Bold Dominion Crossover: What happened to Democrats in the 2021 Election?
Republican Glenn Youngkin will be the next Governor of Virginia, managing to erase decades of trends moving Virginia to the left. What went wrong for Terry McAuliffe and the Democrats swept out of power? The Bold Dominion podcast joined the Transition Team to discuss their first impressions as they process the results. What happened and what might happen next? Listen to find out.
Michael Pope
I'm Michael Pope.
Thomas Bowman
And I'm Thomas Bowman.
Michael Pope
And this is Transition Virginia, the podcast that has been examining the ongoing transition of power in Virginia politics since February 2020. And now of course, we've got a new transition. Republicans are coming into power after the election, and we've got a dynamite crossover episode with our friends from Bold Dominion. We are joined by Nathan Moore. It's good to talk to you good, Nathan.
Nathan Moore
Hey, good to see you, Michael. Well see, we're in different locations. Good to hear your voice, Michael.
Michael Pope
We're also joined by Katherine Hansen. Thanks for joining us.
Katherine Hansen
Thanks for having me.
Michael Pope
And returning to the podcast, Aaryan Balu.
Aaryan Balu
I leave the state of Virginia for what, 4, 3, 4 months, and this is what we end up with?
Michael Pope
Yeah, the redistricting commission falls apart and the Democrats lose their grip on power. So open question to the panel, for anyone that wants to take this jump ball, why did this happen? Republicans swept all three seats. How did this come about?
Nathan Moore
You know, Michael, before we totally jump into why, I think just a little bit more of what. You know, so we did see Glenn Youngkin win this by about two percentage points. That is very different from last year, when Biden won the state by, what, nine points? And very different from, you know, four years ago when Northam beat Ed Gillespie quite handily, by a whole lot of points, as well. Um, but you know, the other thing that happened here is that the General Assembly is going to switch hands. So it's not just that the Governor, and Lieutenant Governor, and Attorney General are all, were all won by Republicans, but also that the General Assembly has gone from a 55 to 45 Democratic majority, to probably a 51/49 GOP majority. And so we're going to have half of the legislature, and the Governor's Mansion, both in Republican hands here. The other thing that I want to talk about, just a little bit about, what happened is the turnout was enormous. This is the highest turnout in a gubernatorial election going back 30 years. And so that was kind of the wild thing when I was looking at some of the numbers on this, is that, you know, Terry McAuliffe, this is not a matter of Democrats staying home. 200,000 more people voted for Terry McAuliffe, than voted for Northam four years ago. But Glenn Youngkin, on the other hand, 500,000 more people voted for Glenn Youngkin, than who voted for Ed Gillespie in 2017. That means in 2017, the Republican candidate for Governor got 1.1 million votes, this year is 1.6 million. That is an enormous increase. Now, why?
Thomas Bowman
Well, there's gonna be a lot of post mortem done on this over the coming years, frankly, for the Democrats who just lost everything. But look, there's...I see two big flaws in Terry's campaign strategy. One, he didn't give Democrats a reason to come out and vote for him, specifically. And related to that, everything he did, in his advertisements, mentioned Glenn Youngkin by name, which is a huge, "No, no," that, you know, this is not my assertion. This is campaign basics 101. You never mention your opponent by name. And what he ended up doing is doing all of Glenn's work for him, tying him to the base, defining him as a base candidate, which meant that Glenn was free to just go after independents and moderates. There's going to be a lot to be said before the end of the day, but I think those two things are some of the biggest flaws in Terry's campaign strategy, because it doesn't work to try to tie somebody to Trump when Trump's not in office anymore.
Aaryan Balu
Totally, totally agreed. Terry McAuliffe didn't provide an affirmative position when Youngkin did, even if those positions are are things I don't find good, like sort of the railing against Critical Race Theory, charter schools, a lot of stuff that focused on children, which is worth diving into as well. But he got people excited to vote in a way that McAuliffe didn't. And the Trump thing was a play that absolutely didn't work.
Nathan Moore
Yeah, it's funny. I agree with both you, we're just gonna sit here and agree with each other all day.
Michael Pope
Well, wait a minute, let me disagree with something I disagree with.
Nathan Moore
Okay.
