It is just so much easier to scare people over made up crap than inspire them over important things.

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Jack is going to win NJ. We are fucked

None of Newark is in yet.

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Virginia House has been called as a 50-50 split.

Race has been since its founding and will be for the foreseeable future, the most important issue in American elections.

Sure, but the battleground hasn't been schools since the 60s, and that fires up the suburban, white mothers.

Trust me. I have 2 kids in a town that is very red. CRT is such a hot button here. It's ridiculous.

About three-quarters of Essex is in, 30k vote gap now. My call is Murphy by closer than anyone thought; none of the good polls had a gap of less than four points going in and some were up around 10 points. Virginia polls seem to have been quite accurate though.

Can anybody here confirm something I saw in the twittersphere ... that VA doesn't have a tiebreaker procedure for their state house?

Correct. They have to work out a power-sharing agreement which, in the loving, cooperative and entirely rational political environment of the 2021 edition of the United States of America, has no chance whatsoever of becoming a train wreck and will be handled with grace and maturity.

Sooooo ... basically nothing makes it out of the legislature for two years. Got it.

I can think of worse scenarios in a whole lot of places frankly.

Me too. A dumpster fire is definitely preferable than a freight train on a direct path to your living room.

ABC has called the Virginia governor's race for Youngkin.

But it's not really about CRT. CRT isn't being taught in any of these schools and most people couldn't tell you what it even entails. It's just a dogwhistle.

And I'd disagree about the schools not being a battleground since the 60's. School busing was a massive issue in the 70's and 80's (of which Biden was right in the middle of). It led to the massive increase in private schools. Vouchers for these schools are still a hot button issue among white parents.

We are one of the only advanced nations that does not fund education equally among kids. Politicians rarely bring it up due to how controversial it is.

Eliminating desegregation was a huge part of Reagan and HW Bush's appeal in the 80's and 90's. Redlining, public housing, and a bunch of other issues come back to who your child has to attend school with. Heck, Trump flat out said you shouldn't vote for Biden because he'll let more black people into your nice suburbs.

A lot of these issues don't make it into a gubernatorial race, but they are still the most important issues on a local level.

Legitimately surprised there isn't some weird old obscure tiebreaker from the 1800's where they have to draw straws or something.

Getting the feeling New Jersey's going to be a day-after call in best case.

So this likely strengthens the hand of the right leaning moderate Dems and weakens the Dem progressives. Hopefully the D’s learn from this by 2022 or else we can forget any chance in 2024.

Fair point about bussing.

as for CRT theory, you and I know that, but massive swaths of Americans do not and are easily frightened, especially when it comes to their kids white privilege. Trust me, I am on the front lines and it is terrifying parents.

Saw this come across the FB feed last night, which sums things up fairly well:

"The people who threw rocks at Ruby Bridges for trying to go to school are now upset their grandchildren might learn about them throwing rocks at Ruby Bridges for trying to go to school."

It's amazing how Republicans can turn something that doesn't even happen into an issue to rally their base.

As true at that might be, it's still not what CRT is.

In a sane world, the GOP would look at turnout in both VA and NJ and start backing reforms to make voting easier. High turnout elections don't necessarily benefit Dems.

So Republicans…We trust elections again now? Surely there was massive fraud going on last night. That level of sophistication doesn’t simply vanish in 365 days.

Late term abortion, massive voter fraud, widespread welfare fraud, et al. As you said, it really is amazing.

SI

Having lived in Virginia a couple of years, this also surprises me - some tiebreaker involving drawing straws, marbles, or a three legged race would be par for the course.

SI

It doesn't matter what CRT is though. They are told it is bad. It will be shoved down their kids throats. It will make their kids feel guilty about being white.

Just like other things will make their kids gay, or deranged sex addicts.

That's the fun thing about conspiracy theories and other types of unfalsifiable beliefs. There's no such thing as evidence sufficient to disprove it. In this case, it's really an easy answer; the fraud/cheating was still there, it just wasn't enough to overcome the masses who voted for Youngkin.

That's the easy answer, but there's no explanation for the follow-up: why wouldn't you want to prove that the fraud happened so that it doesn't happen again and cost you an election LIKE IT DID FOR THE DONALD?

GOP has this figured out. Float fraud theories in the lead-up to an election. If you lose, you have a track record of being clairvoyant and if you win, you just forget everything you said about fraud yesterday.

They would say - and have - that they have proven it, but the fix is in and the courts won't listen. I.e., it's just evidence of how deep the conspiracy goes.

If the fix is in to that extent, wouldn't the Dems - in a Dem-controlled state - have made sure they won VA?

Either the fix is in or it's not.

When are you going to learn this has nothing to do with logic?

People are going to see what that want to see as always. Progressive are going to say the Dems weren't progressive enough. The moderates are going to say we need to be more bipartisan. The Republicans are going to say that JFK jr prevented the lizard people Democrats from drinking enough blood so that Hugo Chavez's ghost could rig the voting machines good enough. You know, the standard stuff.

