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The shifts in Virginia voting that handed Trump an embarrassing defeat
Northam also benefitted from not being Clinton. She got 80 percent of the unfavorable-toward-Trump vote; Northam got 87 percent of it.
Link to tweet
The shifts in Virginia voting that handed Trump an embarrassing defeat
By Philip Bump November 8 at 10:32 AM
Hillary Clinton’s 5-point victory in Virginia in the 2016 presidential election was enough to win the state’s electoral votes but wasn’t enough to declare it solidly blue. Barack Obama had won the state by a wider margin in 2008 — in an election that he won by a much wider margin nationally, certainly, but since 2008, the demographics of the state seemed like they had moved dramatically in the Democratic Party’s direction. So Republicans would be excused for thinking that the 2017 gubernatorial race in the state, held during an off year when consistently voting Republicans tended to be overrepresented in the voter pool, was an opportunity.
On Monday at this time, it seemed like the race was still within the GOP’s grasp. On Wednesday morning, we know just how far outside its grasp the governor’s mansion actually was.
Democrat Ralph Northam got more votes than any other candidate in the history of gubernatorial races in the state, by a quarter-million votes. Part of that dominance was a function of the growing population in the state; more people means more votes in general. But it’s also in part a function of massive turnout. In 2013, about 2.2 million people voted in the governor’s race. In 2017, 2.6 million did. Republican Ed Gillespie got more votes than any past candidate, too — it just didn’t do him any good. Northam got a larger percentage of the vote than any Democrat since 1985.
{snip some charts}
In the wake of Northam’s victory, President Trump argued on Twitter that Gillespie should have embraced his party’s president more closely. But it’s not clear that would have helped. ... For one thing, a third of voters who came to the polls said that part of their reason for voting was to send a message of opposition to Trump. For another, most Virginians view Trump’s job performance negatively, and they overwhelmingly backed Northam. But comparing 2016 exit polling to preliminary exit polling from the Virginia gubernatorial race, we see swings that suggest Gillespie’s ties to Trump were already a disadvantage.
....
Philip Bump is a correspondent for The Post based in New York City. Follow @pbump
By Philip Bump November 8 at 10:32 AM
Hillary Clinton’s 5-point victory in Virginia in the 2016 presidential election was enough to win the state’s electoral votes but wasn’t enough to declare it solidly blue. Barack Obama had won the state by a wider margin in 2008 — in an election that he won by a much wider margin nationally, certainly, but since 2008, the demographics of the state seemed like they had moved dramatically in the Democratic Party’s direction. So Republicans would be excused for thinking that the 2017 gubernatorial race in the state, held during an off year when consistently voting Republicans tended to be overrepresented in the voter pool, was an opportunity.
On Monday at this time, it seemed like the race was still within the GOP’s grasp. On Wednesday morning, we know just how far outside its grasp the governor’s mansion actually was.
Democrat Ralph Northam got more votes than any other candidate in the history of gubernatorial races in the state, by a quarter-million votes. Part of that dominance was a function of the growing population in the state; more people means more votes in general. But it’s also in part a function of massive turnout. In 2013, about 2.2 million people voted in the governor’s race. In 2017, 2.6 million did. Republican Ed Gillespie got more votes than any past candidate, too — it just didn’t do him any good. Northam got a larger percentage of the vote than any Democrat since 1985.
{snip some charts}
In the wake of Northam’s victory, President Trump argued on Twitter that Gillespie should have embraced his party’s president more closely. But it’s not clear that would have helped. ... For one thing, a third of voters who came to the polls said that part of their reason for voting was to send a message of opposition to Trump. For another, most Virginians view Trump’s job performance negatively, and they overwhelmingly backed Northam. But comparing 2016 exit polling to preliminary exit polling from the Virginia gubernatorial race, we see swings that suggest Gillespie’s ties to Trump were already a disadvantage.
....
Philip Bump is a correspondent for The Post based in New York City. Follow @pbump
