A wise friend of mine recently observed that if Democrats can’t turn Virginia’s gubernatorial election into a referendum on former President Donald Trump, it’s hard to see how that strategy would work in swing states in 2022.
It’s a very reasonable point, since Trump lost Virginia by 10 points last year. But it got me thinking about a possible rebuttal to the argument, which I make now.
The first and most obvious point is that gubernatorial contests are fundamentally different from federal races. Incumbent Republican Govs. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, Phil Scott of Vermont and Larry Hogan of Maryland were all elected to state office but probably couldn’t win a U.S. Senate election in their states. CONTINUED
Stuart Rothenberg, Roll Call
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