[music]

Glenn Youngkin: We stand here this morning [chuckles] at this defining moment that is now millions of Virginians walking together.

Eric Adams: My story is your story. I did not just want New Yorkers to hear my story, I wanted them to feel my story. I wanted them to know I am you.

Michelle Wu: We have got to come together. We have got to put the petty politics of the past that have hurt people behind us so that we can focus on a brighter future.

[music]

Glenn Youngkin: Although it was not my intention, we have set the message to the entire country. Every single time it's gone too far off track, the people of this state have pushed, pulled, and prodded it right back to where it needs to be.

Michelle Wu: If we truly want to deliver change, we need every one of us shaping our future. Thank you for placing your trust in me to serve as the next mayor of Boston.

[applause]

Eric Adams: I want you to believe again. Let's walk differently. Let's hold our heads up. Let’s have the step in our pace because we are New Yorkers. We must believe in who we are.

[00:01:19] Glenn Youngkin: When every vote is counted and every vote will be counted, we hope to have a celebration.

[music]

Melissa Harris-Perry: I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. This is The Takeaway on the day after election day. Here to break it all down is Krystal Ball, host of ‎Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar. and author of The Populist's Guide to 2020. Thanks for being here, Krystal.

Krystal Ball: My pleasure, Melissa.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Also with us is Christina Greer, associate professor of political science at Fordham University, co-host of the podcast FAQ NYC, and author of the book Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream. Great to have you back on the show, Christina.

Christina Greer: Always great to see you, Melissa.

Melissa Harris-Perry: All right, Krystal, let's start with you. Let's talk about Virginia. What do you see in these results?

Krystal Ball: Virginia Democrats had a lot going against them in this election. Let's start with the things that were out of their control. The history for parties in power winning the Virginia governor's race is very, very dim so they had historical trends going against them. They had some national wins going against them as 70% of the country says that the country is on the wrong track and Democrats are in charge. Some of that's their fault, some of it's not their fault, but that's the national winds. Then you also have a candidate in Terry McAuliffe who really didn't run on much other than being anti-Trump.

They tried to tie Glenn Youngkin to Trump and, in the end, that clearly wasn't enough here. Democrats ran an uninspiring campaign thinking that they could just use the same playbook that they used to win the presidency. Clearly didn't work really in any region of the state. McAuliffe slid from Biden's results in every single region of Virginia. As far as why it matters for people outside of the state, Virginia has been a pretty consistent bellwether for national trends in the way things are headed in recent history. I think Democrats are in very, very big trouble for the midterms.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Christina, I always feel like when we're doing election analysis, especially the very next day as political scientists, there's always this challenge between wanting to talk about what we know in these big models, things like surge and decline versus really explaining each individual match up and trying to understand what happened internally. As you're looking both at Virginia and then also at the razor-thin race in New Jersey, what are you seeing, Christy?

Christina Greer: Right, Melissa. I think that there are going to be a lot of projections about 2022 and what happened last night, but I do think we need to look at each race individually. Terry McAuliffe, honestly, I don't think was a great candidate. He undercut two really qualified Black women because so many people in the party thought, "Oh, we can't have a Black woman at the top of the ticket." We know that when a Black person is at the top of the ticket, mobilization and participation drastically increase. Maybe Virginians need to think about that. Totally agree with Krystal, there has to be messaging other than we're not Trump.

We have seen that racial animus and racist talking points really do work with Republicans. They just come in Patagonia vests now and police and in their packaging that's not Donald Trump, but it's worked in different races across the country as we saw. In New Jersey though, we have to remember, there's never been a Democrat to Democrat hand-off since 1976 or so. The succession of a Democrat to another fellow Democrat in the gubernatorial race is not something that new Jerseyans are accustomed to doing. This razor-thin loss, even though Murphy's an incumbent, goes with the pattern of what New Jersey has historically done.

When we think about the loss of India Walton potentially in Buffalo, that doesn't mean that progressive politics are dead. It just means that a write-in candidate, Byron Brown, and the support of certain institutional Democrats, that also works. When you think about Eric Adams in New York, yes, he's a Democrat with a very weak Republican challenger, but he's more of a moderate Democrat. I think we have to look at the cities and the states that we're analyzing to see the nuance and the messaging that actually works. We know in Virginia, randomly talking about Toni Morrison and Beloved and critical race theory out of nowhere, and giving it life and giving it air is something that really resonated with Republican voters.

Per our colleague Jane Junn at USC, white women do vote Republican. There is no gender gap. White women vote for the Republican party by and large. It's people of color, specifically Black women, who pull Democrats across the finish line time and time again. We have to really think about issues that will mobilize the base of the Democratic Party, which is largely African-Americans, but more specifically African-American women to get them out to the polls as well, which they have done and which they did in that race by the way. It's really thinking about the racial animus that motivates white voters.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Krystal, I want to pick up on something that Christy is saying here about the Tony Morrison commercial. I know you've been following the Virginia race pretty closely, or you follow the Virginia race pretty closely. If any of our listeners do not know what that reference is, can you explain the role of critical race theory, Krystal, in this particular election cycle?