Michael Pope
Well, I mean, I wouldn't say disagree, necessarily. But, so Thomas said, he didn't really give voters a reason to vote for McAuliffe other than Trump. And I certainly agree that that's how people perceived it. I will say that the McAuliffe campaign did try to make the argument about increasing the minimum wage, and paid sick leave, and family and medical leave, and hazard pay. And you did hear McAuliffe talk about that quite a lot on the campaign trail, that did not pierce through to voters. And maybe he didn't make enough commercials about it. I don't know. But, I mean, he actually did have a message out there somewhere. But it got lost in all this talk about Trump.
Thomas Bowman
Well, he got off message, Michael. So that...there's plenty of things that he could have been running on. The Democrats in Richmond have had a lot of success legislatively over the last couple of years they've been in power. But, what he didn't get to do was frame everything the way he wanted to frame it, because as soon as he said that parents shouldn't have a say in their child's education. It riled up a lot of parents who didn't understand the nuance of that. And Glenn capitalized on it. And education is always one of the top three issues in state politics, every single time, right up there along with jobs in the economy, and transportation, or in this case, COVID.
Michael Pope
And Democrats are super, super upset that they feel like Republicans stole their issue. You know, when I was, I was at the Democratic event out in McLean, the the- not the victory party, but the anti-victory party, the losing party, and that was kind of the theme of the night was, "Hey, wait a minute, education is our issue. How did they end up winning on education?" And so yeah, I think the ramifications of that are going to play out a long time.
Nathan Moore
That's because it wasn't really education as the issue, Michael. This wasn't about funding for schools, or making, even like a George Bush ish, you know, "No Child Left Behind," or equity sort of message. It was a story about race. Right?
Michael Pope
Well, yes and no. So you said, "It's not necessarily about funding for schools." Keep in mind, that in Glenn Youngkin's, victory speech, he did promise, the largest ever education budget in the history of Virginia. He promised to expand school choice by having more charter schools. I mean, there is a policy dimension to this, too. I mean, people got caught up in the, in the racial element of it, and banning a law school concept from public schools that's not taught there. So I mean, it's easy to ban something that's not being taught, because it's not being taught. So it's low hanging fruit to ban it, right? In other words, it was a meaningless discussion about a topic that had no policy dimension to it. But, when Youngkin actually takes office, there are some policies there that he's going to pursue, or at least he's promising to in his victory speech.
Nathan Moore
So Michael, here's the thing though, that like, like more money for charter schools in Virginia did not drive half a million people to vote for Glenn Youngkin. Fear about teaching Black authors, and fear about about trans bathrooms, fear about all the stuff that leads to aggrieved white suburbanites, turning up to the polls, that's what drove half a million more people to vote for Glenn Youngkin.
Michael Pope
Well, wait a second, I would agree with you that all of the dust up about Toni Morrison definitely drove a lot of voters. I'm not distracting from that. Although, you say the charter schools didn't really drive parents. And maybe that's true. But keep in mind, the perception, in the minds of voters, to hearing Terry McAuliffe say he didn't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach. And there was this feeling among many parents, that those Democrats and their big government bureaucrats, and all this woke-ism, is sort of dominating schools. And you know, there's the mask mandates, and the vaccine mandates, and they want more control. The parents want more control. And there are a lot of voters out there, I've talked to them on the campaign trail, that really would like to see more charter schools, they would like to see public schools undermined, frankly, by moving that money out of public schools, into charter schools. So I mean, that is- that is a policy way to address that particular concern that is in the minds of voters.
Thomas Bowman
No, Michael, school choice is a dog whistle, like it's a race dog whistle. The reason that they advanced school choice is so that they don't have to send their kids to integrated schools. This has been a talking point since the Brown v Board decision. This is not new information. School choice is a racist dog whistle. And so the fact that it's in Youngkin's list of promises, is just one more reason tying Youngkin's education plan to racist dog whistle reaction, and the suburbs were 61% of the vote, according to the exit polling on CNN politics. Anyone in the household being a gun owner, 55% of the electorate said, "Yes." Let's see, education becomes a big deal. You've got college graduates at 49% breaking for Terry McAuliffe, no college degree, it's at 51% breaking for Youngkin. Age, even bigger issue. 69% of the electorates, according to the CNN exit poll, were 45 or older, 31% were 18 to 44. Demographics is destiny, and what happened, frankly, is, as far as the Democrats are concerned, they didn't get the right people out in those numbers.
