I am so angry about Virginia

[FelineOverlord]

{rant}

The turnout by Dems was low.

And we had real problems with the way VA Dems ran their GOTV campaign.

They refused to have any text-banking , only phone banking and sending out LETTERS. Not even postcards.

The letters campaign was a real mess. We had to print out letters and hand-write the letters. It was time consuming and expensive (we had to pay for postage).

There were about 20,000 names that were never “claimed” for letters. Those 20,000 names would have easily been reached with texts.

I remember many times while texting for Gavin Newsom in his recall campaign, I received many thanks from recipients for reminding them to return their ballots.

I also received thanks for reminding NJ Dems to vote for Phil Murphy.

But 1000s of Virginia Dem voters were never even contacted.

We were told that letters were far superior to texting. How can that be if they never even got sent?! We don’t even know if they were ever opened!!

I wrote scathing emails to VA Dem officials after the election.

None of them even bothered to respond.

{end rant}

[empedocles]

1. Virginia was a national target for 'cons

[EleanorR]

2. McAuliffe got more votes than any other Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Virginia's history

https://www.wric.com/news/politics/despite-high-democratic-turnout-youngkin-outperformed-trump-in-every-locality-in-virginia-on-his-way-to-victory/

[Mysterian]

6. So he's going to be the governor then, right?

The idea is to get more votes than the other guy, who is probably going to set a record too.

[uponit7771]

22. Uneducated white women did a 20% switch, he didn't know that months before the election and

... dems still don't know why now.

[tblue37]

25. CRT BS was a big deal.

[WarGamer]

3. Shitty campaigns too...

They left wide open routes of attack for the GOP'ers...

[aeromanKC]

4. Hopefully Virginia '21 was a one and done for GQP similar to Alabama for Dems and Doug Jones in '18

I can NOT believe Virginian's will be OK with what is going to happen to them in the next 4 years. 2025 can't come too soon for them I'm sure.

Too bad Jones lives in Alabama and not a Blue or even Swing state. He was a great Senator.

[Mysterian]

5. McAuliffe thought he was a shoo-in

I am not a fan of his. His unqualified support for the destructive, doomed Atlantic Coast pipeline project destroyed whatever support he once had in western Virginia.

[Budi]

7. No one including McAuliff thought he was a shoe in.

Why were the powerful mass political organizers of the progressive left absent in VA?
They contributed little yet blast out criticisms for McAuliff's loss against a RW campaign.

Where were they?

[Mysterian]

13. Yeah, blame it on those evil progressives

That's the ticket!

[redstateblues]

15. Delaying and fighting with Biden did not help McCaulif

[Tommymac]

10. He was a weak candidate who ran a poor ground/web game. I saw and said that in the summer.

But was shouted down by some for being a doubting Thomas.

Reality Bites, Virginia. There is no Santa Claus.

Disclosure: I'm personally very upset because I have family and friends there who will suffer greatly because of the Radical Right. I saw the 'ground game' in action personally and it quite frankly sucked. As did online fundraising.

I actually donated $$ and did some calling but it was soon apparent that was a huge kludge.

Hell they only put out yard signs in mid September in areas I went through several times. And some NOVA areas had NONE.

People are apathetic by nature and simply forget to vote. If you don't remind them on election day it greatly cuts down turnout. First I have heard they didn't leverage text messaging.

I mean come on, Howard Dean taught us the power of online many many years ago. But egos.

[brush]

8. Unfortunate about no text-banking. Some GOTV hands don't text...

and don't know the worth of this simple and quick way of campaigning. It's, as you said, cheaper and faster than phone banking. And mailing actual letters requiring printing and postage and DeJoy's questionable mail delivery...that makes no sense.

[CaptainTruth]

9. I get so much junk mail if I don't recognize a letter, I don't open it.

A postcard I'll look at & read, especially if it's hand written.

[Tommymac]

11. I think the average person spends like 3-5 seconds looking at one piece of unsolicited mail.

That's why when I was learning marketing I was told to send POSTCARDS. They got read everytime.

[TheRealNorth]

12. This has been a pet peeve of mine for YEARS

I have this bad feeling that we have been stuck with bad campaign marketing companies because we only work with "approved" companies, which are based on who knows who.

