Virginia: What lies ahead?

Whether one believes the 2020 Election was fraudulent or not does not dismiss the fact that Virginia has solidly more than ever become politically a "blue" state. Those that dismiss that fact are either those that profit by not admitting as much or simply those ignoring facts.

2020 Election by Region

The Election of 2020 was what is called a "base" election. Period.

The problem in terms of Virginia for the Virginia GOP is it had to wage a two front battle throughout 2020. On one front it had to fight the surging Democratic machine and outside money has it had in 2019 but also had to deal with the "Never Trumpers" from within the Republican Party itself. Many of the latter subscribe to the notions of the Lincoln Project.

While rural Virginia turned out in 2020, so to did the urban centers that overwhelmingly support Democrats.  Trump appears to have made significant inroads with minorities in places like Norfolk and Hampton precincts in 2020 compared to 2016.

In Norfolk, Trump raised his support from 26% to 44.17% and in Hampton from 28.9% to 44.63% among voters. The question however remains whether these votes were mere "Trump" votes and not "GOP" votes and whether the Virginia GOP has the capacity to keep these votes in the upcoming election of 2021 for the Virginia Executive.

2020 Election by County/City in Virginia

What cannot be understated is Trump lost the Virginia suburbs. No path to victory exists in statewide elections without winning the suburban vote in Virginia. One glaringly concerning development for the Virginia GOP was the loss of Chesterfield County. Trump has won the county in 2016 but lost the county in 2020 but some seven points. Biden outperformed both Obama and Clinton in Chesterfield County which now mirrors Henrico County across the James River in suburban Richmond where Trump losts by some twenty nine points. This was a county formerly held by Rep. Eric Cantor (R) for over a decade until his defeat six years ago in a primary at the hands of the Tea Party.  ( See upcoming posts: "Virginia: How the Tea Party Changed Virginia?")

Virginia now is decisively "blue" in statewide elections or "popular votes".  Biden like Governor Ralph Northam (D) won overwhelmingly in Virginia and did so simply by raising the voter turnout in the very areas of the Commonwealth that the Democrats have controlled post 2013. Bidens 53.92% is virtually  identical to Northam's 53.90 in 2017. Whereas Gov. Northam (D) earned 1,409,175, V.P. Joe Biden in 2020 earned 2,377,061. That is almost 1 million more votes cast in 2020 for Biden than for Northam three years prior. One hope in 2021 for Republicans is that this level of turnout will not be sustainable in the November 2021 elections. This may not be that far fetched in truth given Hillary Clinton generated 1,981,473 in 2016 some 500,000 more votes than Northam in 2017, however the ground game and the infrastructure is more developed now than it was in 2017 for Democrats across the Commonwealth.

We have learned that the more things change the more they in fact stay the same in Virginia politics. Virginia has not supported a Republican for President since George W. Bush(2004)  and not a Republican Governor since Bob McDonnell (R) since 2009. The Congressional Delegation to Washington remains unchanged and sits 7-4 in favor of the Democrats and the Democrats hold both U.S. Senate seats.

The hope for a resurgence for the Virginia GOP is the General Assembly. The Commonwealth will hold elections for the House of Delegates in 2021 which will be crucial for the GOP even more so than the Executive races that may be out of reach. Many believe that a Biden administration could open the door for the GOP in terms of next years race for Governor but much will hinge not on the Democrats but rather who the Virginia GOP actually nominates.

The Democrats claim that Trump was repudiated in Virginia last Tuesday. However, Trump did raise his vote count by almost 150,000 votes from 2016 to 2020. The Virginia GOP very well may be smart to look towards focusing on one aspect of the Trump appeal in terms of 2021 and that is his business acumen and  being an outsider. In other words, fresh new blood and not a retired from the GOP stable.

Two potential candidates that fit this strategy are Pete Synder and Glenn Youngkin. Two businessman that have been working during the pandemic to support Virginia workers and families throughout the crisis. Snyder's "Virginia 30 Day Fund" and Youngkin's "Virginia Ready" have been successful endeavors supporting the working class families of Virginia. While Snyder has some campaign experiences in Virginia, Youngkin would be a complete outsider with broad appeal to fiscal and moderate conservatives. Neither men even remotely resemble the "Trump" personality let alone would make any attempt to replicate it as others in the GOP have attempted thus far in Virginia. Other potential candidates include Delegate Kirk Cox or former State Senator Bill Carrico.

How much impact Trump will have on 2021 is still an unknown but any attempt to replicate Trump in a statewide race will be met with the same fate at the polls. The GOP requires an authentic voice to address what the Commonwealth will face in the coming years and with a budget shortfall of almost 3 billion and tax hikes almost a certainty it will be new voices that are required to attract suburban voters back into the GOP fold.

