I’ve expanded on yesterday’s preview of the Virginia election for The Atlantic, with more data from the final results.
Democrats are in very serious trouble. People want them to get things done, they aren’t getting things done, and local issues like school closures and COVID protocols have taken over. It is not too late to undo much of the damage, but the party doesn’t have much time. Read the whole thing here.
I get the sense that in a nation primed to believe "government doesn't work" since the Reagan Revolution, Democrats raise the salience of a lot of culture war issues when they seemingly prove that belief. Beyond the frustrations about schools, media coverage has been inundated with stories on the inability of a party to that controls the House, Senate and the Presidency to get "any" of their President's agenda passed. That reported disfunction (I think) is seen as a continuation of the perceived government ineptitude and incompetence that many parents felt locally.