Krystal Ball: I would say overall this race was effectively about nothing because you had the Terry McAuliffe campaign trying to make it about a candidate, Donald Trump, who's not on the ballot, and you had the Youngkin campaign inventing an issue out of thin air with help from a lot of conservative media outlets, which is this [00:06:58] gender concern over critical race theory being taught in schools, which is not even a part of the curriculum in Virginia. This was all invented out of whole cloth just to make people really upset. I do want to say that I think the concerns over education weren't just centered on critical race theory, though.

You also had concerns around how and when schools were closed and kids still being quarantined and still having a bumpy school year this year that I think also played into education becoming a really significant issue in the race. This is one of these instances where, frankly, Democrats should learn a bit from Republicans. Republicans found something that was really important to their voters, even though it's not a majority position in the state, but it was extraordinarily motivating for their voters to turn out. Turn out was for them extraordinarily high. They also won independents and they won white women without a college degree by 50 points.

Democrats didn't do anything to try to convince their voters that this was really important for them and their lives and their kids and their futures to turn up at the ballot box. You layer on top of that, I think for the national level because I frankly think that all of these races are pretty nationalized at this point, the fact that Democrats have routinely promised basic reforms things like, "Oh, we're going to have paid leave," or, "Oh, we're going to have voting rights reform," or, "Oh, we're going to have $15 minimum wage," that, once they have power in Washington or in Virginia or at the state level, they then find all kinds of excuses not to do it.

I saw a quote from one voter who was a lifelong Democrat who literally said to a journalist, "I don't know why I bother voting for these people because when I do go and vote and I do the work and I invest the emotional energy in them, they never come through with what they promise." One other stat from Virginia that I think is significant here is you live by the suburban white voter and you die by the suburban white voter.

That's clearly where the party has focused a lot of their energy at this point. Part of those politics has just been ignoring the interest of a majority not just of this state, but of all states. Virginia is a suburban state. If you were going to win with that strategy anywhere, it would be in Virginia. It just exposes I think the utter failure of the direction that Democrats have been going in pandering to this one particular group.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Christina, I'm wondering if you could also maybe center Joe Biden in that analysis a little bit. I'm interested if Krystal's making this argument about we're lifelong Democrats, we come out, we vote, this being a Democratic Virginia voter who might be saying this to themselves, but nothing seems to change. I'm wondering if this is an indication also of President Biden truly having non-existent coattails going forward for the rest of his party into 2022.

Christina Greer: Yes, I think that's a strong point, Melissa and Krystal. We saw and we consistently see it during the presidential election the Democrats are chasing these white voters that left after Jimmy Carter. They're gone, forget about them. I always say dance with the person who brought you to the party. The Democratic Party, by and large, refuses to do so I think because Joe Biden's poll numbers are relatively low.

We hear in Joe Biden's rhetoric, especially during the campaign phase, he really does think about the heart of America and the Democratic Party is these hard workers from Scranton. No, these are immigrants and women of color who work in cities. That's one of the beating hearts of the Democratic Party. The messaging and the fervor just isn't there. If Joe Biden can't wrangle his Senate and his House, I need him to be a little more LBJ, I need Chuck Schumer to be a little more LBJ and really stop catering to one or two holdouts and get firm and figure out a way to get a win.

I think if Joe Biden had gone into this election season with some concrete wins for Democrats to say we actually do care about voting rights or a woman's right to choose or various policy issues, whether it's healthcare or education, you name it, or crime and policing and safety, that would make a stronger case as to why Democrats deserve to be at the top of the ticket and leading these cities and these states across the country. I think there's going to need to be a reshuffling of the deck, a real clear identification of what the priorities are of the Democratic Party. Really looking at state by state, who actually comes out and turns out for this party, really articulates a vision and helps implement the vision of the party.

If you continue to ignore those people, we're going to continue to see the Trumpian ideology permeate throughout the states and win races across the country. Democrats will scratch their heads and say, "How did that happen?" If we can't pass a comprehensive Voting Rights Act and we know that Republicans are systemically trying to institutionally take away our right to vote, this is how you're going to also lose races time and time again.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Krystal, let me just jump on that on Trump, we've talked a little bit about Biden here. Did Trump play Virginia just right by making the endorsement, but not showing up and doing a whole lot of work in the sea?

Krystal Ball: Yes, 100%. I think Democrats thought they saw the model of California where you had a much more inflammatory candidate in Larry Elder and the, "Let's freak everybody out about Trumpism in California," thing worked. Number one, Virginia is not California. Number two, Glen Youngkin, he wore his dad vest and they just weren't able to freak people out and scare them about Glen Youngkin the way that they were about Larry Elder in California.

The last thing, and I'll say picking up on some of the points that were made by Christina, is former President Obama went to New Jersey to campaign there. His message was, "We're not promising too much. People were disappointed in me and they didn't show up and it ended up being a really bad situation." Almost putting the blame on the voter. "Listen, you might be disappointed in us that we might not be delivering that much, but you still got to show up and vote."

Melissa Harris-Perry: That may not get folks out. Krystal Ball is the host of ‎Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar, and author of The Populist's Guide to 2020. Christy Greer is associate professor of political science at Fordham University. Thanks so much to both of you for joining us.

Krystal Ball: Thank you so much, Melissa.

Christina Greer: Thanks so much, Melissa.

[00:13:18] [END OF AUDIO]

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