• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Democrat Ralph Northam defeats Ed Gillespie in race for Va. governor

beefheart said:
Conservatives better get used to this.

I'm looking forward to my representative winning the senate seat in my state.
Click to expand...

Alabama is the real test of increased Democratic enthusiasm.
 
Anthony60 said:
LOL! It was a lot closer than it should have been!
Click to expand...

Ok. I 100% agree that some of the celebrating by Democrats like they've already won the House in 2018 and the presidency in 2020 is completely unfounded, but how do you figure that claim?

Northam's on track to win by almost double Clinton's margin, and more than any other Democrat has won statewide in the last several decades besides Mark Warner's 2008 win.
 
slick said:
It's really Northern Virginia which has changed so dramatically that turned Virginia blue. Wow , what a change since I went to college
at W&M from up here in the Northeast. 25% foreign born, Asian 20%, Latino 15%, African born 7%. The huge influx of foreigners
are Northern Virginia now & they celebrate "el cinco de mayo"., Diwali, the 'Festival of Lights,' ,
& 'Ramadan" with the same verve that Virginia used to celebrate 'Lee/Jackson' day when I was educated there.
Click to expand...

Must suck that other cultures have the audacity to celebrate their holidays. FWIW, I'm white and I celebrate Cinco de Mayo, Dia De Los Muertos, Diwalli and St. Patrick's day. And, I enjoy the hell out of it.
 
Fenton said:
:roll:
In a Blue State that Hillary carried no less.
Click to expand...

Not that Blue. Dems haven't had control in that state since 1991. They do now though. I guess petty squabbles over purity and microaggression don't matter as much when actual Nazis feel emboldened enough to march in your streets.
 
Cardinal said:
Alabama is the real test of increased Democratic enthusiasm.
Click to expand...

Alabama is just a bastion of weird, backwards people.

No telling what they do there.
 
Fenton said:
:roll:
In a Blue State that Hillary carried no less.
Click to expand...

Except that the House of Delegates was Red, the State Senate is Red, and the GOP is up on DEMs in the US House from VA for now.

I'm already seeing other trumposters blame the influx of 'others', along with trump bashing Gillespie before his S. Korean speech ...
 
beefheart said:
Conservatives better get used to this.

I'm looking forward to my representative winning the senate seat in my state.
Click to expand...

Utah-3 is huge tonight ...
 
We'll have to hold off celebrating a Democratic delegate victory. Still, not a bad night.

"Amazingly, the current margin is 150 votes or less in 5 of the 7 VA HoD districts that are still too close to call. That means control will be decided by absentee/provisional ballots, and may not be determined for days."

-David Wasserman, NBC and 538 contributor
 
Apparently doubling down on racist ****heels is not a winning strategy in Virginia. Who knew!
 
Did... did the GOP win any seats in VA?
 
Trump already ****ting on Gillespie via Twitter. Glorious.
 
Deuce said:
Trump already ****ting on Gillespie via Twitter. Glorious.
Click to expand...

I have to laugh that Trumps ego is so damaged by a Dem win, he has to resort to complete lying to stroke his ego. Trump is such a ****ing man-child. It would be funny if it weren't for the fact he is president and his ego is damaged by so little.
 
Anagram said:
Ok. I 100% agree that some of the celebrating by Democrats like they've already won the House in 2018 and the presidency in 2020 is completely unfounded, but how do you figure that claim?

Northam's on track to win by almost double Clinton's margin, and more than any other Democrat has won statewide in the last several decades besides Mark Warner's 2008 win.
Click to expand...

Virginia? Are you kidding? It's about as blue a State as there is.
 
digsbe said:
Yeah, because a blue state that went to Clinton and had a Dem governor electing another Dem is Trumpian backlash :roll:

I had hopes for Virginia, but this wasn't a surprise.
Click to expand...

It's a southern state. What it proved is Trump's unpopularity. Gillespie tried to use Trump's racist politicking and the good people of Virginia just weren't having it!
 
slick said:
It's really Northern Virginia which has changed so dramatically that turned Virginia blue. Wow , what a change since I went to college
at W&M from up here in the Northeast. 25% foreign born, Asian 20%, Latino 15%, African born 7%. The huge influx of foreigners
are Northern Virginia now & they celebrate "el cinco de mayo"., Diwali, the 'Festival of Lights,' ,
& 'Ramadan" with the same verve that Virginia used to celebrate 'Lee/Jackson' day when I was educated there.
Click to expand...