Spock_smoke_ears dot gif

The right-leaning moderate Democrat just lost a state-wide race in a blue state. How does this make them stronger?

I read that McAulliffe (sp?) actually got a higher percentage of the vote in this election than the previous one, but that there was a third party that helped him win before.

Cliff Schecter says what I've been complaining about for years.


Dems can learn a lot from how the GOP made CRT such a big thing. It was all over the media, everybody from Senators to school board members was talking about it, it was repeated over and over and over, paid media was full of it, etc.

This. We as humans believe all manner of illogical things at times that have nothing do with conspiracies. When you add that on top of it, many people will find a way to justify what they believe to themselves. It will make sense to them, because that's how human brains work. If you're bound and determined to hold on to what you believe, nobody can stop you.

No doubt. I am definitely guilty of it. We simplify the others arguments/issues/what have you into a straw-man we mock. We rarely look deeper than what we can label as "woke" or "racist".

The Associated Press is calling the NJ Governor's race for Phil Murphy.

AP Politics on Twitter: "BREAKING: Democrat Philip Murphy wins reelection for governor in New Jersey. #APracecall at 6:26 p.m. EDT. #Election2021 #NJelection"

All depends on what you think just happened. To what extent was this even about McAullife and Yougkin versus being a referendum on Biden versus concern about inflation/COVID/Afghanistan/infighting in Congress versus just not having a good feeling about the direction of the country versus waking up on the wrong side of the bed too many times ...

538 leans towards referendum on Biden which I think is the best bet, but as usual it's a mix of factors, it's not 'one thing', and we're not going to nail it down very precisely in these kinds of off-year elections where there are only so many data points.

Virginia turnout looking like 52%+. I will say for all the (very accurate and appropriate) concern about the downfall of democracy, this is another sign that higher turnout may be here to stay.

Also looks, though not final, like the reports of the Virginia house being a 50-50 split were premature. Right now probably 51-49 in favor of Republicans.

I just think it's weird that someone would see a moderate Democrat losing in a blue state and say this is a sign that moderate Democrats are getting stronger.

If he had won, would it be a sign moderate Democrats were getting weaker?

So many people on my social media claiming fraud, late night ballot dumps, etc...while not mentioning Virginia at all.

An independent Pentagon review has concluded that the U.S. drone strike that killed innocent Kabul civilians and children in the final days of the Afghanistan war was not caused by misconduct or negligence, and it doesn’t recommend any disciplinary action.

I am not sure VA is really a blue state quite yet. I also would not call McLauffe a moderate but sure compared to the lunacy of the squad yes.
I don’t see us being successful in 2022 running on Defund the cops, Trump is bad and Biden’s record as of now in 2022 midterms. We are likely going to get destroyed in 2022 and lose the House plus the Senate. Then, after more restrictive election laws are passed Trump wins again in 2024.

I think Republicans probably win Congress in '22 no matter what Biden does, it's more a case of the margin. They can't enact more restrictive election laws at the federal level though. They can try, but Biden can and almost certainly will veto anything like that.

Republicans hadn't won a statewide race there since 2009. Biden just won the state by over 10 points. It's pretty blue.

If you don't think McAuliffe is moderate, you just don't know who he is. He's a corporate Democrat who spent most of his career fundraising for the Clintons. The guy wrote a book a couple of years ago praising the private insurance system and trashing green initiatives. The guy made his money in banking, real estate, and private equity.

Also, no one ran on "Defund the Police" and nowhere did they actually do that. It's a made up talking point from Fox News-esque propoganda outlets. And the squad is lunacy to you, but pretty normal politics to the rest of the world. Remember, we're the extremists in global politics.

The "squad" has actually been very pragmatic about things and willing to work with moderates. The lunacy is from Manchin and Sinema, who are being ridiculously irrational and torpedoing their party's chances.

Biden was right. The election result was a reaction to the inability to get significant agenda items passed. The moderates are the main reason for that. And they're shooting themselves in the foot, because if a red wave does happen in 2022, the "squad" and other progressives won't be the ones who lose their seats. It will be the moderates in swing districts.

This isn't relevant to US elections though. What matters is where they are in relation to the US populace. There are are people running and voting on defund the police proposals. As in Minneapolis, where it was on the ballot and failed.


I see zero evidence that the electorate found this that significant. Haven't seen any exit polling showing that, polling on what people think of the proposals in Congress doesn't say that, etc.

It's just as possible, and IMO more likely, that the election result is mostly a historically typical swing against the party in power, modified by various factors but I don't see any reason not to see that as the main one. Moderates are going to lose seats anyway in 2022. Barring a highly unusual confluence of events, that would happen to a degree if the infrastructure bills were passed six months ago or if they didn't pass at all. It's a very open question whether passing it will be good or bad for moderates; enacting an agenda motivates the base, but it also motivates the opposition and independents who don't like elements of it. That's a pendulum that swings both ways.

So that's not important to elections but a referendum in Minneapolis that was not supported by any Democrat holding statewide office besides Ellison is?

I understand where you get your news makes this a HUGE deal, but very few Democrats are actually calling for "defunding the police".