I know you guys must hate it when I repeat myself, but guess what? Political news is ever changing. And when it changes, it’s my job to bring it to you, even if it sometimes leads to a little repetition. You have my word, this will be the last time I go here until at least early November.
believe it or not, there were actually two special elections last night, and they couldn’t be more desperate. And between them, they should have alarm bells going on all over the GOP.
The first one was a special election in Pennsylvania for an open state House seat. This is critical due to the razor thin Democratic majority in the PA House. But it also wasn’t much of a mystery. It’s a solid blue district that went +18 for Biden in 2020. No surprise, the Democrat won, but here’s the McGuffin. The 32 year old African American woman won by a whopping +30. That was a Democratic overperformance of +12 on a September special election where the race was the only one on the ballot.
The 2nd one was a special election in New Hampshire, again for an open state House seat. But the dynamics couldn’t be more different. This is a red leaning district in a suburb of Concord, which went +6 for Trump in 2020. But last night the Democratic candidate won the seat +12. That means a +18 swing in a critical swing district. Once again for a one off election in the middle of September.
Please. Do your coronary arteries a favor. Stop hyperventilating over these polls showing Biden and Trump neck-and-neck. Sane people correctly refer to these polls, especially this far out, They catch a moment in time for national, state, or issue feeling in the country, or wherever the poll was taken. But stuff like last night are hard results. People showed up. People voted. And the results were tabulated. It doesn’t get any more real than that.
I have written previously that I ended up accurately predicting the Blue Tsunami in 2018 for a 40 seat flip due largely to the results I saw in the 2017 special and off year elections. While the Democrats didn’t actually flip any seats in special elections, all of which were held in safe red districts, but the Democrats overperformed by an amazing average of +22. More importantly, in the November Virginia off year elections, the Democrats literally came within a coin flip of deadlocking the Virginia House.
And in 2023, the results aren’t much less impressive. If I understand the polling sub tabs correctly, the aggregate averages include special elections like the GOP inspired ballot initiative in Ohio to raise the bar for passing a ballot initiative to amend the state constitution from a simple majority to a 60% supermajority. And in the rolling average, so far this year the Democrats are +12 in the special and off year elections. Not bad, when critical swing districts are mostly decided by +/- 2.5 points.
The reason I swore I would leave you alone about this topic until early November is because that is when Virginia will have their off year elections. And this should be interesting. In 2021, billionaire douchebag Glen Youngkin rode to a GOP victory after a pathetic campaign from Democrat Terry McAuliffe. Per Virginia law, a sitting Governor can’t succeed himself, so Youngkin will be out in 2025.
And so the sniveling Youngkin is slowly and slyly turning MAGA to lay the groundwork for a 2028 GOP presidential run. But fortunately the Democrats kept stoppers in the legislature, and are able to stymie his MAGA impulses. This will be interesting. If the Democrats roll in 2023 in Virginia, it will be a direct repudiation of Trumpism going into 2024. If the GOP retakes the House, that could be a warning sign for Democrats in a purple state.
My personal prediction? The Democrats will roll in Virginia in November, for one simple reason. The numbers don’t lie. In 201y, 2019, 2021, and so far in 2023, Trump’s lunatic base has shown every time that they don’t show up when Traitor Tot isn’t on the ballot, no matter how much the pretenders try to model themselves after Trump. And in the meantime, El Pendejo Presidente and his GOP acolytes keep throwing red meat to the Democrats to show up and shut them down. I see no reason why this year should be any different. If Virginia goes blue in November, start watching for a slew of moderate GOP swing district retirements going into the primaries.
You do play a sweet tune Joe…keep fiddling.
I hope “Democrats will roll in Virginia in November”, but we can use help ($)! I’ve given one suggestion: Joshua Cole (House 65). A few more are Aaron Rouse (Senate 22), Lahrecse Aird (Senate 13), and Joel Griffin (Senate 27)….
Yeah, I know, I’m at it again, but I see VA as the proverbial canary….plus I just can’t stand the thought of being in a red state again!
I get ruben gallegos texts every day sometimes twice a day. give me a reason to back these candidates. Are they swing districts? Will my money be well spent? Not that I am a huge donor, but sell me on them.
I got stationed there in the 1980s and even after leaving active duty lived in northern VA for a long while. The better part of twenty years and even when I dropped out of the beltway rat-race for WV I was only a few miles over the border. Winchester was 20 min. down I-81 and I even had a couple of relationships including a serious one for a while over in northern VA in the ten years I lived in WV. But the thing is, I got my TV via satellite and just like cable in the area the news was from DC outlets so I stayed well-versed in goings on in VA. I was sick inside when McCaualiffe elbowed his way into being the Democratic candidate. I feared he would suck (again) and he did and that gaffe in Loudoun County at about the worst possible time allowed Younkin to slither into the Governor’s mansion. And helped other GOPers win, turning a state trending from purple to light blue back into a purple state with a tinge of red. I’ve got my fingers crossed that having seen Youngkin is not just a slimy and awful but even worse than feared that Democrats and sane Independents in Virginia will turn out in droves and knock the GOP on it’s collective ass.
Once upon a time special and off-year elections were the province of the GOP but since 2017 we’ve finally woken up to the FACT that we can’t just turn out in Presidential years. Or even in Presidential and mid-term general election years. We have to turn out in big numbers EVERY election. Democrats should have denied McCauliffe the nomination in the first place. But they didn’t. There’s a lot of ground to recover so my fervent hope is that GOTV in Virginia is ramping up and out there in force as early voting is almost here.
So do I Janet, and that’s why I keep highlighting it in these articles…
I donated to a campaign once. I got deluged with e-mail for the next year and a half asking for donations. I got a lot of snail mail too. I am glad that I did not give my phone number. I will never donate again since I cannot do so anonymously. Obviously my name, email, and address (which were required for donation) were put on a list and either sold or given away to everyone on earth!
I feel that the collection and selling (or giving away) of information for any reason should be outlawed, with large fines and double digit jail terms as penalties!
You can always “Unsubscribe” if you don’t want to continue to get emails.