Michael Pope
We haven't heard from Katherine Hansen yet. Let's turn the microphone over to Katherine. What did you make of the results of the election this week?
Katherine Hansen
From my understanding, just sort of doing work with Bold Dominion, I saw it as distrust in current Democratic executive leadership. I, from what I've heard, I don't think people are content with what's happening in Afghanistan, the general state of the economy, and how uncertain future inflation might be. And it's sort of a similar sentiment to Donald Trump, where you're a little bit tired of a Democratic politician, and you want a businessman, you want to shake things up.
Michael Pope
Yes, I think that's actually a really good way to look at the results. Because you know, one thing that I always keep coming back to, is that Virginia does have this very long history of having elections for Governor following the presidential year, and doing the opposite thing, that actually dates all the way back to 1977, after the election of Jimmy Carter, when Virginians put Republican John Dalton in office. Ever since then, it's been this trend. So after the Reagan Revolution, Democrat Chuck Rob was elected. And after Bill Clinton was elected President, voters in Virginia chose Republican George Allen. And then after George W. Bush was elected, Virginians chose Democrat Mark Warner. So there's this long history of doing the opposite thing of what happened in the presidential election with, of course, one exception, and that's after the re-election of Barack Obama, Virginia voters chose Terry McAuliffe. Democrats, of course, were hopeful that he would be able to do that same trick again, but there's headwinds. So after a new president is elected, there's always always this period, in that first year when things fall apart, and things don't go according to plan, and you don't get the build back better plan, and there's a reaction to that. And as Katherine was just saying, there's reaction to Afghanistan, and there's sort of an unease, and a tiredness, with what the Democrats are doing. Add on top of that, the fact that Virginia has seen all of this sweeping change in recent years, and the sweeping change, a lot of people are probably uneasy with getting rid of the death penalty, and legalizing marijuana, and doing all the new gun violence prevention measures, and peeling back all those restrictions on abortion. And that's that's pretty radical change that's happened in the last two years. And a lot of voters are uneasy with that and reacting to that.
Nathan Moore
I would, yeah, I think there is something to what you're saying, Michael. I think I take it as a, from a slightly different angle. But But Katherine's definitely on to something here with this race being very, very nationalized. You know, and we saw that, like, so many things that drove people to the polls, and that drove the votes this time around, weren't really issues specific to Virginia. It's like if the issue was about the economy, I mean, our economy is not in the dumps. Why is Youngkin the guy for the economy? You know, I think you're right, the sort of malaise with national Democrats, and cinema and mansion holding up the build back better plan, flubbing the Afghanistan withdrawal, I think these are things that impacted the Virginia election, even though they're not Virginia specific issues in any particular way. I think the other one, though, and this is kind of getting back to what Thomas was saying earlier, the terrible campaign choice that McAuliffe made to use Trump as a boogeyman all the way up until like, Monday. You know, I mean, I saw a sign here in Charlottesville that literally said, like, "Youngkin equals Trump," I was like, well, "That's weird. Why do they have a Youngkin sign? Oh, it's Youngkin equals Trump." You know, it's like, why is that the message going out there? It's doing the work to build that base for Youngkin. And, you know, Bob Lewis, over at the Virginia Mercury had a great line about this. He said, "You know, if you're trying to rouse the villagers to go fight, Grendel, you know, what happens when Grendel is not there anymore? You know, then you have to have a positive vision, a proactive vision of what your state's going to be." And Michael, you talked about some things that McAuliffe said in some speeches and stuff. But honestly, the message I got, over and over was like, "Hey, things were pretty good when I was Governor. Let's do that again. You know, and let's not let this Trumpish guy run the state." I mean, sure, that's enough for me to vote for for somebody, maybe, but but not enough for a lot of people. And I think what you're seeing, though, and this is Michael, I think where I do tend to agree with what you're saying, is if we look at the political values of a lot of people in Virginia, you know, why did Virginia break by nine points, 10 points, over these last several elections for Biden or for Northam? I don't think it's because Virginia suddenly became a place, you know, committed to equity and progressivism on the whole, although a lot of people in the state do have commitment to those things. I think, though, a preeminent political value in Virginia, is politeness, and also sort of a sense of incrementalism and status quo. We don't want to be the last in the pack, at least not since Loving v. Virginia. We don't really want to be the first either. And so that sense of kind of being somewhere in the middle of the pack, and being sort of level headed about things, that plus politeness, seems to really be what resonates with people. Northam, polite guy, you know, he was gonna be level headed. Biden, polite guy, seems level-headed. Not that McAuliffe's not, but but I think you had Youngkin, who was riding that sort of backlash and white lash into office, because of national reasons. So he's sort of like a Trump lite, he's much more polite and well mannered than Trump, and could actually string a thoughtful sentence together, and make it an actual case, you know? And so I think that drove a lot of things, especially as they pounded home with a sledgehammer, a lot of these culture war issues over and over and over.
