2021 Election Preview Part 2: LG-AG/Party Down (Ballot)
https://www.wsls.com/news/virginia/2021/06/11/two-women-vie-to-make-history-as-virginia-lieutenant-governor/
It’s the RVAPolitics 2021 Election Preview! I’ll be looking at aspects of the election in 5 parts over the next 2 weeks:
Wednesday 10/13 — House of Delegates: Battle for the Suburbs
TODAY – Lt. Gov/Attorney General: Party Down (Ballot)
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While most of the state’s attention is on the Governor’s race– if they are paying attention at all – there are two other statewide offices on the ballot. The Attorney General is the state’s top lawyer, and the Lt. Governor is mostly analogous to the national Vice President.
These races, maybe even more than the Governor’s, are shaped by one thing above all: political party.
The Attorney General runs the state’s Department of Law. In recent years, however, state Attorneys General (yes, that’s how we do the plural) have taken on a much more activist policymaking role. As a result, their partisan/ideological makeup has a major effect on state laws and how they are interpreted.
The Lt. Governor in Virginia is also primarily partisan, but for a different reason: they don’t have anything to do. (Honestly, if you look at current LG Justin Fairfax’s website, the general vibe is: “I stood next to a guy while he did something.”) Instead, their key role is to preside over the Virginia Senate and – most importantly – cast a Senate vote in case of a tie. This “41st Senator” role has major import in a state where Democrats have a thin 21-19 majority. With Senate seats next up for election in 2023, DURING the next LG’s term, the vote for LG is essentially a vote to support a partisan majority. It’s the closest we get in the state to an up-or-down party vote.
So what does this mean for 2021? It means the national mood matters.
There is a longstanding “nationalization” trend in local and state elections, where what’s going on in Washington affects what happens in statehouses, maybe more than ever. The Trump Presidency certainly helped drive the “Blue Wave” in Virginia that switched party control of the General Assembly to the Democrats.
As the Biden Administration suffers from a kind of malaise brought on by typical Democratic Party legislative wrangling and unrelenting conservative media networks, Virginia Dems are worried about a drag effect. And because voters often do not have much of an idea about these races down the ballot from the Governor, that drag effect could affect the results.
Both Democrats for LG and AG should win, based on the state’s demographics alone, and without any particular problem or dynamic with the candidates that would give the challengers a leg up.
Mark Herring is a relatively popular incumbent who has used his office to defend progressive priorities. His challenger, Republican Delegate Jason Miyares, is taking a traditional law-and-order approach in his campaign. But he seems to be settling in on the parole board scandal in recent days, and I’m not sure that voters care about that anymore (or buy the tie to Herring, when he’s not really involved).
Republican LG candidate Winsome Sears is not your typical Republican candidate; as a Black veteran and former history-making legislator, she presented a challenge to Democrats trying to paint the GOP as too conservative for VA. Still, Sears has been outraised by Delegate Haya Ayala and went through a seemingly painful campaign shake-up last month. Neither candidate has much of a track record to run on, so campaign themes have focused on positively defining the candidate (and negatively defining their opponent, especially w/ Ayala’s ads on Sears). The results are likely to follow the governor’s race fairly closely. (Although I should note that the 2017 LG results lagged the Governor’s by 1-2%, so it’s always possible that a close race could produce divided statewide offices.)
Bottom line: Both the AG and LG races will help cement the definition of what kind of state Virginia is these days. If either or both Republicans prevail, this year’s election will suggest Virginia is still a purplish state, offering a competitive choice between both parties. But (and I think this is more likely) if Democrats continue their decade-long trend of statewide victories, then I think the argument will be settled. (At least until the next election, when we’ll hear all about it again.)