Ah, to be Youngkin again!
After trouncing former VA Gov. Terry McAuliffe in a wipeout bigger than the #FakeNews and fake mail-in ballots would have you believe, Glenn Youngkin took the top seat in Virginia.
As you’d expect, the more aptly named than ever “absentee” ballots – which were mandated by law to be pre-counted and thus the first votes published via live results during Election Night – suffered some “technical issues” that made the race much closer than it should have been.
With 40% of the vote in last night, Youngkin was up more than 11 points.
As the tallies closed to the total, however, McAuliffe was allowed to make a race of it. He only conceded a couple of hours ago, in fact.
And that means we happily lost our bet.
With 95% of precincts reporting at the time of this post, the Virginia election results are as follows:
- Glenn Youngkin (R) – 1,677,436 votes, 50.7%
- Terry McAuliffe (D) – 1,610,142 votes, 48.6%
- Princess Blanding (Libation*) – 22,759 votes, 0.7%
- Paul Davis (I, write-in)† – 0 votes, 0%
*Because you’d have to be drunk crunk out of your mind to vote for that.
†How a “write-in” can get 0 votes and still be deemed a write-in is a mystery for another time.
Now, after Presidential elections, Governor’s races tend to get the most action at the voting booth (and, we suppose, the USPS – which has a 2% standard delivery failure rate, by the way). They also get the most action at the betting boards outside of Presidential races.
So let’s take the latter and compare the 2020 Presidential election outcome in Virginia to the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election.
Here’s how November 2020 panned out in the Old Dominion:
- Joe Biden (D) – 2,413,568 votes, 54.11%*
- Donald Trump (GOAT) – 1,962,430 votes, 44.00%
*Nonsense.
Taking the above, the first thing that jumps right out at you is the vote total. (Well, the first thing is probably the absurd notion that Biden “beat” Trump at all, much less by 10+ points, but we digress.)
The Presidential election saw over 1.08 million more total votes (among the two main parties) than the Governor’s race.
That’s a decline of 24.87% in voting “participation” then to now.
Historically, that isn’t particularly unusual.
It speaks to the general apathy about democracy and ignorance about state political sovereignty among a woefully – albeit intentionally – ignorant populace. In other words, if you vote for Presidents but not for Governors, you’re an idiot and shouldn’t be voting at all.
Nevertheless, if you compare the 2021 Virginia Governor’s race totals to the 2016 Presidential election results in VA, things start to gel a bit:
- Hillary Clinton (D) – 1,981,473 votes, 49.73%
- Donald Trump (MAGA) – 1,769,443 votes, 44.41%
IN 2016, there were a total of 3,750,916 votes cast for President in Virginia. In 2020, there were a total of 4,375,998 votes cast for President in Virginia. That’s a 14% uptick in a single cycle.
Now, let’s compare the 2017 VA gubernatorial election to bookend everything all nice and neat.
- Ralph Northam (D) – 1,409,175 votes, 53.9%
- Ed Gillespie (R) – 1,175,731 votes, 45.0%
Here, 45.11% more votes were cast for President in 2020 than were cast for Governor in 2017.
In total, this is what the numbers say:
- 2016 VA Pres. Election to 2017 VA Gov. Election: 31.09% turnout differential
- 2017 VA Gov. Election to 2020 VA Pres. Election: 45.11% turnout differential
- 2020 VA Pres. Election to 2021 VA Gov. Election: 24.87% turnout differential
- 2017 VA Gov. Election to 2021 VA Gov. Election: 27.18% turnout differential
- 2016 VA Pres. Election to 2020 VA Pres. Election: 16.66% turnout differential
You can make of these numbers what you wish, but to us, it seems that Donald Trump either singlehandedly increased voter participation in a way that no other campaign or media push ever has (and so should by lauded by the Democrats for his overwhelming contribution to democracy), or the Democrat cheat machine is still well-oiled and running smoothly.
Of course, you might ask, if the latter is true, why wouldn’t McAuliffe have won easily in Virginia?
Well, if you’re going to cheat – even if it’s completely blatant, brazen, and unapologetic – you still can’t go too far with it too often. Tactically, you have ease off the gas from time to time to give the people the illusion that everything’s “fair and square.”
Plus, gas is really expensive right now.
A high-profile gubernatorial election in a relatively and recently blue state is a good place to “let the other side have one.”
The spin here, by the left, is that this election “proves” the lack of cheating by the left. It will also “prove” that VA’s recent election law changes – minor though they are – will be “evidence” that the GOP is the party of Racist Voter Suppression™.
That much is obvious.
Anyway, here are the rest of the outcomes in Virginia’s election:
2021 VA Lieutenant Governor Race
- Winsome Sears (R) – 1,669,885 votes, 50.8%
- Hala Ayala (D) – 1,618,382 votes, 49.2%
2021 VA Attorney General Race
- Jason Miyares (R) – 1,660,210 votes, 50.6%
- Mark Herring (D, incumbent) – 1,623,852 votes, 49.4%
2021 VA House Of Delegates Elections
The GOP needed to flip six seats to take back the majority. Before the election, the Democrats had a 55-45 advantage.
- Republicans – 46 seats
- Democrats – 46 seats
- Undecided – 8 seats
It remains to be seen just how big of a wipeout the VA elections were for the right.
For election bettors, of course, there’s a bigger story here, and it’s one we’re going to see unfold over the next several weeks as the odds shift on the betting boards for major races.
Now, it might be a bit too early to see how the Virginia Governor’s race impacted the other big Governor’s races on the betting boards, but we’re going to list them all below (previous odds in parentheses). The numbers are from September 27 when we last reported on these races.
Note: We’re including the late September odds for both the VA and NJ gubernatorial races for context, with the winners in bold.
2022 Governor Election Odds
2021 Virginia Governor Odds – Winning Party
- Democrat -650
- Republican +375
2021 New Jersey Governor Odds – Winning Party
- Democrat -330
- Republican +900
2022 Arizona Governor Odds – Winning Party
- Republican -300 (-275)
- Democrat +200 (+185)
2022 Georgia Governor Odds – Winning Party
- Republican -150 (-140)
- Democrat +110 (+100)
2022 Michigan Governor Odds – Winning Party
- Republican -165 (+140)
- Democrat +125 (-180)
2022 Nevada Governor Odds – Winning Party
- Democrat -180 (-275)
- Republican +140 (+185)
2022 New York Governor Odds – Winning Party
- Democrat -10000 (-3300)
- Republican +1500 (+900)
2022 Pennsylvania Governor Odds – Winning Party
- Democrat -165 (-180)
- Republican +125 (+140)
2022 Texas Governor Odds – Winning Party
- Republican -800 (-500)
- Democrat +425 (+300)
2022 Wisconsin Governor Odds – Winning Party
- Republican -180 (-130)
- Democrat +140 (-110)
As you can see, the lines have already shifted pretty dramatically in favor of the GOP in every listed gubernatorial election, particularly in Michigan. The only exception is the race for NY Governor, where the Democrats are now trending at -10000 because New York isn’t really even part of America anymore.
Otherwise, if you got your Republican bets in before last night, you’re sitting pretty.
If not, there’s still time, because the payouts are only going to get worse across the board.
And at +1500 in NY, it’s probably even worth it to take a flyer on that one. After all, the New Jersey race was much closer than the odds predicted above, and there’s a long time between now and then.
We’ll also keep you posted on how the Virginia red wave will affect 2022 US House of Representatives odds and 2022 US Senate odds.
Then again, there is that pesky cheat machine to consider…