Aaryan Balu
Trump broke politics for four years, right? And like this uniquely hateable figure in his affect just as much as in his policy, for whatever he calls policy. And that worked to elect Joe Biden nationally, because not that many people were super excited about Joe Biden, except in opposition to Trump. Terry McAuliffe's campaign tried to pull that a year later and, shockingly, the sort of oppositional politics didn't work because Youngkin is not Trump, as much as they tried to do it. He didn't rile people up in the same way and just didn't get out as many people to vote.
Michael Pope
Alright, let's take a break. When we come back, we'll talk about what a Terry McAuliffe campaign would have looked like had it not been so focused on Trump. We'll also ask what the general election campaign would have looked like if somebody else, other than McAuliffe, got the nomination. Plus, we'll talk about what college students and young people think about the current political state, and we will look ahead to the General Assembly session for 2022.
And we're back on Transition Virginia, we're doing a crossover episode with our friends at Bold Dominion Podcast. Now, I want to do a thought experiment, and think about what the Terry McAuliffe campaign would have looked like, had it not been so singularly focused on Trump. And instead, they tried to build a messaging campaign around raising the minimum wage, paid sick leave, family medical leave, average pay. What would that have looked like? Would that have been a successful message?
Nathan Moore
So Michael, I think that's a...it's interesting that you frame it that way, because Democratic priorities do tend to take on this form of a grab bag of policy list items, like a grocery list. And honestly, I think that's to the detriment of a lot of Democrats. What it needs to be better, for Democrats to win, and to thrive, is to have a vision for like, a proactive vision, of a society where we, where we have shared prosperity, or everybody can thrive. And the details kind of work themselves out. You don't see Republicans introducing a plan with like getting into the weeds of the details. What you see, is like they're appealing to values. Democrats need to appeal to those values, of fairness, of an America where everybody has a shot, of a place where we all can thrive together.
Thomas Bowman
Oh, yeah. If I hear one more candidate, say, "Go to my website to see my 12 point plan on, like, picking my belly lint," like, oh, my god, like, nobody's doing that. Nobody is going to your website to read your stuff, except for people like you, and me, and Michael, and like, like a very small number of people, just to see what they wrote.
Michael Pope
Thomas, I actually make a point of avoiding people's websites, because if they're- if it's not coming out of their mouth, a consultant probably wrote it, and they're not even aware that it's on their website half the time. I mean, I actually always really focus on what comes out of people's mouths, as opposed to what's on their website.
Aaryan Balu
So here's the thing, Michael, you asked if McAuliffe had made those claims, that those sort of promises would it have worked? I think it would have gone better, but here's the problem, is that you've got McAuliffe is the sort of Clinton ally, incrementalist...Youngkin was the CEO of Carlyle....McAuliffe donated a bunch, or like invested in Carlyle Group. He is part of that group. And so he's part of the sort of general disaffectations, is that the right word, with you know, I don't think people buy it. You look at- you talk about minimum wage, you talk about paid leave. You look at Democrats right now, they failed on the $15 minimum wage. They are currently paid, Family and Medical Leave, is out of the Build Back Better Plan. Like these things are not getting done. So I mean, I don't know if people would have bought it, because it's not happening right now.
