The Democrats’ problem in Virginia? They weren’t progressive enough
As a rule, I don’t look to national news outlets to explain the South to me.
Lots of political pundits have given their opinions on Virginia’s recent gubernatorial race, but very few of them are coming from Virginians or southerners in general. It’s noticeable when coverage just focuses on national implications, instead of what Republican Glenn Youngkin’s election will mean for everyday residents of the commonwealth. It’s noticeable when coverage focuses on the South’s whiteness, instead of acknowledging the Black and Brown voters who may be disenfranchised or uncared for.
In a way, focusing on the national is what Democratic candidate and former governor Terry McAuliffe did, too. It’s probably why he lost by less than 100,000 votes.
McAuliffe has been one of the faces of the Democratic party for more than a decade: he co-chaired Bill Clinton’s reelection campaign, then chaired the Democratic National Committee, then went back to the Clintons in 2008 to chair Hillary’s campaign. In the 2010s he served as governor after running unopposed in the primary, and pondered a 2020 presidential run.
McAuliffe, without a doubt, is an establishment Democrat. He uses the same rulebook the party used for Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, choosing to focus on the horrors of Donald Trump and how we’re still battling Trumpism in 2021.
But McAuliffe wasn’t running against Trump; he was running against Youngkin.
McAuliffe could have railed on the right’s desire to stop Black history from being taught in schools altogether, the root of the critical race theory frenzy, but he didn’t. He could have focused on broadband, COVID relief, or economic plans to assist all hurting families — the issues that Roy Cooper has done a fair job focusing on — and some of the more universally popular elements of Biden’s campaign promises — but chose to focus his attention on Trump, abortion, and other national topics that are important but don’t feel tangible in state races.
In rural North Carolina, Republicans play the long game; they are visible every day of the year, immerse themselves in the everyday community, and foster strong local branches of the party that elect people to school boards and town councils. They are helped at least a little by subversive white supremacy and a desire to return to “the way things were,” but Democrats do themselves no favors by writing off “rural” areas as merely white and conservative strongholds when plenty of rural southerners are Black, Latino, or Native American and not receiving that same focus.
Instead, Democrats are too often worried about “electability.” The Republicans seem ambivalent: Youngkin had no experience in public office, and Donald Trump was an incredibly polarizing guy. But they manage to elicit a response from their base, who then show up to vote and assume they’re changing the world. Barack Obama beat John McCain in 2008, despite being less “qualified,” because people were excited about him.
The Virginia Democratic primary pitted McAuliffe, a white, moderate, establishment Dem with lots of money behind him, against two Black women. Jennifer Carroll Foy was a public defender and flipped a red district blue when she ran for the General Assembly in 2017. Jennifer McClellan has served in the Virginia General Assembly for over a decade. McAuliffe, however, had the national party.
Cal Cunningham, similarly, met with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee before former state senator Erica Smith, despite Smith announcing her run for the U.S. Senate months before Cunningham was on anyone’s radar. He got a huge cash advantage despite Smith’s more recent tenure in the N.C. General Assembly, and ultimately beat her in the primary before losing the general.
As a progressive, I’m tired of voting for Democratic candidates who don’t even pretend to care for rural areas, and tired of a national party that puts “electability” over everything when it obviously isn’t getting people elected or helping push good policy through Congress. I’m sure Virginia progressives are tired, too.
This story was originally published November 7, 2021 at 4:00 AM.