The 2021 General Assembly will loom large on the 2021 election cycle. How far the Progressive wing of the Democratic Party of Virginia yields its power will be center stage. The wing appears to be determined to go after law enforcement, gun reform, criminal sentencing reforms and a robust tax hike from sales tax to income tax. 

The biggest question today is whether the Virginia Democrats will over play their hand during the 2021 General Assembly session in Richmond.

Amanda Chase (R) Clashes with Supporters: In Her Own Way and Words

State Senator Amanda Freeman Chase, Conservative running for the nomination for the Republican Party of Virginia for Governor 2021 has managed a slow start out of the gate. Controversy is not new to Chase and both the Blue Virginia and Richmond Times-Dispatch have been reporting on yet another one.

Chase of course is the Chesterfield County State Senator that was removed from her own county Republican Committee in September of last year and would quit the Virginia Republican Senate Caucus in November. Chase was isolated in Janaury of this year being strip of every one of her committees save one. Chase failed to have one piece of legisalation pass this session.

This is but one reporting of exchanges that Chase herself took to Facebook in a clear attempt to channel her inner Trump it seems given his massive twitter following. It appears as though this however is backfiring. While her new page continues to grow over the controversy the original grassroots page only appears to have lost about one hundred and fifty members of the 11,200 it was reported as having by the Times-Dispatch.

Join in discussion here : https://www.facebook.com/groups/2606638476319301/

Keep in mind Chase for Governor, the new campaign run site for Chase was less than 500 people at the beginning of April and now is at 10,000 so the Chase strategy of drawing controversy may have worked for her in terms of core supporters but statewide appears unlikely she is winning over any new supporters. In fact just the opposite. Savy short term but not long term. The controversies are stacking up on Chase.

Chase was highly criticized for what appeared to be the manner in which she took over last years Second Amendment rally in Chesterfield County. Little coordination between her and the grassroots groups (non VCDL) that had formed on facebook created tension as she appeared to take over the event eventhough other legislators and candidates who had orchestrated with groups were present.

Unbeknownst to Chase, the private groups began aligning behind Delegate Nick Freitas who Chase just recently endorsed stating that she does not typically endorse Republican candidates but was Nick Freitas. Chase wanted to tap into the very groups supporting Freitas who has amassed a coffer of over 600,000 in donations. The Chase campaign has yet to release its fundrasing numbers but some believe based on her issues with the supporters group that she is under performing and needing the groups to assist her. When the groups refused, Senator Chase went on the offensive.

Here are published screenshots from the dialogue engaged in by Chase and supporters. From Blue Virginia @bluevirginia :

Regardless of ones opinion regarding State Senator Chase these are interactions on her public "official" facebook page in which as the supporters group has claimed threatens to have the Capital Police look into these citizens.

Have the Capital Police investigated this matter. Have they contacted any of the participants in this matter is a question that State Senator Chase has refused to answer.

Chase claimed in the above conversation she did not know the grassroots supporters yet the Richmod.com article published states she texted with them numerous times. Chase would not answer her intial involvement with the grassroots group but published information demonstrates she joined the group on January 20, 2020 the month before she announced her run.

Chase claims her staff knows better than to contact citizens regarding donations during session yet could not provide an answer to reporters why the call logs provided of calls and texts show her staff contacting supporters. Chase would not address the reasons for these calls or nature of intent. One such call was by her campaign manager on February 25, 2020 while the Virginia General Assembly was clearly in session.  A voicemail message seeking a meeting was disclosed to have been received.

No State Legislator is permitteed to campaign or fundraise during session of the the Virginia General Assembly. It appears at the very least, Senator Chase need to explain why the call logs reflect calls from her staff to supporters during session and why she herself used her personal private cell phone number not listed on her State Senate page or her official facebook page. Chase has a personal account under Amanda Freeman Chase but would not comment when asked if she was personal facebook friends on her private page. There is also claimed to be a facbook interaction where Chase thanks specific named supporters and one of them is now the person she claims to have never known.

https://conservativestateus.blogspot.com/2020/05/bait-switch-chase-communications-prove.html

The Need for Dollars Makes for Strange Alliances

                      Does the Republican Party of Virginia need a complete overhaul?

In 2018, The Virginia GOP lost seats in Congress in historically right-leaning districts and then in 2019 lost control of the majority in Richmond. The Republicans have failed to control the Executive in Virginia since  election of 2009.

As it stands, the 2020 crop of Republican candidates are an impressive combination of diversity. This diversity however does that appear to be something that the Republican Party of Virginia seeks to highlight or use to change the narrative regarding the party that is constantly being portrayed by the opposition as non-inclusive. This diversity should be the very thing that the Party highlights in its campaigns to change the image of the Party that the Virginia Democrats have owned for the last decade.