Michael Pope
Can we do another thought experiment, because the first one was so much fun. What if, what if Terry McAuliffe didn't win the primary for governor? What if it was like a Jennifer McClellan, or Jennifer Carroll Foy, or even a Lee Carter? Like what, what would a different winner of the Democratic primary have looked like, moving forward, into the general? Well, let's start with McClellan, cause I just listed three. So let's start with McClellan. What would a Jennifer McClellan versus Glenn Youngkin campaign have looked like?
Nathan Moore
I'll be honest, I don't really recall all the details of each of those candidates all that well. I mean, Jennifer Carroll Foy, maybe, I knew a little more about. I think, for me what it comes down to, regardless of the specifics is, and this is really for any candidate, can can have Democrat articulate a positive vision of a better America? And you saw that in Obama at the national level, and he rode that to winning twice. Even saw with Biden, God bless him. I mean, he managed to put together a coalition of people around this Build Back Better. It's a little corny, it's got, you know, that alliteration thing going on, but it's real, you know, and you could say it, and you know what it means. And, you know, it's like, you know, in the best interest of people's real needs. I never got that from Terry McAuliffe this time around.
Michael Pope
Would you have gotten that from Jennifer McClellan?
Nathan Moore
I don't know. I mean, I thought I might have gotten it from Foy, but I don't know.
Aaryan Balu
We did some interviews with the various candidates. I thought McClellan had sort of a solid sort of progressive, but closer to that, sort of centrist, more moderate take. I thought Jennifer Carroll Foy, didn't articulate that sort of vision that you were talking about, outside of, she was talking a lot about shots in arms, at the time, which COVID is no longer on the table as a campaign issue, as we're finding out. Lee Carter had a lot of these economic things that I am partial to, but he may also have been a pretty divisive figure in the Democratic Party. It's hard to say how things would have gone. But McAuliffe...I mean, talk about blowing what should have worked.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah, I don't think we had the right candidate, frankly. I don't really like playing the game of you know, what if it were a different nominee, because the reality is, there's no way we can possibly say. We don't know what the issues would have been. You know that they would have...like they already leaned into racist dog whistles, on the Republican side, on Youngkin's team. It would have been probably 10 times worse with one of the other candidates. And the reality is, or like socialism is on the ballot, type of thing. And so the reality is, I don't know that any of the alternatives to Terry changes the outcome, even though it's a very popular hot take on Twitter right now. I don't, I don't- I neither agree nor disagree with it, because it is so abstract at this point. Moving forward, it's almost like it's useless, you know, because, because none of the candidates really did a great job of articulating that vision. Terry won handily from the primary. So it's...give whatever reason you want, like he was the clear choice.
Aaryan Balu
I mean, my take on this is, if you're sort of clear choice with every kind of establishment backing that you could possibly ask for, the highest paid sort of consultants, everybody on your team working, in theory, the best possible campaign, and you still like, blow it, it certainly makes me, sort of, at least wish we tried something else.
Thomas Bowman
I respect that, for sure.
Nathan Moore
Hey, I want to switch around, just a little bit, if you don't mind y'all, and actually ask Aaryan and also Katherine a little bit more, about kind of the take you're hearing from today's college students and young folks. I mean, y'all are in your early 20s, joining us relative oldsters. Am I the senior person in this?
Michael Pope
I think I'm probably the senior person, Nathan.
Nathan Moore
Really?
Michael Pope
Let's not exchange ages. We'll do that offline.
Nathan Moore
No. Anyway, but but we're definitely not the junior people. Aaryan and Katherine, Katherine, let's start with you, like, what are you hearing from 20 year olds right now about about this race, and kind of what you saw at UVA during all this?
Katherine Hansen
Well, I'll be perfectly honest, I have been a little bit holed up in the library, because it's exam week. But you know, from what I've seen, it seems to be sort of carrying out in this culture, a proxy war between, you know, groups, like University Democrats and University Republicans, and then this ideologically conservative group, Young Americans for Freedom. So it all sort of came to a head via social media last night, when the when the results came out, it was a little heated, but to be perfectly honest, today was was almost kind of quiet in the aftermath. I think the biggest question that's being asked right now, and this might not be representative of the population, because I'm a 20 year old woman, is just what's going to happen to women's reproductive rights in the future? I think that a lot of young people are sort of looking towards Texas, and wondering what that's going to mean for our state.
