Virginia bloodbath: Trump is exorcising the Democrats' midterm curse

By Greg Sargent November 8 at 10:40 AM

Among the big questions going into yesterday’s elections were these: Would President Trump’s unique combination of racism, authoritarianism and embrace of unpopular GOP policies energize Democratic voters sufficiently to overcome their tendency to stay home in off-year elections? And would Trumpism rev up Republican voters enough to keep pace with or possibly supplant that energy?

We now have resounding answers to both questions: Yes, and no. Democrat Ralph Northam defeated Republican Ed Gillespie in the Virginia gubernatorial contest by 54 percent to 45 percent, a decisive rout by any measure.

Democratic pollsters tell me the results are causing them to rethink basic assumptions about next year’s elections. In interviews, they pointed to two major factors (among others) in yesterday’s victory: Northam’s larger-than-expected share of the college-educated white vote (a factor of persuasion) and the off-the-charts turnout relative to previous off-years (a factor of energy and engagement).

Northam hauled in more than 1.4 million votes — nearly 340,000 more votes than current Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) won in 2013. This was driven in part by massive turnout in suburban and exurban areas heavily populated by college-educated whites: Northam ran up substantially larger vote totals than McAuliffe did in Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William counties, the Northern Virginia suburbs of D.C., and in places like Chesterfield and Henrico counties, around Richmond. At the same time, nonwhite voters may have represented a slightly larger share of the electorate, relative to 2013.

Geoff Garin, Northam’s pollster, told me the campaign’s internal polling confirmed that Trump is driving Democratic energy. “Democratic voters are more engaged than ever, and as a result, they’re showing up,” Garin said, adding that Democratic voters and Dem-leaning independents are “engaging in politics more,” out of dismay at the “division and divisiveness” that Trump is creating and out of a sense that “existential things are occurring in this country.”

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