Posted on November 7, 2017 by Paul Mirengoff in 2018 Election, Republicans, Virginia governor's race
Virginia post mortem
It’s no surprise that Ralph Northam defeated Ed Gillespie. I was surprised, though, that the race wasn’t close, and I think most analysts were surprised that Northam won so comfortably (by at least 8 points, it looks like).
With hindsight we can say that this was a race between two uninspiring candidates who needed, somehow, to inspire support. Northam inspired support because of raw hatred for President Trump. Gillespie tried to inspire it by taking a hard line on immigration (sanctuary cities) and crime. Apparently, to no avail.
The Trumpian line will be that a Trumpian candidate could have inspired support the way Trump did last year. That’s quite possible.
But Trump himself lost Virginia by 5 points. Thus, it’s very likely that a Trumpian candidate would have come up short this year.
more
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/11/virginia-post-mortem.php
