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Democratic Party of Virginia (DPVA) Chair Susan Swecker oversaw the party as they flipped 21 House seats, won several statewide races, and flipped the state Senate to Democratic control. But even so, Democrats lost in a race Tuesday that they mostly expected to win even with polling showing a dead heat and the national party struggling for any momentum. Now she is facing the first major Democratic losses in Virginia during her time as chair.
Democrats across Virginia are looking for someone to blame for the losses their party endured earlier this week. Republicans took back the House of Delegates as well as the governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general offices. For a lot of people, that blame is being placed on the Democratic gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe and the state party apparatus.
Swecker released a statement Friday reflecting on Tuesday’s loss.
“I want to thank Terry McAuliffe, Hala Ayala, Mark Herring, and Democrats down the ballot — we are grateful for their unwavering commitment to public service, Democratic ideals, and to the people of the Commonwealth,” Swecker said. “I also want to send my deepest thanks and gratitude to the many wonderful volunteers and campaign staff who poured their hearts and souls into Virginia every day on the trail over the past year.”
One complaint heard from Democrats across the state is that Democrats focused too heavily on tying Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin to Donald Trump. “We need to rethink the way we campaign in Virginia,” said state Del. Sam Rasoul (D-Roanoke) on Friday. “We spend entirely too much time talking about Donald Trump.”
Swecker in her statement Friday, however, said that Democrats ran a campaign focused on improving lives.
“Virginia Democrats ran hard-fought, laser-focused campaigns centered around improving the lives of Virginians by raising the minimum wage, investing in education, and providing paid family leave for all working families.”
In theory, that is correct because they were running against Republicans who vowed to overturn the new laws Democrats passed in 2020 and 2021. However, for the most part, Democrats invoked Trump at every turn on the trail and hardly mentioned anything related to helping Virginians. McAuliffe had 20 plans for moving Virginia forward — but instead of constantly reminding voters of the details in those plans, he reminded them that Trump endorsed Youngkin.
POOLHOUSE, the media consultant for Youngkin’s campaign, released a post-election analysis on ads in the race. In their report, they note that in statewide ads, McAuliffe mentioned Trump 35% of the time.
“We should articulate not only our vision for the future but spend time genuinely connecting with people and with their needs,” Rasoul said.
Caitlin Bennett, the chair of the Fredericksburg Democratic Committee released a long statement breaking down the race from her viewpoint.
“The McAuliffe messaging was largely focused on tying Youngkin with Trump while the Democratic voter base was tired of Trump’s existence in their lives,” Bennett said Wednesday in a postmortem of the race. “Meanwhile parents dealing with the anxieties faced with the consequences of COVID on their children’s education were able to be manipulated by the anti-public education movement who has taken up the mantle of this faux anti CRT movement.”
Youngkin himself kept Trump at an arm’s length, never mentioning the former president once he earned the nomination in May. Instead, he focused more on kitchen-table issues like lowering taxes and gas prices.
He ran 40 TV ads across the state telling people about those kitchen-table issues as well.
“Glenn created a movement and our job was to articulate and amplify that message with creative, emotional, and compelling advertising; bold enough to cut through the noise,” said Tim O’Toole, the Chief Creative Officer of POOLHOUSE.
Banning Critical Race Theory, the anti-racist education concept, from public schools on day one was spoken at every campaign stop and received a standing ovation for Youngkin. Officials in Virginia have said that CRT is not being taught to students.
But even with the loss at the top of the ticket, Democrats also suffered down-ballot by losing seven House seats. Bennett puts at least part of the blame on a lack of a coordinated campaign from the party.
“The coordinated campaign failed to materialize until sometime in September – exactly when as Chair of a local committee – I’m sorry to say I am not exactly sure,” Bennett said Wednesday. “Typically a coordinated campaign is organized by late June/early July. We had one organizer for our region. I have no idea if anyone else came.”
Swecker has served as chair since 2015, the longest term of any DPVA party chair since Joseph Fitzpatrick served from 1972-1979.
The process for electing a party chair takes place in the coming months after local committees restructure and appoint members to their respective congressional district Democratic committees. The members of the congressional district Democratic committees then come together to form the state central committee, which is responsible for electing the party chair.
It’s hard to know right now how much these results come from a national movement opposing the current government in Washington D.C. New Jersey is historically an easy Democratic win, but the race on Tuesday to elect their next Governor came down to the wire with the Democratic incumbent Phil Murphy squeezing out a win.
In her statement Friday, Swecker encouraged Democrats to look towards the future and continue fighting.
“We are proud of the progress we have built,” Swecker said Friday. “Now, the fight for Virginia’s future begins, and the DPVA will be right there leading the way to keep our Commonwealth moving forward.”
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Actually what the dems need to change is their propensity for overreach when in power. Some of the weirdest legislation, especially pertaining to public safety, were put forward by the dem House, so much so that even far-left Gov. Northam winced. Dems typically “think” they possess a mandate to radically force their agenda onto a populace that is at most a near-even split.