After nine months of political life in “The Era of High Prices and No Mean Tweets,” Virginia and New Jersey voters will have their votes counted, since in much of America there’s no longer an actual definitive Election Day but just a start of ballot tabulation and a suspiciously delayed announcement.
In the Old Dominion State, Democrats are seeking to retain their control of Richmond by running ex-DNC chair and former governor Terry McAuliffe while leftwing New Jersey governor Phil Murphy is seeking reelection.
As New Jersey is cobalt blue, Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli has to defy an inordinate degree of political gravity in a state with an electorate that’s been conditioned to vote Democratic on instinct though the remarkably competitive nature of the race underscores that some voters are going through withdrawal from politics as usual.
Apparently anti-Trump rhetoric can paper over only so many bare store shelves and spiking prices.
And a cursory look at the presidential approval and wrong/right direction national poll numbers call to question the wisdom of “nationalizing” a state race.
President Joe Biden is underwater by a margin ranging from 5 to 17 points and confidence on where we are going as a country is a staggering -49.
On a related note, pray for Chuck Todd for while Trump is off social media. There’s an abundance of mean tweets with the Meet the Press host’s Twitter handle on them for not being sufficiently enough of a Democratic apologist.
Murphy is hovering around the 50% mark in polling data, which is generally considered ominous for an incumbent regardless of the gap separating the incumbent from his main opponent.
Down south things are more promising for the GOP as Virginia Republican Glenn Youngkin has taken a lead in the most recent polling data, after trailing throughout most of the campaign.
That the Democrats have attempted to nationalize the gubernatorial campaigns belies a lack of confidence in the state administrations and a mental removal from political reality as Joe Biden is doing the Democrats a major solid by napping in Scotland as opposed to incoherently rambling in Richmond or Ocean County.
In the case of Virginia, McAuliffe has proven to be the MVP of the GOP’s hopes of winning back the governorship after two disappointing and completely avoidable losses.
In a declaration that conveys the Democratic Party’s complete fealty to the concept of supreme statism and unaccountable leftist teachers’ unions, McAuliffe amazingly admitted in a debate that he doesn’t “think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
The issue over parental influence in schools is centered around the promotion of critical race theory, a divisive leftwing ideology that centers all of American history around systemic racism, thus calling into question the legitimacy of America’s founding, from its core principles (The Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights) to the men and women who fought to settle, establish, and preserve the country.
Like Marxism, Critical Race Theory seeks to obliterate the existing order of society and replace it with their heroes, values, and system of managing both government and the economy.
If you ever wondered how a generation of young Americans have come to view the Father of Our Country (Washington) and the Author of Our Birth Certificate (Jefferson) as war criminals to be scorned and their places of reverence bowdlerized from textbooks and landmarks, voila.
Democrats believe that parents need not meddle in curriculum, no matter how toxic, but merely ensure the prompt arrival of the state’s young, impressionable charges at their local indoctrination centers.
Of course McAuliffe must have his own private reservations about the quality of education offered at Virginia public schools as he has paid a premium equivalent to a middle class wage earner’s salary to send four of his five kids to private schools.
McAuliffe is trailing in the published polls and may very well be faring far worse than what the surveys indicate given that many people refrain from expressing their opinions when they conflict with the prevailing politics of today’s cancel culture.
A Democratic defeat in Virginia, a state where Trump got trounced by ten points in 2020 and a Republican hasn’t carried in a presidential race since 2004, would mark a major reversal of fortunes for the GOP and perhaps signal an end to the internecine fighting within the Virginia Republican Party that has cost them dearly at the ballot box.
A Murphy defeat in New Jersey would send the Democrats into a panic and compromise their domestic agenda as skittish Democratic members of Congress develop second thoughts about casting their political fortunes and future with Nancy Pelosi.