Youngkin won because VA Republicans bought in to a simple stereotype...and so are folks here.

[FBaggins]

43. It was definitely a waste of your time - but that was your fault

Hard data:

In both 2020 and 2021 exit polls for VA - Independents made up almost 1/3 of the electorate (30% and 31% respectively)

Biden won them 57-38
Youngkin won them 54-45

The proportion of Democrats and Republicans was essentially unchanged between 2020 (36/34) and 2021 (35/34) - completely blowing out of the water any notion that our base did not turn out relative to theirs.

The three primary impacts (in order of effect) were:

1 - Independents shifting support from D-R
2 - Republican voters slightly more likely to vote for the republican candidate (96% vs 90%)
3 - Relative base turnout.

Any one of these could cost us the election in such a narrow loss... but #1 was by far the largest impact


One extra datapoint - By ideology rather than party affiliation, 16% of conservatives voted for Biden in VA last year. 7% voted for McCauliffe. That, too, is not a turnout thing... it's a "Trump wasn't on the ballot thing" which probably slots in between 1&2 above.