Isn't Divali a great celebration? It's a big deal in my home town- parade, food stalls, bhangra dancing onstage...
 
Zyphlin said:
This is a comment of someone who is speaking about Virginia politics without a solid understanding or knowledge of the state, it's makeup, and it's political climate.

Gillespie is a rather lackluster Republican candidate who was challenge, and in a surprise nearly beaten, by a Trumpian style candidate in the Primary. While he ran a campaign that focused a lot on immigration and security, the reality is that he was anything but a "Trump" style Republican candidate. Most diehard Trump supporters in Virginia saw him far closer to the "Establishment" types of McConnell and company than Trump, which made the energy behind his campaign extremely limited.

Meanwhile, there was some motivation and excitement on the part of the Democratic base. You had Obama come out to campaign for one of the first high profile times since he left office. You have the general anti-Republican fervor spurred by Trump being in the White House. The Democrats were running the Lt. Governor of a governor with a very good Favorable to Unfavorable rating.

Add to this that Virginia has been seeing steady growth in the northern region over the past decade, making up close to 10% more of the population in the state now compared to the mid 00's. Beyond Northern Virginia, Richmond and Hampton Roads have experienced the second and third biggest growth in population. Northern Virginia, Richmond, and a large portion of Hampton Roads tends to be a heavier Democratic population. Conversely, the rural areas of the state have been seeing a decrease in population growth over the same period of time. Relative to population, birth rates declined while death due to age increased in these areas. Less people were moving into the rural areas while younger people were more rapidly moving out of them. These rural areas tend to be areas more densely filled with Republican minded people.

What these demographic changes in Virginia has meant is that you are seeing a perpetual movement to Purple that is beginning to verge into truly "blue". It maintains it's purple description for two reasons. The first is because the Democratic strongholds are so isolated but densely packed that it keeps the state house typically Red with a bit of fluctuation. The second is because there is still a substantial and motivated enough Republican contingent throughout the whole of the state that IF properly motivated they can turn out and still cause some surprises or potential surprises, especially if Democratic turnout is depressed (for example, rather bland Ed Gillespie almost pulling off a stunning upset in 2014).

With Gillespie being anything but an exciting and motivating figure to the Republicans in the rural parts of the state, and with the ever increasing Democratic population, combined with a candidate riding the coat tails of a governor generally found to be...at worst..."fine" by most of your moderates and independents and you have a recipe for a Dmeocratic victory.

Had this been Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, or even John Kasich in the White House, I would expect the result of Northam winning to be no different. I think it's a poor analysis of this race to suggest this is "trumpian backlash" as the primary culprit.
Click to expand...

Anyway, Gillespie got walloped by the biggest margin in a gubernatorial race in over 30 years!
 
Fenton said:
:roll:
In a Blue State that Hillary carried no less.
Click to expand...

How about that New Jersey race? It's a +2 for liberals - the state executive went from Republican to the Dems! Pretty cool, huh?
 
Anthony60 said:
Virginia? Are you kidding? It's about as blue a State as there is.
Click to expand...

Are you kidding? There are like 20 states more Democratic than Virginia.

Hillary won it by 5.3%
Obama won it twice by 3.9% and 7.3%.
Last governor election was won by the Democrat by 2%. The time before it went Republican by 19%.
Mark Warner won his last Senate election by less than 1%. Tim Kaine won his by less than 6%.

Northam over performed all of them.
 
lurchadams said:
It's a southern state. What it proved is Trump's unpopularity. Gillespie tried to use Trump's racist politicking and the good people of Virginia just weren't having it!
Click to expand...

Clearly you've never been to northern Virginia where a large portion of the population lives. Metro DC is incredibly Democratic, and as the area grows it turns VA more blue. There is a stark culture and political difference between NoVA and the rest of the state.
 
digsbe said:
Clearly you've never been to northern Virginia where a large portion of the population lives. Metro DC is incredibly Democratic, and as the area grows it turns VA more blue. There is a stark culture and political difference between NoVA and the rest of the state.
Click to expand...

