15 takeaways from Virginia - By Jennifer Rubin
November 8 at 10:00 AM
The Virginia election will send analysts and candidates scurrying to fine tune their messages and expectations for 2018. Let’s look at 15 of them:
1. Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe was able to hand over the governorship to a fellow Democrat, governor-elect Ralph Northam. McAuliffe’s approval rating in exit polls was 14 points higher than President Trump’s. McAuliffe surely will be considering a 2020 presidential run. As a major fundraiser he will suck up a lot of support and money from other potential moderate candidates. It’s far from clear Democrats would want as their presidential nominee the pol most closely associated with Hillary Clinton.
2. Democrats can do well in middle-class and affluent suburbs. They can do really well running against Trump. Northam won by huge margins in Loudon (20 points), Fairfax (more than 35 percent) and Arlington (78 to 20 percent) counties. These professional and college-educated voters, rather than non-college educated white working class voters, may be the key to Democrats winning back the House majority in 2018.
3. The huge turnout and sweep, including a raft of delegate wins (as many as 16, with recounts surely to come), bodes extremely well for Democrats in House seats, especially the Virginia 10th District, currently held by Rep. Barbara Comstock (R).
4. The victory up and down the ballot suggests we will see more retirements after the two (Rep. Ted Poe of Texas and Rep. Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey) announced Tuesday before the polls closed.
5. Voting against Trump (who had only a 40 percent approval according to exit polls) and his agenda became a whole lot easier for endangered Republican incumbents. That will have consequences on everything from their votes on taxes to the budget to DACA. It was a very good election night for Medicaid. Maine overwhelmingly passed a referendum to expand Medicaid. The Democrats, with wins in all statewide races and possibly a tie in the House of Delegates, may finally expand Medicaid in Virginia.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/11/08/15-takeaways-from-virginia/?utm_term=.1780a606802f
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Yeah, right. Endangered Republican incumbents (at least, those who don't suddenly decide that retirement is a far more attractive option) might find it "a whole lot easier" to vote against Trump, but that doesn't mean they will. They know firsthand how kooky and dangerous Trump's rump supporters are. They also know that crossing Trump could mean getting a name-calling tweet from Trump, and their delicate sensibilities just aren't built to withstand that kind of withering criticism.