Nathan Moore
Aaryan, what are you hearing from your peers?
Aaryan Balu
People I work with for most of my days are older than anybody else in this call, Public Radio's is like that. But, what I've seen from, at least, internet circles, and those like check in with there, a lot of it is sort of...this was, similar to what I've been talking about, in terms of this campaign talking about Trump didn't do it. You know, there's a lot of sort of playing defense, because all of the current takes you'll probably see on CNN, and and sort of the lesson that the Democratic Party will somehow take from this, is that McAuliffe, and or Biden, somehow went too far left, despite sort of the aforementioned Build Back Better getting gutted, McAuliffe, I think, explicitly saying that he wouldn't repeal Right to Work. So most of what I'm seeing, is sort of defensively, like preemptively saying, that is not sort of the problem here.
Thanks y'all, and I wanted to take it back to Katherine. So, as we kind of look towards what's next, in all this, Katherine, thinking about about women's reproductive rights issues, and the generation still has a lot of years to live through it. What are you concerned about? What do you think comes next from this?
Katherine Hansen
I'm not entirely sure. I mean, from what I understand of Glenn Youngkin's politics, it really sort of, I hear the the culture war issues, you know, the Critical Race Theory, things we've talked about. I had a friend who, when we found out that Glenn Youngkin won, asked what was- she like, we were just kind of chatting, and someone asked, "What do you think's going to happen next," and everyone was just sort of like, "I don't really know." I don't think anyone has a clear...you know, people are just sort of, in general disappointed. I mean, at least within my circles, people are disappointed that Glenn Youngkin has won, but everyone is unsure about what it means. And so we're looking towards Southern states, you know, governors like Brian Kemp. And you know, we look towards what's happening in Texas right now with women's reproductive rights, specifically, and we're using, you know, deep Southern states, and trying to figure out what our future is going to look like, based on what theirs look like right now.
Nathan Moore
And this is maybe where we can turn it back to some of our Richmond insiders, Michael and Thomas, because we do still have, in Virginia, a State Senate that has a majority of Democrats. The state senators were not on the ballot, this time around. And we also have a Republican House, that's only going to be a one or two seat majority. So what do you see coming down the pike with all this?
Thomas Bowman
Well, I think past is gonna be prologue. And when the Republicans had the House before, you had a Senate that, comparatively, was a very liberal Senate, and they passed a lot of very liberal bills, you know, cynically, you might say, because they knew it wouldn't pass the House, and there was no political consequence to doing so. And notice that it didn't necessarily go that way when the Democrats gained control of the House, and they had to kill everything. So, what I think is, you'll just see them go back to the way they were, is like the Senate will be in control, the House will be in disarray, because looking ahead, there's really only this one session, and any specials that get called next year, then there's going to be redistricting. And we have no idea what these districts are going to look like, because the Supreme Court is going to draw them.
Michael Pope
You know, when I'm in Richmond, covering the General Assembly, I would always prefer to be in the House, because the House is a lot more fun. It's more lively, there are more colorful people, there are more colorful speeches. By contrast, the Senate is kind of dull, and not nearly as exciting, and the personalities are not as vibrant. However, I usually end up spending most of my time in the Senate, because that's where all the news happens. And that is going to be even more the case in this situation, where you've got a Republican Governor and a Republican House. And guess who's going to stand in the way of the Youngkin agenda, the Virginia State Senate, the Democratic led, Virginia State Senate, is going to take on a huge importance that it did not previously have. And it's ironic, because in the era of Democratic control, there was a lot of angst, and progressives being very upset with conservative Democrats in the Senate, standing in the way of things like the Assault Weapons Ban, overturning Right to Work, collective bargaining for state workers. These are things that conservative Democrats stopped. And those are parts of the progressive agenda that did not happen because of these conservative members of the Senate. And they took a lot of incoming for all of that. So it's ironic that those same conservative Democrats, will now be the firewall for, for the Democratic Party to stop the Republican agenda. And it's going to be tight because they no longer have the Lieutenant Governor to break their ties. And they've got this one, very slim, one vote majority in the Senate. So they're going to need all of their votes, including one particular senator, who is going to emerge as probably the most important guy in Richmond, Senator Joe Morrissey, and you are going to want him to vote your way, because he's going to end up being the swing vote on just about everything that goes through the General Assembly.
