The 2021 Virginia Gubernatorial Race: Interview with J. Miles Coleman of the UVA Center for Politics
On November 2nd, voters across the Commonwealth of Virginia will be casting their ballots to elect their new governor. The race between Democratic Party candidate Terry McAuliffe (who previously served as Governor of Virginia from 2014-2018) and Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin (the former CEO of The Carlyle Group, a private equity firm) has been heating up as of late, with recent numbers showing the two being tied in the polls. In order to gain some insight into this election with a direct impact on students at the University of Virginia, I interviewed J. Miles Coleman of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Mr. Coleman has been working for the Center since August of 2019 and primarily assists in the creation of Sabato’s Crystal Ball (if you want to learn more information about the UVA Center for Politics, visit their website at centerforpolitics.org). Attached below is a transcript of our conversation. Note: responses have been edited for length and clarity
In Virginia, we have elections for governor every 4 years and governors cannot serve consecutive terms. I know a lot of people (especially those who are not from Virginia) are always kind of wondering “it seems like there was just an election for the governor of Virginia very recently.” Why is it that Virginia’s governors cannot serve consecutive terms?
Well, I am not exactly sure why, but one thing I will say is this one consecutive term rule used to be a lot more common. I am originally from Louisiana and I grew up in North Carolina as well. Both of those states until the '60s or '70s had that type of one term rule, so it used to be much more common. I think earlier in its history or for much of its early history the state of Massachusetts had gubernatorial elections every year! Another thing that is just as quirky as the no consecutive term rule is that we have them in the off-off years (we have them in odd years). I feel every state has sort of these quirks in its politics. In Louisiana, for example, we have what we call a “jungle primary” where every candidate (rather than having partisan primaries) runs on the same ballot and, if you get fifty percent in that first round, it’s done. I think the one term rule and the kind of placement of the election in off-off years is kind of like Virginia's equivalent of that. I know that governor Jerry Baliles back in the '80s was introducing legislation to move our election to presidential years and maybe eliminate the one term thing as well, but it just never went anywhere. I feel like, to some extent too, in Virginia, we like our traditions, so I think that kind of mentality may play into it. I will tell you one thing that, going along with that theme of liking our traditions, I wonder if there is a certain subset of voters who may have otherwise approved of McAuliffe when he was governor, but they may not like the concept of him coming back and double dipping. I don’t think it is any secret that he really enjoys being the governor. I know there was some talk of him running for President in 2020 if Biden didn’t run and I was like “no no.” His life goal, I can tell you (I say this jokingly but not really), seems like that, if he could be governor every other four years for the rest of his life, he probably would. I am not exactly sure why we stuck with it. There have been some attempts to kind of move our elections onto a more normal schedule (this kind of cuts against what I am saying about our traditions here), but there was a poll that was taken when Bob McDonnell was governor and I think it asked “do you think Virginia should allow governors to serve two consecutive terms?” and I think a plurality of voters said yes, but they were like “would you be supportive of Bob McDonnell running for another term?” and I think most voters were against it.
Moving more specifically to the upcoming race, what makes this Virginia gubernatorial race so significant?
We’ve been in this cycle in Virginia since I think the mid '70s where whichever party wins the White House, we elect the governor of the other party and the only candidate who has broken that ever since has been Terry McAuliffe when Obama won in 2012 but he won in 2013. That’s part of his argument he’s making: “well, I am electable. I was the only one who broke the streak.” He is kind of taking that to help with his fundraising in that, historically, having a Democrat in the White House is the type of year that the Republicans should win. I think in terms of the significance, if McAuliffe pulls this out, this would be the first time since the 1980s where the Democrats have won the governor's race three times in a row. Back from '81, '85, and '89, the Democrats put together a group of wins that they haven’t replicated since and, if they can pull it off, well then Virginia may be just too fundamentally a Democratic state for Republicans to win.
I think that Republicans do have some legitimate reasons to be excited. I think Youngkin is probably a more palatable nominee than some of their other recent candidates. I think there is this existential kind of undercurrent that has Republicans kind of wanting to prove themselves here. The other thing I will say on this: a lot of media will report the Virginia’s governor’s race as a bellwether. I wouldn’t say that the governor’s race has been a perfect bellwether in recent cycles. I can think in 2017, Governor Northam had a pretty big win and the Democrats went on to have a good midterm as well as when McAuliffe last won in 2013, he ended up pulling it out by a few points, but the Democrats went on to have a pretty crappy midterm. I think it still has somewhat of a value as a bellwether, but it may not be perfect.
