General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Dear Moderates: The Left Isn't Why McAuliffe Lost Virginia [View all]onenote
(42,675 posts)McAuliffe killed McAuliffe's chances. The Democratic legislature and governor in Virginia have successfully pursued a progressive agenda in the past two years, eliminating the death penalty, increasing the minimum wage, instituting gun control measures, expanding voting rights. Yet McAuliffe ran away from that record, not mentioning it. So don't blame Manchin, because this was a race that turned on local issues and McAuliffe utterly failed to make Virginia's successes a part of his message, leaving the field open to Youngkin to portray the state as being on the verge of collapse. When you have a great message: jobs (Virginia's post pandemic unemployment rate is better than 3/4 of the states, including DeSantis' Florida and Abbott's Texas) and COVID response (again, Virginia's per capita death rate is better than states with Republican governors like Florida and Texas). The message should have been don't let Youngkin and the Republicans take Virginia backwards. But McAuliffe said nothing -- absolutely nothing -- about Virginia's recent success story, instead focusing on what he did from 2013-2017, which merely fed the impression that since then things have not gone well