staff was blind-sided by a presidential tweet promising lower drug prices, and because Cameron Webb was there as a medical doctor with valuable experience (not to mention a law degree), they actually asked his advice, and he was able to ameliorate some early Trump admin moves on health care.

Cook Political Report rates the 5th CD of Virginia as "Lean Republican," R + 6. That's an improvement over their earlier "Safe Republican." R + 6 ain't insurmountable, not in a wave year. The 5th is an open seat, after all, and the Republican blow-hard running for it -- a dude ironically named Bob Good -- decided that of all the issues he needed to run on and needed to win with in 2020, gender identity rose right to the top, like a turd full of fiber. He's kind of a bully, especially the way he trashed the incumbent Republican to win his primary. That same specter of bullying the weak that turned so many suburban Republican women against Trump could mean trouble for Good in the suburban sprawl around Charlottesville.

So, yeah, "lean Republican," like a willow leans.

Republicans, Campaigning on Your Slavishness to Trumpism Will Only Get You So Far

Virginia will now have Democratic majorities in both houses of its state legislature, the first time since 1993. With a Democratic governor, expect new gun control measures, LGBTQ protections, and climate control initiatives guaranteed to give conservatives some acid reflux. Twitterman did not visit Virginia ahead of this election to rally Republicans, but despite his absence, voters did not appear to forget who's president. At least two seats flipped to Democratic in the state senate and at least five flipped in the House of Delegates. One district elected the first Muslim woman to the house.

In Kentucky, moderate Democrat Andy Beshear is ahead in the governor race by just over 5,000 votes, but Republican incumbent Matt Bevin, a truculent Trumpist who had sought to turn his reelection campaign into a referendum on Trump, is not conceding. All other state-wide races in Kentucky went to Republicans, a suggestion that it really was the unpopular Bevin who lost and not the Republican Party generally.

But it was the president himself who stood alongside Bevin on Monday night in Lexington to argue that, while the combative governor is “a pain in the ass,” his defeat would send “a really bad message” beyond Kentucky’s borders.

Yep. Message received.

"Stand Against Trumpism!" Democrats Should Forget About Fading to "Pabulum Moderate"

The General Elections are now a year away, and it's a time for high anxiety in both camps. I won't characterize what gives both sides the willies. You know who you are. You know what scares you.

I was reading Rachel Bitecofer's analysis* about next Tuesday's election in the state directly to the north of us: "High Stakes in Virginia General Assembly Election will Preview 2020 Presidential." Bitecofer's a numbers gal, and I generally trust people who work with numbers.

*Rachel Bitecofer has become a political prognosticator to rival Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight. Bitecofer is assistant director of the Judy Ford Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia. In 2018 she predicted a 42-seat "blue wave" in the US House. Dems took 40 seats. No one else came close to her accuracy, including Nate Silver. She regularly offers opinions on Twitter.

Bitecofer saw the 2017 Virginia Blue Wave coming. That localized surge heralded the 2018 Blue Wave in the rest of the country. In Virginia in 2017, Democrats picked up some 15 seats in the state House and a handful in the Senate, putting them within single digits of having control of both chambers. Some Trump-lite Republican incumbents immediately went into a political crouch. A few -- enough as it turned out -- flinched on health care, broke ranks to join Democrats in passing an expansion of Medicaid. Many another suburban Republican temporarily forgot the name Trump and showed some bland interest in gun reform. Then what followed immediately? The Virginia Blue Wave of 2018 flipped three US House seats and absolutely buried Senator Tim Caine's hyper-conservative opponent. Scared out of their wits, Republican candidates running up-hill races this year are suddenly going hard right to keep their troops in line. We'll see Tuesday if that tactic worked.

Bitecofer's great discovery (still undiscovered by too many Democratic candidates): It was not suburban Republicans who made the Blue Wave in 2018. It was "a whole different pool of voters" -- largely independents -- who hadn't been voting, or who only voted inconsistently, who suddenly showed up at the polls: "college-educated women; millennials and Gen Z voters; minority voters; and Independents who 'lean' left or at least don’t 'lean' right." What motivated them? "These voters, whether they know it or not, have been galvanized to the polls via negative partisanship because of the election of Donald J. Trump. Trump has shaken into action a sleeping demographic giant...."

In Virginia and elsewhere.

Bitecofer's lesson which some Democratic candidates refuse to learn: Winning over Republican voters doesn't make a wave. Winning new voters makes the wave. Bitecofer: Where Republicans voted in 2018 in huge numbers, they voted for Republicans. Democrats can't and won't win them. It's new voters that Democrats need, and you don't win new voters in the Age of Trump by going "moderate Democrat." The new voters are enraged by Trump. You harness their rage by showing you're willing to stand and fight Trumpism with progressive ideas. You strongly reassert the traditional American values that Trump has shat upon. (If only Dan McCready had believed the Bitecofer data! If only he had gone full progressive warrior, instead of pabulum moderate.)

Here's the Bitecofer revelation about 2018: "...in many districts, especially where the candidates were focusing on being moderate, the Democratic turnout still underperformed its potential, and still underperformed turnout among Republicans...." The pathetic loss in the NC-9 special election in September could have been reversed if Dan McCready had inspired more enthusiasm among non-traditional voters. That's a warning for Cal Cunningham running for US Senate next year.

Basic algebra: If the election of Trump woke a giant, the impeachment of Trump -- and his acquittal by Republican lickspittles in the Senate -- surely won't put the giant to sleep. Will it?