What are some special characteristics of this race?
If you read most of McAuliffe’s fundraising emails, you would think Donald Trump is still in office. I think that’s something that is almost interesting because in 2013, when he won, McAuliffe really had to work for it. It was a close race. The last month of that campaign was this kind of roller coaster. You had the government shutdown in 2013, which really helped his numbers. Then after that, you had the rollout of Obamacare. With the shutdown, you had a lot of pissed off government workers in Northern Virginia who wanted to get out and vote Democrat, which helped him, but then, with the roll out of Obamacare like the last week of the election,
McAuliffe's numbers started dropping like a rock. I really think that, had that election been a week later, it very well could have gone the other way. The point being: this last kind of stretch of the campaign I feel is very volatile.
Basically what I am saying there is: you had McAuliffe in 2013 who really has to fight for it. You have 2017 where Governor Northam just kind of rides this anti-Trump enthusiasm (wins by 9 points) and now with McAuliffe again it is back to being a close race. He has really tried to tie Youngkin and the Republicans to the national Republican brand. That probably will be advantageous in a place like Northern Virginia where a lot of news is tied to the national political scene, but what’s it going to do in the rest of the state? The Democrats have all their statewide candidates from Northern Virginia. That is something that I’m surprised hasn’t gotten too much criticism from the Republican side (they brought it up a bit), but it was a first for the Democratic ticket.
With that being said, I don’t think regionalism is as important as it used to be. I think with Governor Northam, for instance, he’s from the Eastern Shore, but in 2017 he lost the Eastern Shore, so I don’t think regionalism is too important. Kind of converse on the Republican side, all three of the candidates have some connection to the Virginia Beach area, so that’s a little interesting as well. Virginia Beach is the state’s largest municipality and, if the Republicans want to pull off a statewide win, is a locality that is probably a must win for them. Even a little regional boost could maybe help their ticket there.
I would say, just on the Republican side, you’ve seen this kind of relentless focus on education. The Youngkin campaign thinks they have struck gold with this comment from McAuliffe defending one of his vetoes where “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what to teach.” Will that play well with parents? I’ll kind of close up by saying what I am really interested to see.
What is special about this election other than the Democrats being able to potentially put together another three election streak, is this is really the first election after Trump and the Trump era. The Democrats were able to make this state look so blue because they made a lot of gains with college educated white voters (these would be places like Loudoun County, Chesterfield County, etc.). Well, but guess what? A lot of those voters either used to be Republicans or are at least still open to Republicans, so are those voters going to be as enthusiastic to vote Democrat this time?
What ultimate like factors or issues or groups do you think will ultimately be the deciding factor on who becomes the next governor of Virginia?
If McAuliffe loses, he is going to lose because black turnout is bad. We are not traditionally known as an early voting state (they loosened that up a bit last year), so I was just reading today they are going to have Terry McAuliffe campaigning with a few black members of Congress for a “Souls to the Polls” on Sunday. Point being that, what the Democrats have done well with college whites in the Trump era, one group that they have really lagged with ever since Obama has been off the ballot is black voters. There have been a few exceptions there (Doug Jones, for example, in Alabama won in 2017 mostly because of black voters), but I think that’s why you see the McAuliffe campaign trying to bring in Stacey Abrams and even Obama.
If there is even a little reversion with those college educated whites back to the Republican party, if Democrats slip with blacks as well, it's going to be a little more obvious, it’s going to hurt a little more. I would say, if I am the McAuliffe campaign, I would really be focusing on getting my Black turnout up. Even though Ed Gillespie in 2017 lost by 9 percentage points (it was a pretty clear loss), Gillespie got more raw votes than any Republican candidate whose run for governor before in this state. If Youngkin can generate the kind of Gillespie turnout and get enthusiasm among the Republican base in this state, then that’s why I think this race could end up being kind of close.
As of today, who do you believe (based on polling statistics, any trends in general) will ultimately win the race for Virginia’s governor and why do you think that?
Right now, we still consider McAuliffe a bit of a favorite just because Biden won by 10 points. It is a state where I think, if the Republicans end up pulling off a win, there are just a lot of factors that are going to need to go right for them. Something that I have noticed about Youngkin is, even though he may be tied in some polls, he’s never above 47%, so can he get to a majority?
One of the lessons I think of 2020 is, in the Senate, the Democrats were chasing these states like Kansas, Alaska, these Republican states. They ended up being disappointed just because, as a broader electorate, we have become so partisan. When you have a close race like this I think I am to the point where I am just going to default to the state’s partisanship.