The Republican Party of Virginia has not recovered in truth from the optic disaster of Charlottesville in 2017 placed sqaure at its foot and President Trump's. It has ceded the narrative to the Virginia Democrats crafted by former Governor Terry McAuliffe (D) that that event was representative of the Virginia GOP. Few arguments were made of course  by the GOP in large part due to the fact that party consultants feared alienating those groups that ultimately would be funding campaigns with contributions. Something proving harder to come by.

One thing is clear is there is no unifying message with the Virginia GOP from the top down. Each campaign underway in 2020 appears to have its own identity while having to contend with a heavily funded message coming from Virginia Democrats seeking to hold the gains won in 2018. It further does not help that the messaging coming out of the campaign for the only declared Republican for Governor in 2021 at the same time is taking shots at the GOP Leadership on a weekly basis unwittingly doing the Demcorats job for them. It recently even took a shot at former Lt. Governor Bill Bolling (R).

It also does little help to any of the 2020 Congressional candidates that the only Republican declared thus far for the Governor's race next year is aligning with the very alt right groups behind Charlottesville in 2017. Reviewing the official pages of those running for Congress and the declared candidate for Governor it is easy to identify that the Virginia GOP has real issues centered around identity. While the Congressional candidates are speaking to policy, the Chase for Governor campaign is speaking to divisions and blame. The latest fundraising efforts of the latter are targeting fringe groups of the alt right for support and the old Corey Stewart coalition of hard liners who can only be described as nativists. Some have claimed that Chase is forming a "Tactical Vest" Army.

Its a dictomy that is lost on the lone GOP candidate for Governor. While the Congressional candidates in places like the Virginia 10th need to attract support from minorities, immigrants and suburban women, the Chase for Governor campaign is alienating them by the week. It is clear that the Chase for Governor campaign has made a strategic determination not to condemn the alt right groups but instead fundraise off them. This in effect places the entire Republican platform in 2020 in jeapardy.

The initial contribution reporting likely will demonstrate the small donor base of the Chase for Governor campaign thus far in 2020 and while the campaign very well may characterize it as a grassroots support the devil will be in the true details concerning where those donations are coming from. Known alt groups on social media are aligning with the messaging of the Chase for Governor campaign.

The impact of the divisions with the Virignia GOP will not really be fully understood until November. Losses by Congressional candidates will simply just embolden those that support Chase and her campaign by misunderstanding they have contributed to the very losses due to poor alignment with those seeking Congressional seats.

Aliscia Andrews (R) is one such Virginian running for the nomination in the Virginia 10th to face Jennifer Wexton (D) who defeated Barabara Comstock (R) in 2018. Andrews is a former Marine and has a strong Second Amendment supporter base but her base in the 2A movement is not the fringe alt right that often times may align with it. Andrews supporters are Constitution loving Virginians; not anarchists. There is a difference. The 2A movement is much broader than how it has been characterized in the media. Its more than merely those that will rally in tactical gear and armed. Its farmers, hunters, rural families and countless others in Virginia that simply want to get back to embracing liberty and freedom. These Virginians are not alt right wingers or Corey Stewart followers. This is easily demonstrated in the results of the 2018 Virginia Senate race in which Stewart lost handily to Tim Kaine (D) by almost 600,000 votes. Four years prior Republican Ed Gillespie lost to Senator Mark Warner by less than 20,000 votes in 2014.

Does the Republican Party of Virginia want to repeat that performance in 2021? Does it wish to suffer a third straight Executive "trifecta" loss in Virginia? This summer will be a critical crossroad for the Virignia GOP. It must prove to Virginians that it can pivot.

The 2020 Democratic Miscalculation Regarding the Minority Vote

In the wake of the Vice President Biden victory in the South Carolina Democratic Presidential Primary, the Democrats appeared posed to make the same miscalculation they did in 2016 with regard to the Hillary Clinton campaign prospects of the minority vote delivering her the Presidency.

In 2016 Democrats generated all kinds of excuses regarding the Clinton loss. Most are fully aware of the Russian hoax advanced by Congressional Democrats but that two year long political disaster was merely masking the reality that Democrats and the media that are aligned with them refuse to face.

Democrats have long depended upon the African-American vote and continue to use this voting block as a significant messaging component regarding elections. In all likelihood Vice President Joe Biden will likely be forced by the establishment to opt for an African American woman to be his running mate. This is of course is being foreshadowed already  by the fact that Democratic media has been building the narrative around South Carolina's  Jim Clyburn's endorsement.

