Virginia Republicans fear GOP candidates’ losses on Tuesday could spell trouble come midterms if the party doesn’t figure out a strategy to appeal to working-class voters without President Donald Trump on the ticket.
“There’s three elements in any election: candidate quality, environment, and money, and they all favored the Democrats,” Virginia political operative Chris Saxman told The Daily Signal.
Former Rep. Abigail Spanberger won with 55% of the vote to 44.8% for Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. State Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, D-Richmond, prevailed 53.2% to conservative talk-show host John Reid’s 46.6%, and former state Del. Jay Jones beat incumbent Attorney General Jason Miyares 52.2% to 47.4%.
Earle-Sears failed to promote a plan on the No. 1 issue for working-class voters: affordability, Saxman said.
“They didn’t focus on it at all,” he said. “What they should have done is taken [Democrat Abigail Spanberger’s] policies, and shown how they were not affordable.”
“That aside, the overwhelming antipathy for Donald Trump in this election among swing voters and base Democrats was obvious,” he continued.
Candidate quality was part of the problem, but the candidate’s platform is what matters most, according to Republican former U.S. Rep. Dave Brat.
“Trump appeals to the working class, and he’s got the special sauce, with the jets and the construction background and whatever,” Brat told The Daily Signal. “He’s just a bizarre combination of stuff that wins.”
But Virginia Republicans failed to message properly to the working class, he said.
“Trump is the one person who was able to put together the black, brown, blue-collar coalition,” he said. and I don’t know why people aren’t following that strategy.”
In midterms, Republicans need to “go grassroots,” he said.
“The check writers will never support you,” he said of the wealthy Virginia elite who lean left. “You need a grassroots movement that’s more powerful than the check writers.”
“When the Left is the business class, they own all of it, and we didn’t make it clear that we’re fighting for the average person,” he said, “and if you don’t do that, you lose.”
Trump voters stayed home despite Republican efforts to mobilize them to the polls. The state GOP was aware before the election that about 400,000 to 600,000 people voted for Trump for president in Virginia who don’t vote in state elections.
“Our focus was trying to get them out. But it’s an issue going forward, that if they can’t go vote for Donald Trump, they don’t necessarily go vote for the Republican candidate,” said state Sen. Mark Peake, who serves as chairman of the Virginia GOP. “And we’ve got to do a much better job of getting the Trump-only voter engaged in other elections. And we tried.”
Peake said the GOP was unsuccessful in mobilizing these voters because Democrats outspent them 2-to-1.
“When Gov. [Glenn] Youngkin ran in ’21, he was able to put in a large sum of his own money, and the spending was about equal,” he told The Daily Signal. “This year we were outspent at least 2-to-1, roughly $60 million to $30 million, and so an extra $30 million to hire door knockers, to hire people to do phone calls, to direct market, to direct mail on specific issues. It’s hard to compete with somebody who can spend $30 million more than you are.”
Northern Virginia votes were a pivotal part of the story of Republican’s drastic losses.
“Winsome lost Northern Virginia from Loudoun County and Prince William in to Alexandria and Arlington,” Saxman said. “She lost that part of that Northern Virginia vote by 420,000. That’s directly attributable to the shutdown and the [Department of Government Efficiency] cuts, and suggesting otherwise is just inaccurate.”
What happened in Virginia is similar to what happened in New Jersey and Georgia and Pennsylvania and other elections around the country where Democrats focused on affordability and Republicans didn’t, Saxman said.
“They all ran on affordability. [New York City Mayor-elect Zohran] Mamdani did. [New Jersey Gov.-elect] Mikie Sherrill ran on affordability,” he said. “Abigail Spanberger ran on affordability … They went after the ones who are pinched on their daily budgets, their daily grocery, buying gas, buying housing prices, all of it, and they just talked about it.”
Trump was an inescapable part of the “Democratic intensity” in this election, Saxman said.
“The problem for Republicans is that he wasn’t actually on the ballot, so people didn’t show up for it,” he said. The Democrats got basically every single swing voter and the Republican low-propensity first-time Donald Trump voters really didn’t turn out. And that’s going to be a problem for Republicans going forward, who rely on or think they’re going to have that voting cohort.”
“They’re not there anymore,” he said, “and that was what this election showed me about Republicans. Going forward, they’re gonna have to come to their different coalition now, if they’re gonna
win.”
Republicans need a “suburban strategy,” which they currently lack, to win, he said.
The shutdown isn’t the reason for Democrat victories, but it padded the margin of victory, Saxman said.
“It didn’t determine the outcome,” he said. “It just determined the margin of the outcome.”
Brat said if Republicans had messaged better on the shutdown, it could have worked to their advantage, rather than their detriment.
“It should have gone our way because the funding of more Obamacare,” he said. “We’re running $2 trillion deficits per year now, and the Dems are shutting it down because they want more spending for illegal immigrants on Obamacare, and if you can’t win that debate. Oh, my word”
In upcoming elections, Virginia GOP Chairman Mark Peake advises Congress not to shut down the government the month before an election.
“Even though the Democrats caused this shutdown, the Republicans got blamed for it,” he said, “and certainly we get blamed for it in Virginia because of so many we have so many government employees and people who are dependent on government in Northern Virginia.”
As Republicans gear up for midterms, the party needs to “get people working” and the economy “roaring”
“There’s plenty of time for that to happen, for Trump’s policies to kick in—the lower taxes, the corporate investment in the country, building new plants, factories in the country,” he said. “So once that takes off, I think that will help us dramatically in the midterm elections.”
While many lessons have been learned, Peake said he is confident the Virginia GOP will make a comeback.
“Virginia has swung opposite the White House for over 50 years,” he said. “We’re going to swing back. We are analyzing the results. We’re going to develop new plans to reach these voters who did not show up, and we’ll be ready for the midterms.”
