We now have our slate of this year’s election winners, except in all those races that are still too close to call because we’re waiting on provisional ballots and the final mail ballots (looking at you Blacksburg mayor, Lynchburg treasurer, Radford commissioner of the revenue, Windsor Hills District school board and some others).
Elections, though, often produce other winners and losers, so here’s a look at some from this year’s results.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin: Too close to call.
Youngkin certainly wasn’t a winner — his lieutenant governor lost, his party got swept and lost 13 seats in the House of Delegates — but it’s hard to see him as a loser, though. Democrats rarely mentioned his administration; their sights were always trained on President Donald Trump. Public opinion polls consistently showed Youngkin’s approval ratings higher than his disapproval ratings. This election doesn’t seem like a rejection of him; he seemed almost incidental to this election. Winsome Earle-Sears pushed cultural issues but didn’t spend much time associating herself with the Youngkin administration. Only late in the campaign did signs appear proclaiming “keep a good thing going.” You can argue that Youngkin should have done more to help Earle-Sears, but it’s also hard to help people who don’t want to seem to help themselves.
Thought experiment: What if Earle-Sears had run as Youngkin’s designated heir on economic development instead of as a culture warrior? If Youngkin himself had been able to run again, it would have been a very different race, but he would have been the favorite. The Republican blowout doesn’t help Youngkin’s national ambitions but may not necessarily hurt him, either. Youngkin will still be able to point to how he was able to win in a Democratic-leaning state, something that ought to matter nationally if Republicans are in a pragmatic mood.
House Speaker Don Scott: Winner.
The Portsmouth Democrat was already acquiring a reputation as a powerful speaker when he had just a 51-49 majority. With 13 extra seats, he’ll command a Democratic majority not seen since the 1988-89 session. There’s a truism in Richmond: Governors come and go but the legislature is forever, meaning that senior legislators often regard the governor as temporary administrator while they’re the ones who really run the state. Whatever power Scott had before the election is now increased.
Women in politics: Winner
I don’t mean this in the specific sense that Virginia just elected its first woman as governor, or even that for the first time both our governor and lieutenant governor will be women, although there is that. Here’s the number that catches my eye: Democrats picked up 13 seats in the House. Of those, 10 were won by women (in two cases this involved a Democratic woman defeating a Republican woman). Combined with other women winning in races that didn’t involve a party flip, the next House of Delegates will have a record of 42 women.
John Reid: Winner.
Yes, Reid lost his race for lieutenant governor, but he seemed a winner in the eyes of Republicans. In terms of candidate skills, Reid was the best candidate of the six statewide contenders. The former television and radio broadcaster was a gregarious campaigner who made a good impression with Republican activists. He had virtually no money (many House candidates had more money than he did to reach just 1/100th of the voters he was trying to), but he made up for that with relentless energy. He did all the things that Earle-Sears could have done, should have done, but didn’t do. He issued position papers. He granted every interview request he could. He kept up a constant morning-to-night schedule of public events that took him from coal country to the Eastern Shore. You can criticize his positions but not his work ethic. Many had wondered how Republicans would react to a gay candidate and whether there would be any vote drop-off on that ballot line. In the end, Reid won 54,359 more votes than Earle-Sears did. Reid seems to have earned a future within his party, whatever that may be.
Jason Miyares: Winner.
This is much the same as with Reid. It seems hard for Republicans to blame Miyares for his loss. It’s not the AG candidate’s job to generate turnout; that’s up to the top of the ticket, and Earle-Sears failed to excite enough voters.
We’ve had split tickets before but never when the opposing party’s candidate won the governorship by almost 15 percentage points.
The last time Virginia had a split ticket was 2005, when Democrat Tim Kaine won the governorship with 51.7% of the vote and Republicans Bill Bolling and Bob McDonnell won lieutenant governor and attorney general with just over 50% apiece. Abigail Spanberger took 57.14% in more partisan times, creating a blue wave that Miyares couldn’t overcome.
In 1985, a Republican Party that had been locked out of power turned to its unsuccessful attorney general candidate from 1981 to lead them — Wyatt Durrette. Democrats in 2009 did the same with Creigh Deeds. Neither won the big prize, but there is precedent. Miyares also has something on his resume those candidates didn’t: He’s won and held statewide office. Come 2029, there will only be two Republicans who can say that and still be considered a likely contender for governor: Miyares and Youngkin, if the outgoing governor wants to try a comeback. Miyares may not feel like a winner today, but he will survive politically to fight another day and that’s often good enough for a win.
Reps. Ben Cline, Jen Kiggans, John McGuire, Rob Wittman: Losers.
Democrats were determined to come back in January and pass a constitutional amendment that would allow them to redraw (i.e., gerrymander) the state’s congressional districts in time for the 2026 midterms. With an expanded House majority, Democrats might even claim they have a mandate for doing this. Virginia’s congressional delegation is currently six Democrats, five Republicans. It’s possible to draw maps to turn that into 10 Democrats and one Republican — with the four representatives above being drawn into unfavorable districts. Only Morgan Griffith is secure, because Southwest Virginia is so red it’s impossible to gerrymander.
Republicans who want to prevent this have two avenues: The first is in the courts, and the second is in a referendum that would likely take place in April. Until we know the outcome of this redistricting push, no one really knows what district they’re in — not the incumbents and not any challengers either.
Labor unions: Winners.
Unions may be close to winning a long-cherished goal: repeal of the state’s so-called right-to-work law, which forbids compulsory payment of union dues. Many Democrats this year ran for the House on a platform of repealing right-to-work, something I’ve never seen voiced so openly. Spanberger, perhaps caught between a restive Democratic base and the business community, has said she doesn’t favor a full repeal, but that leaves open what partial repeal might look like.
Cannabis investors: Winners.
The Democratic General Assembly has twice passed bills to legalize retail sales of cannabis; twice they’ve been vetoed by Youngkin. Spanberger will sign such legislation. The question now is not whether Virginia will have retail cannabis, but what the rules will be and when the market will start. If you want to invest in the cannabis market, now would be a good time (although beware, it’s a very unpredictable market).
Southwest and Southside Virginia community leaders: Losers
This is simply a practical assessment. Think of this through the perspective of community leaders who might want something from Richmond. When we had a Republican governor, we had lots of Republican legislators who could be intermediaries. Now, with a Democratic governor coming into office, to whom will those community leaders turn if they need the governor’s attention? Youngkin seemed attentive to Southwest, a part of the state that delivered his victory. Spanberger has few natural ties to either region and owes no political debt to Southwest and Southside. She might turn out to be a great governor, but many community leaders in the western part of the state are probably trying to figure out right now who they know who knows people in Spanberger’s inner circle. Until they do, this counts as a loss for them.
Montgomery County and Roanoke County: Winners.
This item comes in the same spirit as the item above, just in reverse. Lily Franklin won House District 41, which covers both localities. That makes her the rare Democrat west of the Blue Ridge (Sam Rasoul of Roanoke is the only other one) and the even rarer Democrat west of Roanoke. I mean no disrespect to Del. Chris Obenshain, R-Montgomery County, whom she defeated, but as a Republican he’d have been on the outside looking in when it came to making requests from a Democratic administration. Franklin will now hold a swing seat that Democrats will want to protect, which ought to give her some leverage in Richmond. Democrats will want her to be able to show something for her efforts in two years.
Want more political news and analysis? Sign up for West of the Capital, our weekly political newsletter that goes out on Fridays. This week I’ll dig deeper into some of the numbers from this week’s election.