DeSantis 61-25 over Trump in Va, Youngkin +7 over Biden, and Special Elections reviewed (a little)

Fleetwood Mac, Dua Lipa/Elton John, Miles Davis, and Sidewalk Prophets

Virginia FREE Fridays at 3pm today - Click here. Lots to go over. Reply to this email to be added to the calendar invite.

More slides from last week’s Zoom Deck with WPA Intel’s Amanda Iovino:

Joe Biden leads Donald Trump in Virginia 48-40

Glenn Youngkin leads Biden in Virginia 49-42:

And Florida Governor Ron DeSantis leads Donald Trump among Virginia Republican Primary Voters (RPVs) 61-25:

Tuesday’s election results were pretty interesting.

House races

In HD 24, Ellen Campbell (R) won 63 - 37 and in HD35 Holly Seibold (D) won 67-33. Both winners underperformed 2021 results in which Republicans won the 24th with 73% of the vote, whereas Democrats won the 35th with 69%. Not much to read into the 35th, but rural Republicans might want to do a deeper dive into the numbers in the 24th.

The BIG race of the Special Election Season was clearly the State Senate race in District 7 (VaBeach/Norfolk) to replace now Congresswoman Jen Kiggans. If you recall, Kiggans won by 511 votes (less than 1%) in 2019. This time out the Democratic candidate, Aaron Rouse defeated Republican Kevin Adams by 348 votes - also less than 1%. Senator - elect Rouse will be sworn in today.

I got a call Wednesday from Virginia Beach Republican campaign consultant, Brian Kirwin, who quickly went thought the numbers of SD 7. Pretty stunning actually.

Election Day voting - the GOP won by 8 points but the BIG vote difference was in Mail In balloting. Rouse rolled up a 73 - 27 or a raw 2600+ vote margin from Mail In ballots with a large percentage coming from Low Propensity voters. See the above graphics and look at the GVH 1 of 4 voters. Those are the Low Propensity voters.

As much as the press is trying to make this Short Session about abortion, the likelihood of any bill that increases restrictions on abortions to the Gov. Youngkin proposal of 15 weeks is between zero and 1%.

Were Senate committees proportional to Senate representation (even with Rouse’s victory taking the chamber to 22 Democrats and 18 Republicans), then proponents of more abortion regulation would be in better position to get a bill to the Governor. Rather than an 8 to 7 committee composition, Senate Education and Health is 9-6 while Senate Finance is currently 11-5. Both parties in the Senate do this and both parties should stop. #ProportionalRepresentationIsFairAndJust

FINALLY! The book I ordered several months ago, “The Myth of Left and Right - How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America” arrived late last week. In fact, it arrived TWICE. I guess my enthusiasm hit the Amazon Add to Cart button more than once. Ah, youth.

It’s better than I hoped! First of all it’s shorter than I expected at 100 pages, secondly it has 47 pages of source notations (wow), and most importantly it makes a strong case for the title - Left and Right are myths.

Authors Hyrum Lewis and Verlan Lewis deliver a thoughtful and effective takedown of the political spectrum which only came to be in America 100 years ago. For all you Election Nerds nerdling around, this is must read stuff. For anyone looking to call Bravo Sierra on either or both political parties, this book gives you plenty of ammunition.

Bottom line? Lewis and Lewis posit that the two main parties are really organized tribes with little ideological consistency. Basically, “if thems fer it, we agin it.” #It’sASocialConstruct #IRememberFiscalConservatism

The question that comes to my mind while reading it is the one that has been rolling around the ol’ noggin’ for awhile now - which party/tribe will have one faction finally form their own tribe/party? Given the events last week in the House of Representatives, one would be wise to put money on the GOP.

Of course, the Democrats had serious problems with their coalition in 2016 as the Greens and Libertarians cost them the ol’ Blue Wall states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. They course corrected in 2020 and in return pushed through a LOT of legislation with very slender majorities.

Meanwhile, some Donald Trump supporters are suggesting that he should go his own way if he doesn’t get the nomination next year. Of course, if he is the nominees fully expect someone to go their own way. #FleetwoodMac

If Trump does go, he will be taking a solid 25% of the GOP with him. As this Ranked Choice Voting scenario shows here in Virginia, Trump could top out at 25-28% of RPVs.

Currently, the path to the nomination is very difficult for the former president and enthusiasm is not on Biden’s side either.

But the Democrats are far more likely to unite behind Biden than the Republicans are for Trump.

Virginia Republicans were able to keep their party united in 2021 using Ranked Choice for their nomination method for the three statewide offices. In doing so, their candidates had not been negatively and mercilessly attacked by their own parry members and as a result had much lower Unfavorable numbers especially among independents.

Unfortunately for the GOP, there are efforts in some states to actually ban Ranked Choice method for all elections, not just nominations. In that version of cutting their nose off to spite their face (let’s mix metaphors now), they really need that tool in the election toolbox especially for presidential primaries if there are intent on keeping their party/tribe together regardless of who ultimately wins the nomination.

We’ll chat more at 3pm today ! Cheers

Here is your On Hold Videos for today:

And for the Mrs, one of her favorites. Man, does she belt this one out. It’s fun to watch someone Live Like That: