Six years ago, the elections for the Virginia state Legislature were so close that control of the House of Delegates had to be determined by drawing a name out of a bowl when the deciding race ended in a tie. This year, the result was much clearer: Democrats won most of the battleground districts, held their majority in the state Senate and retook the state House.
The results don’t just vindicate Democrats’ strategy of focusing relentlessly on abortion rights. It also shows that they need not cower and apologize when Republicans trot out familiar attacks about criminals running amok and “wokeness” in schools.
In the intense debate over abortion around the country, there simply was no middle ground to stake out.
Virginia has steadily trended Democratic in recent years as the diverse D.C. suburbs have grown far more rapidly than the rural areas where Republicans dominate. But Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s victory two years ago convinced many observers that ginned-up controversies over public education have a spectacular political potency. Combined with an attack on Democrats for wanting to “defund the police” — a position almost no elected Democrats hold — Republicans had a new strategy to win even in places where they have struggled.
Even Republicans knew that simply reprising 2021 wouldn’t be enough, however, when the party has lost one election after another since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022. Youngkin supports making abortion illegal after 15 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother (in practice, it has proven almost impossible for women to avail themselves of those exceptions where they are written into abortion bans). And if Republicans took full control of the state Legislature, a ban was sure to follow.
While Democrats hammered on the issue — according to ad tracking, as of mid-October, abortion was mentioned in almost half of all Democratic ads — Youngkin portrayed himself and Republicans as the moderates on the issue. He and other Republicans also insisted that the word “ban” is better described as a “limit.”
The premise was that state Republicans could defuse the issue, claiming a moderate middle ground between Democrats who want to protect reproductive rights and Republicans across the country who are eagerly passing draconian abortion bans. The Virginia GOP hoped that a precisely-calibrated policy position, based on what polling says is a popular stance, would ensure that voters didn’t get too angry at them.
Which is exactly what Democrats so often do, telling voters, “Please don’t be mad at us! We actually favor something quite sensible!” In the face of aggressive attacks, this approach usually ends in failure.
That’s what happened to Republicans in Virginia: In the intense debate over abortion around the country, there simply was no middle ground to stake out. Either you were for maintaining abortion rights or restricting them, and Republicans were on the wrong side of that divide.
Sometimes, negativity is not just the most politically effective strategy. It’s also the most informative kind of campaigning. So they tried to put crime at the center of many of their races, trotting out some of the same misleading attacks they used in 2021. Republicans falsely accused their Democratic opponents of wanting to “defund the police.” But those attacks failed to have the same impact as two years ago, and the power of the abortion issue seemed to stiffen Democrats’ spines. Sometimes, negativity — in this case, attacking Republicans for their desire to restrict abortion rights — is not just the most politically effective strategy. It’s also the most informative kind of campaigning. In a context in which Democrats were promising to maintain the status quo and Republicans were the ones offering a dramatic change, a negative campaign focused on a dangerous possible future was entirely appropriate. Had Republicans won complete control, they would undoubtedly have taken the election outcome as a mandate to roll back abortion rights; it would have been among their highest priorities in the new year. Whatever else happens, Youngkin will be governor for the next two years, so Democrats won’t be able to pass their own affirmative agenda. Stopping the objectionable parts of the Republican agenda is the most they could offer voters, and it turned out to be what the majority of voters wanted. We keep hearing about how terrible things are for Democrats: how they’ve alienated working-class whites, how President Joe Biden is destined to lose and how they can’t do anything right. Yet in election after election, Democrats rack up victory after victory. If they keep winning, it might just get even the most fainthearted Democrats to finally trust the courage of their convictions.
Paul Waldman is a journalist and author focused on politics and culture. 
