With the 2024 presidential election increasingly in the rearview mirror and the 2026 midterms still more than a year away, political observers right now have their sights set on a handful of odd-year elections.
You left out two key issues roiling the Virginia race.
Virginia, which has much of the DC suburbs, has an exceptionally high population of federal employees and federal contractors, and a goodly number of recipients of various federal grants. Layoffs, shutdowns, and the revocation of grants and funding are thus a high tier issue. This was expected to help the Democratic slate, and appears to have been doing so.
Virginia has also had a scandal around the Democratic candidate for AG, Jay Jones, which Republicans are publicizing for all 3 major races. Advertising around this has been heavy on local news. The gubernatorial debate talked about Jones quite a lot, including in responses to unrelated questions. This appears to be hurting Jones, with some collateral damage to Spanberger and Hashmi.
So you have two countervailing wild cards swirling in the mix.
AG debate is Thursday (available online) and should be interesting.
My predictions, which in the last (un-fraud) presidential cycles have been perfect:
NJ right now is too close to call, but an R victory will not be a surprise at all. NJ has moved another 40,00+ to Rs since November, but Ds still have a big, big advantage and voter registration means almost everything.
VA goes D. Sears-Earle made a career mistake in attacking Trump last year. She has tried to walk it back, unsuccessfully. The R wins the AG race. VA does not report voter reg by party. I assume it is following NC and NJ trends, but again, voter registration means a lot and the gap was more than 5 points in each. By 2028 this will be a much different story: depopulating DC's liberals through reductions; deportations, continued D-R shifts will all make both states a true tossup in 2028. For now, VA is a bridge too far.
You left out two key issues roiling the Virginia race.
Virginia, which has much of the DC suburbs, has an exceptionally high population of federal employees and federal contractors, and a goodly number of recipients of various federal grants. Layoffs, shutdowns, and the revocation of grants and funding are thus a high tier issue. This was expected to help the Democratic slate, and appears to have been doing so.
Virginia has also had a scandal around the Democratic candidate for AG, Jay Jones, which Republicans are publicizing for all 3 major races. Advertising around this has been heavy on local news. The gubernatorial debate talked about Jones quite a lot, including in responses to unrelated questions. This appears to be hurting Jones, with some collateral damage to Spanberger and Hashmi.
So you have two countervailing wild cards swirling in the mix.
AG debate is Thursday (available online) and should be interesting.
As I said, I’ll be covering the current issues impacting these races next week.
My predictions, which in the last (un-fraud) presidential cycles have been perfect:
NJ right now is too close to call, but an R victory will not be a surprise at all. NJ has moved another 40,00+ to Rs since November, but Ds still have a big, big advantage and voter registration means almost everything.
VA goes D. Sears-Earle made a career mistake in attacking Trump last year. She has tried to walk it back, unsuccessfully. The R wins the AG race. VA does not report voter reg by party. I assume it is following NC and NJ trends, but again, voter registration means a lot and the gap was more than 5 points in each. By 2028 this will be a much different story: depopulating DC's liberals through reductions; deportations, continued D-R shifts will all make both states a true tossup in 2028. For now, VA is a bridge too far.
At this point, those outcomes are exactly what I expect.
Do you think the Jones scandal has any chance of pushing Winsome over the line?
Certainly helps.