In terms of Virginia, it's been Democratic lately unless maybe Youngkin in this next week starts expanding on some of his numbers in the polls that could maybe push it in his direction. One thing I noticed from these polls as well is that Youngkin tends to usually win independent voters. I think last week’s Monmouth’s poll got the most press, which had it tied. Youngkin was up 9 points with independent voters. Well, in Virginia, if you’re a Democrat, you don’t necessarily need to win independents, you just don’t need to get blown out with them. Even Northam in 2017, in his pretty big win, lost the independent vote by 2 or 3 points.
The other kind of major election we have had this year was the California recall (which was last month) where you had a situation where you had a blue state and the Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, ended up overperforming his poll numbers. If you look at the vote to retain or recall Newsom, it was very much correlated to the Presidential result last year. Basically long story short, McAuliffe right now just because of the partisan lean of the state. McAuliffe may win because Virginia is just such a blue state now
What effect would you say a Terry McAuliffe governorship will have on the University of Virginia and the wider Charlottesville community? Also, same question, but with Glenn Youngkin.
He (McAuliffe) talks a lot about (in his ads) how he, as the governor, invested so much in education, specifically higher ed. I can tell you that when we actually hosted McAuliffe here at the Center in late August his whole message was basically praising us on how we at UVA have mandated vaccines. I feel like he was very much on the same page with us there. That’s basically what I can think of. I would say that whichever one wins I would hope we still get some robust reforms for higher ed.
Outside of its significance within the Commonwealth of Virginia, what impact do you think this race will have on the national stage?
If McAuliffe ends up losing, I think that would be a very bad sign for the Democrats going into the midterms in 2022, maybe less because of the overall result, but maybe more because it would just be a damper on enthusiasm (we’re losing a state we should win). What’s really hurting Democratic enthusiasm now is Biden’s approval just has not been good. I was talking about this earlier, but we have just become so nationalized as an electorate, a lot of the party’s fortune is tied to how the President is perceived. Biden’s approval right now is in the low 40s. If Youngkin wins, I think that he would perhaps write a new playbook for how Republicans can win in blue states.
I feel the Republicans have been good at speaking to their base voters, their kind of Trump base. The problem is that only gets you to 45%, so how does Youngkin expand on that and how can other Republican candidates and campaigns learn from what he did? Maybe by the same token, if McAuliffe wins, I’d be interested to see what his coalition looks like. If I am a political analyst, does he still hold most of Biden’s support with college educated whites? Does black turnout still look bad? What could that mean for a Democrat in states like Georgia and Arizona in the Senate next year where a lot of those gains were built on or from that same kind educated white electorate? Even if McAuliffe wins, as an analyst, I would be interested to see how different groups in his coalition are kind of holding up post-Trump.
How has the UVA Center for Politics been involved in the Virginia gubernatorial race?
We have been writing about this race all year. We interestingly first looked at this race in early 2021. Generally when it comes to being involved in elections, Professor Larry Sabato is very big on civic education. We will go into high schools and middle schools and do stuff like mock elections just to get students involved in the democratic process. We will put out some suggested curriculum guidelines when it comes to civic education, so we aren’t really involved with the campaigns or any formal “get out the vote operations,” but we try to, on Grounds, make our student body aware that there is an election and that you need to go vote.
Do you feel there is anything readers of this article or the general public should know about this election or anything else we have discussed previously?
I think we’ve basically touched on everything. Yes, I still see McAuliffe as a favorite, but we are within two weeks of the election. I think any late breaking developments are going to be very
crucial. I should have mentioned this earlier but you were asking what is maybe different about this election. I kind of touched on this earlier, but Virginia is not a traditionally early voting state. If you go down to North Carolina, during presidential elections, they will routinely have something like two-thirds of their vote cast ahead of election day. For us, we traditionally vote on election day. When the Democrats took the legislature here in 2019, they kind of loosened up some of those rules and it just happened to kind of coincide with the pandemic when there were people looking for not having to go in-person options.
I have seen some in the media try to say, “Well, based on the early vote, this side looks good or this side doesn’t.” I would be very careful about anyone making projections from the early vote. I’ll tell you, because of the pandemic, people were reluctant to vote in person last year, but I think this year may be some of a return to form. I’ve been voting in this state since 2015. I cast my vote last year by mail, but this year I’m going back to vote in person as usual, so that’s something that’s a bit different this year is it's really hard to get a baseline on what the early vote is going to mean for each campaign.