Tuesday’s off-off-year election was the vote heard round the world. Democrats were left reeling from what is a national rejection of progressive policies, from Virginia to New Jersey and Long Island, to Texas and even Minneapolis and Seattle. It is a defining loss for Democrats, who have been so convinced of the rightness of their liberal agenda and the popularity of their policies that an outcome this disastrous, this broad and this deep was simply inconceivable.
But other than employing the usual clichés to explain their crushing defeats, progressives and liberal media pundits seem to be blaming what they see as an ill-informed public that simply doesn’t understand or appreciate the liberal values of progressive socialism. Oh, and also Terry McAuliffe, Joe Manchin, Kyrsten Sinema and anybody else not on board the Build Back Better train.
So in the interests of clarity, here are some numbers that explain some of what actually happened Tuesday, based on an early dive into Edison Research’s exit poll data from Virginia. Republican Glenn Youngkin defied the pundits by putting together a winning majority coalition in what has been a blue state for 12 years, and it had nothing to do with dog whistles or even Donald Trump and everything to do with offering solutions to kitchen table issues that drove the electorate. CONTINUED
David Winston (Winston Group), Roll Call
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