Nathan Moore
So what...that is, actually this is fascinating to see, you know, the State Senate is gonna- you're right, there's gonna be a lot more news stories about that, about the conflicts that are there with a Republican led House. I'm thinking back to when Terry McAuliffe was in office, and had at least one House in in Republican hands, through most, if not all, of his term of the 2014, 2015, 2016.
Michael Pope
Yeah, the House was Republican controlled for the entire time, McAuliffe was-
Nathan Moore
That's right. That's right. That's right. So he was trying to get things done and really just couldn't, I mean, the Republicans were just the party of, "No," for all those years. That was kind of the joke. You know, Bill Howell, just you know, just like like he's like a wind up doll that just says, "No." Is that what's coming, where the Democrats become the party of, "No?"
Thomas Bowman
The Democrats became the party of, "No," in the Senate, maybe.
Nathan Moore
That's what I mean.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah. So the House...So here's what's coming, at least for the House. The House is always far more parochial than the Senate is, and it always will be. And so you're- you have a lot more dynamic, and potentially extreme, personality in the House, on both the Republican and the Democratic side. The progressives got a lot of the attention in the House under the Democrats, because of how bold their agenda was. And you saw a lot of very bold things come out of the House that couldn't pass the Senate. Well, guess what? The exact same thing happens when Republicans are in control. It's just very, from my perspective, extreme right wing bills from the other side. And so not only is the Senate going to be that backstop, because it'll be kind of like when Bob McDonald was in charge, when the Republicans had full control of everything, except for the Senate. It all falls to the Senate to broker every single deal, which means you got to keep, not just Jim Morrissey, but Chap Peterson, happy, too, and the House is going to be the House, which means the people who get to be in the room, are going to be, it sounds like, Speaker Gilbert, which really hurts to say.
Michael Pope
Or Speaker Kilgore.
Thomas Bowman
Well, if Dems were smart, they would nominate Kilgore before they nominated Eileen. But I don't see that happening. Anyway, the people who get to be in the room now, are going to be the Republican Speaker, Dick Saslaw and Tommy Norman. And of course, whoever the Governor's representative is, to broker all these deals, which means it's all gonna look more Republican. So, the probably the best outcome for the next four years, is for the Senate to just stop everything.
Nathan Moore
I'm curious. You know, we saw a little bit of this with Terry McAuliffe, when he was facing Republican majorities in the House all those years, where he ended up just trying to do some things just on his own. But what do we know about the powers that the Governor has here in Virginia? Just as far as what Youngkin without a law being passed? What can Youngkin actually do? I mean, he certainly can veto other laws, but that's less going to be a thing this time, than otherwise.
Michael Pope
Governors actually have way more power than most people think that they do. Especially, the Virginia governor, has a particularly powerful set of things that he or she is in control of, which is why they've got that one term limit. Virginia is the only state in the country that has this one four year term limit. So huge powers, but it is limited. So you know, on, we hear Glenn Youngkin, always talking about his day one agenda. On day one, he can't ban quote, unquote, Critical Race Theory. I mean, I mean, this is a law school concept that's not taught in public schools. But even if he wanted to, quote unquote, ban this law school concept from public school classrooms, he actually would need to go to the General Assembly, and have them be part of it first, right? I mean, he's not a king.
Nathan Moore
Right. So what, tell me more about the powers and the things that he can just kind of carry out? I mean, he could appoint new people to the State Board of Education. He could appoint new judges when there's an opening. I mean, what kinds of things does the Governor have all this power he's talked about?
Michael Pope
Well, one of his campaign promises is to get rid of the parole board. I think we can see that coming down the pike here.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah. And the one I'm kind of losing sleep over, well, are two things. One Coronavirus, the COVID policy, I'm very worried is going to look a lot more like DeSantis' than Ralph Northam's, who, in my opinion, wasn't even doing it perfectly. And so now, I'm worried things get worse. But also, think back to January 6th, when nobody was going to stop what was happening on the Capitol. It was Ralph Northam, who sent out the Virginia National Guard. Is Glenn Youngkin going to deploy the Virginia National Guard in the next time?