The substance of things already achieved is less than the evidence of things not yet seen.

Three Elections To Watch Next Tuesday

Virginia
Democrats are two seats away from taking the state house and one seat away from taking the state senate. The odds are good. The governorship is not up this year. With the power to redistrict the state after the 2020 Census hanging in the balance, campaign money has been flowing into the races, with Democrats far out-raising Republicans.

The results here next Tuesday will be considered a bellwether for other down-ballot Democrats in other states for 2020.

Kentucky
Republican incumbent Governor Matt Bevin, said to be the most unpopular governor in the nation, appears to be trailing his Democratic opponent Andy Beshear, the son of Steve Beshear, the last Democratic governor of Kentucky whom Matt Bevin defeated four years ago. So this race is something of a grudge match.

The fact that Bevin has lashed himself to Donald Trump may also make this governor race something of a bellwether for 2020. Bevin, who was down by 9 points in August, reframed the race as an opportunity for Kentucky voters to bark back at the impeachment inquiry in Washington. Will that attempt to nationalize Kentucky politics work? Dunno. But I'll sure as hell be watching.

Jim Hood and Tate Reeves

Mississippi
The governor race between Democrat Jim Hood, currently the state's attorney general and the only statewide elected Democrat in Mississippi, and Republican Tate Reeves, currently the lieutenant governor, has been a punch-fest of dirty tricks (your standard letters to black voters telling them they're not registered to vote and will be arrested) and nasty TV ads. Both candidates have accused the other of being unethical. Objectively, they may both be correct.

Every time he appears on TV, the Democrat appears to have more marbles in his mouth and shoots more guns at beer bottles. The Republican, for his part, crawls ever farther up Trump's ass. Twitterman, in fact, will appear in Mississippi tonight at a bragging rally nominally meant to benefit Tate Reeves.

I can't bring myself to much care who wins the race, but if it happens to be Jim Hood, then the national press is going to make something of it. I probably will too.

Big Trouble for Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates

Short, unkind story
The courts recently threw out Republican-drawn maps for the Virginia House of Delegates. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court, with the Republican leaders in the Virginia House arguing vociferously that they had not racially gerrymandered the maps. Courts said, yes you did, and now you'll have new maps drawn by a special master. (The Virginia Senate maps were not part of the litigation.)

Virginia Democrats were already within two seats of controlling both the House and the Senate. They made huge gains in the last elections in 2017, and they intend to take both houses in the elections of  2019. Yeah, Virginia is for lovers.

Kirk Cox,
Speaker of the Virginia
House of Delegates

One of those Republican legislative leaders who went to the Supremes for reprieve, and who was going to be most devastated by remapping, happened to be Kirk Cox, the speaker of the House, "the most powerful Republican in Virginia" (WashPost). Cox's 66th House District suddenly went from R+25.5 to D+6.5. His former District had been 76 percent white. Now it's 58 percent, with 34 percent black citizens. Cox has 30,000 new constituents he doesn't know.

Good reading about Kirk Cox in the WashPost. Interesting politician, and a strong one. He's "a reserved Christian conservative steeped in the intricacies of policy and parliamentary procedure. He supports gun rights and opposes abortion. But he has mostly tried to keep a lid on social legislation that has caused problems for his party, most notably in 2012, with an uproar over a bill that would have required most women seeking an abortion to first undergo a vaginal ultrasound. He has had certain hot-button bills — from conservatives and liberals alike — killed in committees."

Not only moderate but courageous at times, and personable. He spent his working life as a teacher of social studies in middle schools. He taught -- successfully and with good vibes -- many African-American children of parents and aunts and uncles and cousins of some of those 30,000 new constituents. He relates well. According to Laura Vozella, he's showing up directly in the black neighborhoods he's now inherited, talking directly to black voters, and winning black votes. “It’s a challenge,” he said. “It’s also an opportunity. You have to look at it that way ... I always say, ‘I’d like to earn your vote.’ ”

Sheila Bynum-Coleman

The Democratic Challenger
Sheila Bynum-Coleman is a young (47) African-American woman who almost won a seat in the Virginia House in 2017. She came within 815 votes of beating a Republican incumbent in a different district (against whom she had also run in 2015 and got trounced). She's been remapped for 2019 into Cox's district, and she's coming on strong.

"Bynum-Coleman is a building contractor." I had to read that line twice, and then I went looking. She's indeed listed on the Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation as a "single-family residential contractor" and as a member of the Virginia State Licensing Board for Contractors. That's pretty powerful in its own right. She's got to be tactically smart and knows what she's doing.

She has a political science degree from Virginia Commonwealth University and tells an impassioned personal story -- "A son with a learning disability. A daughter who was shot. A cousin rejected by a landlord because she is married to another woman .... ‘We don’t rent to y’all,’ she says her cousin was told. 'Right here in Richmond, Virginia. How is that possible in 2019?' ”

Crystal Balling
If hardcore Trumpists in Cox's district are as insane about moderate Republicans as they are in North Carolina, and consequently have no enthusiasm for coming out to vote on November 5 for Cox...

And if the strong blue wave is still rolling in Virginia in 2019 like it was in 2017...

Then the remapping of Cox's District 66 will have been the fatal blow and the last straw.

But if Republican hardliners hang with him, and if the fabled blue wave of 2017 has fizzled in 2019, Cox can survive on his deep community commitments and his personality.

NOTE
Cox is not the only Republican incumbent in both House and Senate who has strong Democratic challengers. Even if Cox can hold onto his seat, he may not hold onto the speakership.