I have been there, actually. A couple times in my adult life, even. Thanks for the information, though.

Governor elect Northam is speaking now. It's so refreshing to hear a politician speak so eloquently and with such a message of uniting the people.
 
Zyphlin said:
This is a comment of someone who is speaking about Virginia politics without a solid understanding or knowledge of the state, it's makeup, and it's political climate.

Gillespie is a rather lackluster Republican candidate who was challenge, and in a surprise nearly beaten, by a Trumpian style candidate in the Primary. While he ran a campaign that focused a lot on immigration and security, the reality is that he was anything but a "Trump" style Republican candidate. Most diehard Trump supporters in Virginia saw him far closer to the "Establishment" types of McConnell and company than Trump, which made the energy behind his campaign extremely limited.

Meanwhile, there was some motivation and excitement on the part of the Democratic base. You had Obama come out to campaign for one of the first high profile times since he left office. You have the general anti-Republican fervor spurred by Trump being in the White House. The Democrats were running the Lt. Governor of a governor with a very good Favorable to Unfavorable rating.

Add to this that Virginia has been seeing steady growth in the northern region over the past decade, making up close to 10% more of the population in the state now compared to the mid 00's. Beyond Northern Virginia, Richmond and Hampton Roads have experienced the second and third biggest growth in population. Northern Virginia, Richmond, and a large portion of Hampton Roads tends to be a heavier Democratic population. Conversely, the rural areas of the state have been seeing a decrease in population growth over the same period of time. Relative to population, birth rates declined while death due to age increased in these areas. Less people were moving into the rural areas while younger people were more rapidly moving out of them. These rural areas tend to be areas more densely filled with Republican minded people.

What these demographic changes in Virginia has meant is that you are seeing a perpetual movement to Purple that is beginning to verge into truly "blue". It maintains it's purple description for two reasons. The first is because the Democratic strongholds are so isolated but densely packed that it keeps the state house typically Red with a bit of fluctuation. The second is because there is still a substantial and motivated enough Republican contingent throughout the whole of the state that IF properly motivated they can turn out and still cause some surprises or potential surprises, especially if Democratic turnout is depressed (for example, rather bland Ed Gillespie almost pulling off a stunning upset in 2014).

With Gillespie being anything but an exciting and motivating figure to the Republicans in the rural parts of the state, and with the ever increasing Democratic population, combined with a candidate riding the coat tails of a governor generally found to be...at worst..."fine" by most of your moderates and independents and you have a recipe for a Dmeocratic victory.

Had this been Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, or even John Kasich in the White House, I would expect the result of Northam winning to be no different. I think it's a poor analysis of this race to suggest this is "trumpian backlash" as the primary culprit.
Click to expand...

Excuses, excuses, excuses .:lol:
 
Anagram said:
Ok. I 100% agree that some of the celebrating by Democrats like they've already won the House in 2018 and the presidency in 2020 is completely unfounded, but how do you figure that claim?

Northam's on track to win by almost double Clinton's margin, and more than any other Democrat has won statewide in the last several decades besides Mark Warner's 2008 win.
Click to expand...

Agreed here. This is about what it should have been. Some of the earlier +13 or so ones were definitely a bit over doing it, but the recent ones in that 4-8 range were reasonable. The main people going "no no no, don't believe that" were just people who are shouting "don't look at polls" all the time. Given the realities of this race, this is where it was heading. At most, Northam may've done a bit better than he would've if there was a different Republican was in the white house, but this wasn't really surprising.

The GOP primary race, the senate race with Gillespie? Those could be called surprising results; this one was about par for the course if not perhaps a stroke under at most.
 
lurchadams said:
I have been there, actually. A couple times in my adult life, even. Thanks for the information, though.

Governor elect Northam is speaking now. It's so refreshing to hear a politician speak so eloquently and with such a message of uniting the people.
Click to expand...

I'll give him credit for uniting people when he wants to stop painting GOP voters as racist white supremacists as some of his campaign adds had depicted. I live very close to NoVA and spend extensive time there, as the area grows it's turning the state more blue. If you want to call the rest of the state "southern" I would, but a contrast should be made as NoVA is very urban, Democratic, and more so "northern" than it is "southern" in terms of culture and politics.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom