Post Election Analysis: 10-1 or 8-3?
Chicago and Rupert Holmes on Big Surprises
Post Election Analysis
Virginia might not be 10-1 after all.
(Note the Virginia Tech mention - Go Hokies, your first national title will happen some day - Soil Testing and Bass Fishing notwithstanding)
Check out this - very early - data via X.com. This has not been verified yet.
With higher than expected turnout in the rural areas Virginia might have voted 8-3 vs. 10-1.
again - pending verification. Yes, I am saying that twice!
<End Scene>
The morning after any election, there’s a temptation to over read/think/feel the results.
Winners claim mandate.
Losers demand autopsy.
Both usually miss what’s staring them in the face.
What the numbers plainly say:
Virginia is a D+3 state and it performed D+3.
The analysis ends there.
Elections have three main elements:
Environment
Money
Candidate Quality
For this election 1 and 2 (environment and $) were clearly on the side of the Democrats in a D+3 state. Candidate Quality was a lone ballot question, so let’s call that a push.
Environmental Swings:
2008 - Democrat (Obama) wins Virginia 53-46 (+7)
2009 - Republican (McDonnell) wins Virginia 58-41(+17)
Swing - 24 points
2012 - Obama II - wins 51-47 (+4)
2013 - McAuliffe wins 47.75 to 45.2 (+2.5), but 6.5 points for Libertarian
Swing winnable for GOP - government shutdown and Obamacare website crash
2016 - Trump wins nationally; loses Virginia 49.75 - 44.4 to Hillary! (+5)
2017 - Northam wins 54-45 (+9)
More Dems +4
2020 - Biden wins nationally and Virginia 54-44 (+10)
2021 - Youngkin wins 50.5 - 48.6
Swing +12
2024 - Trump wins nationally; loses Virginia 51.8 - 46 (+5)
2025 - Spanberger wins 57-42 (+15)
More Dem +10
2026 - Democrats win 51.5-48.5 (+3)
Net from 2024?
GOP +2
What every serious observer should consider — Republican, Democrat, or neither — is what structural D+3 actually means for governance.
In the last decade, 31 House of Delegates seats have flipped from Republican to Democrat. Thirty-one.
That’s not a trend.
That’s a realignment, driven almost entirely by the advent of Donald Trump as a defining force in Virginia’s political culture. Suburban Virginia’s antipathy toward him is not shallow. It is intense, personal, and durable.
Republicans can be angry about that. Fine.
But here’s the honest question I’d put back to a Republican audience: would you prefer a Democratic president?
Because in Virginia, that’s the condition under which Republicans win back those seats and possibly the Executive Mansion.
That’s not spin — that’s just how this state has historically functioned. GOPeople haven’t adjusted their sails to that reality, and it shows.
On the ballot question itself, Republicans had a winnable argument. Polling I was involved with back in February showed a message that could move voters — specifically, using Abigail Spanberger’s own words from 2019 to persuade her coalition to stay home or reconsider.
Opponents of the ballot question didn’t deploy that message early enough, and they were massively outspent. Again.
When Youngkin and McAuliffe were on financial par, Youngkin prevailed. That’s not coincidence. Outspending your opponent by a lot, not a little, matters.
Yes, money matters.
Let’s pull back even further, because we need perspective.
People across the country were locked into a Virginia ballot question while the nation’s debt will cross $40 trillion in debt later this summer.
Nobody wants to talk about that.
We’re arguing about redistricting while mandatory entitlement spending threatens to swallow the federal budget whole. At some point, we owe future generations a reckoning with that — not another cycle of electoral theater.
What I found encouraging, oddly enough, is that the Madisonian system is still working.
The guardrails are being tested, but they’re holding. The people voted. Courts may still weigh in. Candidates will file. Campaigns will be run.
It’s messy, contentious, and sometimes dangerous — but it’s functioning.
Virginia is who we thought we were.
Closely divided, deeply divided, and still, somehow, deciding things together.
And without violence.
That’s the democratic republic our founders created.
That’s worth protecting — even when your side loses.
Rinse and repeat - thank, God.