In 2020, Angie Craig had some God awful You Tube ads that looked like they were video taped by a local cable access channel. The audio was also really bad too. She still won, but I don't know if she would have if the anti-Trump vote wasn't there.

The teachers union in my area, on the other hand, used post cards to communicate who were the non-MAGAT school board candidates right before this past November's election. Otherwise, I would have been stuck doing web searches trying to find out where each candidate stood (usually the best strategy I found is to look at who endorsed them). No MAGATS were elected to the school board in my swing district this past November.

[former9thward]

14. Democratic turnout was not low. It was high.

Despite high Democratic turnout, Youngkin outperformed Trump in every locality in Virginia on his way to victory

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Terry McAuliffe got the job done.

With the help of some prominent campaign surrogates, the former governor drove up turnout for an off-year election and received more votes than any other Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Virginia’s history.

The problem for McAuliffe?

First-time candidate Glenn Youngkin rallied even more people to the polls, ending up with the most votes ever in a Virginia gubernatorial election and helping Republicans shift the state’s political landscape in the process.

Democrats’ recent success in Virginia fed the idea that high voter turnout leads to comfortable statewide wins for the party, a belief debunked by Republican voters this year.

https://www.wric.com/news/politics/despite-high-democratic-turnout-youngkin-outperformed-trump-in-every-locality-in-virginia-on-his-way-to-victory/

[onenote]

16. Yep. And the same tactics being criticized here

were praised for being successful when Democrats captured the state legislature.

There were problems with the campaign, but they had more to do with messaging than turn out.

[LENNY0229]

29. High R turnout plus they flipped Indies bigtime. Flipping Indies was a MAJOR factor.

[lame54]

17. Should have sent a text

[phylny]

18. I live in Virginia and got plenty of handwritten postcards, as did my husband.

We also got larger, professionally printed cards.

[LENNY0229]

19. There was tons of textbanking in VA because I did it. It was being done in a big targeted way.

There were millions of textbank messages sent because I sent tens of thousands myself and know hundreds of thousands a day were being sent especially in the last several weeks of the campaign. It was a robust text messaging effort targeted at less frequent voters as it should have been. You may not have received one if you are a frequent voter. (It was being done through the "Mobilize Virginia" site online.)

Remember, the party holding the White House usually loses the governorship there because the other party is always more motivated to vote after a presidential loss. (Sad this happens, but it does. It's not harder to go vote in non-presidential cycles. EVERYONE needs to VOTE.)

McCauliffe had HUGE national headwinds with the inflation issue, national Dems arguing over Infrastructure/BBB, etc.

McCauliffe also made a HUGE gaffe over the parents and education thing at a time when people were exhausted and riled up over that issue mainly due to Covid school shutdowns. He was taken out of context, but he used some very poor word choice in his answer to that debate question, and the GQP just ran with it.

In my view McCauliffe's main error was nationalizing the election too much rather than focusing on a few key STATE-based issues around education, lowering middle class tax burdens, healthcare, stopping the pandemic, and jobs which are always the key bread and butter issues. His messaging was too scattered. He kept talking about his TWENTY plans on his website, and he nationalized things too much. The GQP had a more focused state based message.

Still, whatever mistakes were made, McCauliffe only lost by 2.5% and got more votes than did Northam in 2017 and I think more than any other Dem candidate ever. Sadly, Youngkin won because Indies went massively over to the other side. Youngkin focused on education and taxes, and it swayed lots of Indies who were angry about inflation and education issues.

I believe if McCauliffe had a more focused campaign, a bit of a more robust and earlier groundgame, and didn't make that MASSIVE gaffe in the debate over the education issue, he'd have won. But all said, it was not a "bad" campaign. It was very close, and he got more votes than any other Dem running for governor. It was the HUGE loss of Indies that swayed it to the GQP. HOWEVER, that said, MORE DEMS should still have voted and they all knew there was an election. My goodness, tons of communication happened. Too many still just sat out for no good reason.

Now we will see how the GQP does and whether VA folks want to stay with them or change again next time.