The notion that Rep, Jim Clyborn's (D-SC-6) endorsement has even been linked to Biden winning the Virginia Democratic Primary. This notion is highly misplaced. Biden had been polling higher in Virginia than the others lone before the endorsement and in fact the development that pushed Biden over 50% in Virginia had more to do with the Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar dropping out just days before the Super Tuesday and endorsing Biden. Mayor Pete had been projected to take about a dozen delegates in Virginia before his withdrawal from the race who never polled highly with minorities. In fact, the support for Biden  by minorities in Virginia was already baked into the polling for Biden weeks before Super Tuesday.

While the Democrats have been in a bitter primary race, Donald Trump has been growing and expanding his support especially with minorities. In 2016 Trump earned 8% of the African American vote which was greater than both John McCain and Mitt Romney Presidential runs. Trump has been reaching out for the minority vote over the last year and the reports and polling being advanced by the leftist media simply does not represent the reality on the ground. Recent rallies by the Trump campaign have witnessed growing number of minorities at a time when Politico has reported under performing with black voters.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/24/blackpac-poll-democrats-117243

The fact is the current metrics demonstrated that Trump is poised to double his 2016 percentage of support from minorities. Hillary Clinton while winning the overall minority vote percentage wise did not see the same number come to the polls as President Obama did in 2008 or 2012. There is no reason to expect that blacks will return to the polls in 2020 at the levels of 2008 or 2012 either and frankly very well may come in less than 2016.

The biggest issue facing the Democrats and one they are not even addressing with their campaign narratives is while they keep targeting a declining black voter block they are largely ignoring the growing Hispanic block. The Hispanic voter turnout has increased by one percent each and every election cycle since 2000. The block has increased three percent turnout since President Bush won in 2004. In 2016 the overall Hispanic turnout was 11% versus the black voter blocks 12%. The black voting block has been greater than the Hispanic one in every election since 2000 however this appears likely to change in 2020.

The Hispanic vote in 2020 will surpass that of the African-American  voting block for the first time in American political history.

The Democrats are not even addressing this trend at all during their primary. In Texas on Super Tuesday some of these trends are revealed in truth that demonstrate some real division in the Democrat camp. 3 out of 5 black voters in Texas supported Biden while only 2 out 5 Hispanics supported Sanders which aided him in his victory by offsetting Sanders Hispanic support in the state. Biden won overwhelmingly in the older demographic while Sanders won the significant younger voting block. Biden only defeated Sanders by about three percent overall based largely on the black vote which represents just a fifth of the voting turnout in Texas. There has been very little outreach  y Biden campaign as of yet in truth to Hispanics while the Trump campaign in Texas has been working for months on building a ground game there.

Trump earned 1.8 million votes in his primary which eclipsed the top six Democrats combined in the Democratic Primary and a large number of his supporters came from the growing Hispanic voting  block in the Texas.

Consider some historic metrics over the past twenty years.

2000 the overall black vote was 10% of voter turnout while Hispanic was 7%
2004 the overall black vote was 11% of voter turnout while Hispanic was 8%
2008 the overall black vote was 13% of the voter turnout while Hispanic was 9%
2012 the overall black vote was 13% of the voter turnout while Hispanic was 10%
2016 the overall black vote declined to 12% while the Hispanic vote rose to 11%

I predict the black voter turnout in 2020 to decline to 11% overall whereas the Hispanic vote to continue its upward trend to 12%. The Hispanic block has also witnessed the larger new voter registration efforts ever undertaken by Republican campaigns before with dedicated programs in large Hispanic areas of the country.

The Trump campaign is also opening many targeted offices for the purposes of attracting more of the black vote than ever before for a Republican. Trump has delivered record employment for both voting blocks as well as major criminal justice reform. The community opportunity zones being implemented have been supported by many black leaders as well.

It is not inconceivable to see Trump earn somewhere between 13-15% of the overall black vote and raise his performance with the Hispanic vote to 35-38% from earning 28% in 2016 based on the current polling and approval ratings of the President.

Much of course will depend on whether Democrats nominate Vice President Biden or Bernie Sanders but it cannot be overstated that the fluidity in places like Texas and Florida is real. In 2004 President Bush earned 13% of the black vote and in Texas 16%. Bush also earned 14% of the black vote in North Carolina. If Trump secures that rate of support he will handily win all three of those states in 2020.

So for the Democrats to overly concentrate on and keep extending the narrative post Super Tuesday regarding the "black vote" it will once again be a total miscalculation by the Democrat National Committee which thus far has proved they are way behind the Trump campaign in 2020 in terms of activism and engagement.

Roper Center for Public Opinion Research:
https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-2016