Michael Pope
Sure. And yeah, and what about the next wave of Coronavirus? Is he going to require masks in schools? Is he going to require teachers be vaccinated? I mean, these are all things that could play out.
Thomas Bowman
Or fight it?
Nathan Moore
We're getting into the, really, shockingly core issues around public health, and health of democracy, too. The kind of power of the state is pretty substantial, and the the Executive is the one who makes those calls. All right, are y'all ready for takeaways?
Michael Pope
I'll start with the takeaways, because mine is probably a little bit more prosaic than everybody else's. Which is Virginia being a counterpoint. I think it should not be overlooked, that Virginia always does this. You know, it reacted to the Reagan Revolution by giving us Chuck Robb, and it it reacted to the era of Bill Clinton by giving us George Allen, and it reacted to George W. Bush by giving us Mark Warner. This is a thing that Virginia does. It says, "We see your presidential election, and we're going to do the opposite thing." And that almost always happens with only one exception. And I think people forget about the magnetic pull of that.
Thomas Bowman
All right, my takeaway on this one is, you cannot win by appealing to the other party. The McAuliffe campaign tried to position itself as the moderate, safe choice, that some Republicans could vote for. But guess what? That was a campaign plan for the nominee being Amanda Chase. They never switch it up, every election as a base election. So if people are going to get juiced up to vote for you, and you're a Democrat, you need to run like one. You need to have issues like you're a Democrat, you need to talk like it. And none of that happened.
Nathan Moore
Aaryan, how about you? What's your takeaway from all this?
Aaryan Balu
I'm very much with Thomas on this. My takeaway is that you have to run like a Democrat. But honestly, the Democrats have not been running the way the Democrats need to for a while. And they need to do something different. They need to buck the trends that Michael was talking about, because we are frankly, running out of time to learn this sort of lesson that we're learning with McAuliffe, and the legislature right now. We need to do something different and better.
Nathan Moore
Katherine, what's your takeaway from all this.
Katherine Hansen
I mean, I agree with you, Thomas. I think that Terry McAuliffe needed to step it up. But in a bigger sense, it's a reflection of the national, and just general sentiments, towards Democrats in the executive.
Michael Pope
And Nathan, what's your takeaway?
Nathan Moore
Yeah, I mean, you know, I've got a bunch of them. But but really, I think there's, there's a few things here that I that I saw play out. And one is a very old truth about politics in America, which is that if you can make white people in America feel aggrieved, or afraid, or stressed out, they're going to choose a right winger, and they're going to do it in large numbers. And I mean, there was more turnout for Governor this year...whatever this, you know, the schools conversation, which McAuliffe just handed them, that lit a fire, that lit a bomb, that sent people to the polls. Another sort of takeaway from all this, I think, is that really the technocratic management model of Democratic politics, and this is much like what y'all were saying, that model that's kind of grew out of the Clinton era, and that McAuliffe represents, and has tapped into, I don't think it's a winning strategy for the long haul. What we need is a politics that's built around people's needs, and is movement driven, and built on relationships, not on technocratic management. And then the last bit, really, is just, you know, as we look through, I'm always trying to get a handle on, figure out, what are the values that are driving people here in Virginia? If you want to do anything in public life, what is it that you can speak to that's going to make this work? And I think there are some shared values here, but you know, they're they're definitely not that like Virginia is like out in front on lefty stuff right now. I do though, think there's a real keen interest in treating people right, and being fair. But also above that, even being polite, and kinda like not rocking the boat too hard. And I feel like that, not rocking the boat too hard, and being polite, is what really ran the show this week on election day.
Thomas Bowman
Yeah. Well, thanks for being with us.
Michael Pope
Yeah, thank you so much for doing this crossover episode.
Nathan Moore
Likewise, fun times.
Thomas Bowman
So that's all for this episode. Hit us up on social media or get in touch at transitionvirginia.com. There, you can check the transcripts for this episode, and find links to support the show on Patreon. Special thanks to Emily Cottrell, who transcribes every one of these so they're accessible to everyone.
Michael Pope
Thanks for listening to Transition Virginia. If you like what you heard, give us a five star review. It helps other people find the show. We'll be back next week, so subscribe to the show so you don't miss a single episode.
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