One more thing to remember. NJ Governor also almost always goes to the party not in the White House. Phil Murphy broke that trend by winning re-election by over 80,000 votes. Very close, but he won. In some ways D's had a pretty good night last November. Also won many mayorships and local races in some places, such as my state where we won a special election for the legislature.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

20. Welcome to DU. Thanks for writing. Have you found the Virginia group yet?

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1081

[uponit7771]

23. "a bit of a more robust and earlier groundgame" This is what I read in VA was the messaging he was

... doing didn't start till late in the game.

Each message medium has to be FLOODED with constant messaging from dems for weeks for us to get through and TM didn't start till late.

He should've defined Youngkin as Trump earlier and let him walk being a Trump minion then flood message mediums with what his plan was.

He didn't, all this was started late and VA dems were behind the message curve

[LENNY0229]

24. He could have started earlier, but did people not know there was an election?

Didn't people have enough time to know there was an election? All that early voting? And again, hundreds of thousands of doors were knocked, mail sent, and text and phonebanks. Info all over the place online and tv. I agree he could have started sooner, but it's not like people didn't know. Too many just sat out, and for no real good reason. Again though, that said, he still pulled out more votes than any other Dem.

His message should have been clearer and more focused on state level bread and butter issues. He should not have made that dreadful education issue gaffe. He should have said, "I want parents to be involved in education. I want them to go to their schoolboard meetings, have robust debate, and be engaged. In fact ANY citizen has a right and duty to do that. I welcome every comment and opinion. At the end of the day we do need to remember that there is a process that includes state policy and so forth as we form school curricula, but of course parents have every right to meet with admininistrators and schoolboards and voice their views and opinions and I welcome them to the process." That is how he should have said it.

R's were VERY motivated and focused, Indies went BIG for Youngkin, McCauliffe made a fatal gaffe, and national headwinds and historical trends were against McCauliffe. And still he nearly pulled it out and got more votes than any Dem is VA history.

[uponit7771]

21. ***I"VE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR MONTHS !!!*** Dem messaging mechanics suck !!!

[Silent3]

26. American voters suck for needing "messaging" to see what should be plain...

...to them if they were paying attention with their tiny, under-exercised brains, and not so wrapped up in their own little worlds that they don't know or care what's going on around them.

[uponit7771]

31. Not in plain site, the informed think everyone else is as informed as they are. The avg voter isn't

[Celerity]

27. In the hotly-contested 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election, according to the AP-NORC VoteCast

Survey (more reliable than the highly flawed exit polls), Democrat Terry McAuliffe actually lost the Latino vote and also lost ground among black and “other race’ (chiefly Asian) voters. This deterioration of nonwhite support also can be seen in analysis of precinct-level results.

https://theliberalpatriot.substack.com/p/the-democrats-hispanic-voter-problem-dfc

[LENNY0229]

28. Why do you think this happened?

[Celerity]

30. the article at that link partly explains why

[LENNY0229]

32. But what do you think?

[leftstreet]

33. The poster didn't write the article

s/he directed you to the article

[Celerity]

35. she

[leftstreet]

36. ...

[cadoman]

37. it sounds like Hispanics are under-educated or misinformed about the benefits of our border policy

"A September Dallas Morning News poll had Biden's approval rating among Texas Hispanics at an anemic 35 percent vs. 54 percent disapproval--19 points underwater. His approval rating on handling immigration at the border was even worse--29 points underwater. "

My message to the Latinx community would be: don't you remember just a year ago we literally had kids in cages on the border, and a stupid, ugly and worthless wall (*cough*, *fence*) was being put up between us? The giant orange putz would utter racial slurs and call you rapists and criminals? Do you not remember that and his hatred for you?

It takes a while to recover from that but there is huge progress being made every day.

[herding cats]

38. I can't speak to Virginia, but in Texas I've seen it.

Leaning conservative Latinos, at least here, have been a concern.

It's disturbing since they're a growing block of voters here. Abbott recently started an outreach to conservative Latinos to shore up his campaign. Which sadly just might resonate with many. Not that he's offering any real solutions to their problems, but he is speaking words they and their family members can at least relate to. Which his primary opponents aren't bothering to address.