CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Whatever happens in Virginia’s much-watched gubernatorial race on Tuesday won’t change a thing in North Carolina, but it could say a lot about what might change here in 2022.
North Carolina, a purple state, has been slowly tracking Virginia’s shift to blue in its cities and suburbs, though evidence of it has been obscured by Republican gerrymandering. Still, there was an indication of the trend in major statewide races in 2020 as former President Trump’s 2016 victory margin was cut in half and Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper won re-election.
Now North Carolina Democrats are eyeing 2022 with hopes of taking the open U.S. Senate seat being vacated by retiring Republican Richard Burr, picking up the state’s new 14th congressional seat and cutting further into Republican majorities in the state House and Senate.
But the feasibility of those hopes may be revealed by what happens in Virginia’s gubernatorial race between Terry McAuliffe, a former governor and establishment Democrat, and Republican Glenn Youngkin, a wealthy first-time candidate who is trying to both hang on to Trump’s rural base and lure suburban voters who were turned off by the former president’s character and divisiveness.
Christopher Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University, noted that Virginia’s political landscape mirrors North Carolina’s.
“(Virginia) is very much a divided state in a way that we are.,” he said. “Both states are generally middle-of-the-road states, but that doesn’t mean we’re full of middle-of-the-road people. So you see polarization at the same time that you see a relatively purple state.”
Which of these forces is strongest in Virginia’s gubernatorial race will depend on factors that also will be key in North Carolina in 2022: the enthusiasm of both bases, the level of early voting, turnout by Black voters and the gravitational pull or push caused by a name not on the ballot – Trump’s.
David McLennan, a Meredith College politics professor who directs the Meredith Poll, is watching Virginia’s Black voter turnout and overall Democratic enthusiasm as a preview for North Carolina in 2022. He said North Carolina Democrats could be in trouble because President Joe Biden’s approval among North Carolina’s Black voters has dropped 15 points since Election Day 2020. Meanwhile, he said, North Carolina Democrats are lukewarm on Biden – only one in three “strongly approve” of his performance – while more than two-thirds of Republicans “strongly disapprove” of the president.
If disappointment with Biden drains suburban support for McAuliffe, North Carolina Democrats may have trouble fully harnessing that vote in the 2022 Senate race. A Republican candidate like former Gov. Pat McCrory – supportive of Trump, but less divisive – could follow Youngkin’s approach in tapping suburban discontent, assuming it works for the Virginia Republican.
For Cooper, a Youngkin victory, even a narrow one, “is going to portend a very difficult 2022 for Democrats.” If Youngkin brings a blue state back to red, he said, “you could see that happen for other purplish states.”
My sense is that McAuliffe will win. This off-year election is not a typical referendum on the current president, but a continuing statement on the former one. Trump lost Virginia by 10 points and McAuliffe has taken every opportunity to tie his opponent to the former president.
A wild card is how Trump’s continuing claims of election fraud affect Republican participation in early voting, a pandemic-driven phenomenon that could prove a lasting pattern. Since the last gubernatorial election in 2017, Virginia has expanded early voting and early voting by mail and in person has surged.
The Republican Party has become the Party of Trump. How he affects the Virginia race will say a lot about which of North Carolina’s polarized forces will prevail in 2022.
