A year ago today, I posted “Don’t Celebrate Yet, Virginia”, wherein I had this to say about the election of Glenn Youngkin, Virginia’s first Republican governor in eight years:
Gratifying as the resurgence of Virginia’s GOP may be, I’m not ready to declare Virginia’s return to Red-ness. For one thing, there’s an underlying trend toward Blue-ness, which shows up in Virginia’s presidential election results:
Derived from Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. The series for Virginia begins with the gubernatorial election of 1949,which is the earliest for which Leip as posted popular-vote tallies.
The GOP’s edge in the presidential election peaked in 1968, the year of George Wallace, who (in the South) siphoned votes from the Democrat candidate. If 1968 doesn’t suit as a peak year, because of the Wallace effect, then the peak certainly occurred in 1984, with the re-election of Ronald Reagan. In either case, the GOP candidate’s share of Virginia’s presidential vote has been in decline for decades, and seems unlikely to recover unless there is a nationwide shift away from the Democrat party. Such a shift might occur, given the Dems’ suicide pact with the far-left, but cooler heads may yet prevail among party leaders.
It’s true that the downswing in the GOP’s hold on Virginia’s governorship hasn’t been as pronounced — which supports Tip O’Neill’s observation that all politics are local. But the GOP’s edge in the past has been much greater than the razor-thin victory eked out by Glenn Youngkin in the recent election.
Nor is that victory especially impressive when the swing toward the GOP in 2021 is compared with earlier swings:
Source: Leip’s Atlas.
What probably happened in the 2021 election is what seems to have been happening since the early 1970s. The Virginia gubernatorial election reflects a typical “mid-term” reaction to the previous year’s presidential election. When the GOP presidential candidate racks up a gain relative to the showing of the GOP candidate four years earlier (a positive “swing”), the GOP gubernatorial candidate racks up a loss relative to the showing of the GOP candidate four years earlier (a negative “swing”). And conversely.
The results of the yesterday’s elections in Virginia bear out my pessimism. Governor Youngkin had hoped to flip the Virginia Senate, which Democrats held by 22-18, and hold (or build) the GOP lead in the House of Delegates, which Republicans held by 52-48.
At this moment, it looks like the Democrats will continue to hold the Senate, by 21-19, while reclaiming the House by a margin of 51-49.
The outcome in Virginia reflects America’s descent into depravity.
There was, for example, a close race in Virginia’s 57th House district. The Democrat who made it a close race is none other than Susanna Gibson. It is Gibson who raised funds for her election campaign by performing sex acts with her husband and uploading the videos to a porn site.
The big issue in Virginia was abortion — of course.
The failure of the GOP to retake the Senate had much to do with the campaign in the 16th district, where I live. The Republican incumbent lost to a Democrat in a contest that centered on abortion. Democrats pounded on the issue in mailings and TV ads. Had the Republican won, the Senate would be tied 20-20, with the Republican lieutenant governor determining the outcome of tied votes. But the “right” to abortion carried the day for the Democrat.
The outcome in House races was similarly linked to the issue of abortion. Again, I saw at first hand the emphasis that was placed on abortion by Democrats in the race for the seat in the 58th district, where I live, and in a neighboring district that the GOP incumbent seems to have held by a narrow margin.
Virginia’s — and America’s descent into depravity is confirmed by the likes of The New York Times and The Washington Post, which hail the outcome of yesterday’s elections with headlines like these (in their online feeds):
Abortion Rights Fuel Big Democratic Wins, and Hopes for 2024
Abortion rights advocates win major victories in Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia
This of a piece with the open attacks on and mockery of religion (unless it’s Islam):
Let’s face it, the America that I knew — and which many Americans want to preserve — has been dying since the 1960s and is now dead.