Big Lesson from Virginia Election

As someone who lives in Virginia and who ran for Governor four years ago, I’m getting a lot of questions about yesterday’s election.

Here are my initial thoughts:

The Democrats’ voter base was very motivated by anger to strike out at President Trump and Republicans and they did it by showing up and voting for Ralph Northam for Governor.

At the same time, the GOP voter base is relatively demoralized by the failure of Republicans to deliver on their most basic promises (especially Obamacare repeal).

The result was that turnout exploded in the most liberal areas (e.g., Bernie’s top 50 precincts, Arlington/Alexandria, etc.) and was flat in the areas Republicans count on (e.g., Chesterfield County outside Richmond, Congressman Dave Brat’s top 10 precincts, SW VA, etc.).

The lesson?

If congressional Republicans don’t deliver on their promises, Republican candidates up and down the ballot are in big trouble because only one side will be motivated when it comes time to vote, and it won’t be Republican voters.

And just to be clear, that doesn’t mean passing meaningless reforms with the leadership declaring “we just repealed Obamacare!” (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). It means really doing it.

It means passing tax cuts, not reshuffling the deck on taxes. It means openly changing their direction on immigration from decades-long open borders policies. Window dressing won’t cut it.

This election result should scare Republicans on Capitol Hill – especially leadership – into doing what they’ve been promising for so many years… or their voters will stay home while the other side’s voters will be motivated to show up. THAT is a recipe for disaster that we saw play out in Virginia yesterday.

Can you imagine how different last night might have been if Obamacare had been repealed earlier this year, if the wall had been funded, and if Republicans were fighting for real tax cuts for all Americans?

Republican, conservative, and libertarian voters would see the benefits of their votes for Republican candidates and be motivated to get out and keep the momentum going.

Republicans missed an opportunity yesterday largely because of the failure of party leaders to keep their promises. Hopefully, congressional Republicans will see that this is their real political problem and fix it before next year.

It’s worth noting that this problem can be fixed, but it will be uncomfortable for those Republicans who didn’t mean what they said when they were campaigning. Their time of reckoning is here.

With your help, we can hold these leaders accountable and put anti-establishment conservatives on the ballot who can be trusted to bring about real change in Washington. Otherwise, we could be hearing “Speaker Pelosi” and “Majority Leader Schumer” a year from now.

Thank you for standing strong for freedom and for doing so much to help drain the swamp