One thing to remember about McAuliffe if he loses

[Tony_FLADEM]

If you remember the 2013 election he was running against Ken Cuccinelli and the race was surprisingly close.

Glenn Youngkin is a much more polished candidate than Cuccinelli.

If McAuliffe could barely beat an unappealing extremist, it's not surprising he is having difficulty with a better candidate.

[brooklynite]

1. In which case, he shouldn't have been the nominee...

[jaysunb]

14. + 1000. Nt

[lagomorph777]

23. Who did you vote for in the primary?

[brooklynite]

25. I don't live in Virginia and don't support candidates in their Primary phase...

[lagomorph777]

26. Ah, so you prefer to complain after the fact, about Dem voters in other states?

[brooklynite]

28. I prefer to analyze campaigns as they proceed.

I'm not aware that the only people who can criticize the performance of a candidate are those who supported someone else.

[Polybius]

2. True

Here's the final polls of 2013. McAuliffe averaged 6 points, and won by 2. Which means the Republican outperformed by 4 points. Not good.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2013/governor/va/virginia_governor_cuccinelli_vs_mcauliffe-3033.html

[Drunken Irishman]

6. On the flipside, Northam out-performed polls by a wide margin.

So, clearly this is a McAuliffe issue.

I suspect tomorrow he's going to lose by a fairly comfortable margin.

[spooky3]

12. It could be a "McAuliffe issue", or it could be a function of what else is going on

at the time. Right now is not a good time to be running as a Democrat.

[karynnj]

19. This is speculation at this point as there have been few elections

Phil Murphyseems to be doing fine in NJ.

IMO, Mcauliffe was always over rated as a politician. He was very successful raising money in the Clinton years, some times cutting corners. I remember him as a terrible advocate in HRC'S 2008 campaign. He also seemed to be a very successful governor.Though the trend everyone noted was that it is usually the party that loses the presidency that wins, a different less exciting trend is that Virgina has moved from a mostly red state to purple or even blue violet.

One question I have for Virginians is whether he ever put out an ad taking clips of Younkin switching between Trumpy words to the right and more temperate words to more old style Republicans.

[spooky3]

22. The situations in NJ and Virginia are not entirely comparable.

NJ is more reliably blue than is VA, which still has a lot of "conservative" exurban and rural areas.

Biden won NJ by nearly 16 percentage points over Trump, but the margin was about 10 percentage points in Virginia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election_in_New_Jersey

And now, Murphy is up about 8 percentage points in the polls, half of Biden's margin (if it translates into votes). McAuliffe is up about 1 percentage point. So they are both about 8 percentage points below Biden's showing in 2020. That suggests to me that this is not an easy year for Democrats who are running.

Also, Youngkin has spent MUCH more money on ads and other campaign activities than has Murphy's opponent.

[msongs]

3. one wonders why dems chose a retread who has allowed the repub to set the agenda nt

[spooky3]

11. Because he was a damn good governor. And "Dems" didn't choose him to run this year;

voters did (VA has open primaries), over multiple other candidates, and by a wide margin.

https://ballotpedia.org/Virginia_gubernatorial_election,_2021_(June_8_Democratic_primary)

Here is WaPo's endorsement of him, which also answers your question:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/16/virginia-governor-endorsement-mcauliffe-editorial-board/

[BlueCheeseAgain]

18. He won 61% of the vote in a five-way race.

Over 40 points ahead of the second-place finisher.

[MontanaMama]

5. Breathe.

It’s going to be okay.

[tenderfoot]

7. I have a feeling this will be another only 34 out of tens of thousands kind of results

in favor of McAuliffe

[RandySF]

9. Two things to note.

1. It was a year before a big Republican mid-term.
2. McAuliffe disrupted what was typically an eight-year partisan cycle.

[BlueCheeseAgain]

17. The second point is especially important.

[spooky3]

10. McAuliffe was a much better governor than he is a campaigner. I

just hope enough Virginians remember how good he was. Only one ad that I have seen properly touted his achievements.

It's been a ugly campaign full of lies and misleading statements by Youngkin. He also has poured tons of his own money (plus donations from other rich Republicans) into advertising, which Cuccinelli didn't have. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people living the exurbs who want their taxes lowered, and people in rural areas who will vote Repub because they still like Trump.

However, I predict that McAuliffe will win by a slim margin.

[MFM008]

13. wow just wow

Can we see the votes first.
All this doom and gloom is playing right into republicans hands.
All this is designed to DEPRESS democrat turnout.
PERIOD.
if dems come out we win.
If they DONT....... they get Texas.
This freak is a maggot wannabe.
If something happens put the blame where it really belongs---- on MANCHIN ANS SINEMA
for killing our agenda.

[Progressive Jones]

15. Thank You. nt

[brooklynite]

27. A post on DU is going to have no impact on voting whatsoever.

[BlueCheeseAgain]

16. McAuliffe was the only Virginia governor in the last 40 years...

... to win his election when his party held the White House.

So what might seem like a closer-than-necessary win was actually kind of a historic event.

[spooky3]

21. Good point. And if he does it again this year, and I think he will,

he will be the only one to have done it twice--also historic.

[FSogol]

20. Screw that noise, GET OUT THE VOTE.

[lagomorph777]

24. What should we remember about him, WHEN HE WINS?

Last edited Tue Nov 2, 2021, 01:55 PM - Edit history (1)