See below for some thoughts, from former VA Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling (R), on last night’s massive election sweep for Virginia Democrats – and complete disaster for Republicans. My comments are in green/bold/italics/parentheses…
THOUGHTS ON THE 2025 ELECTION
I had long thought the 2025 election could resemble that of 2017, when Democrats swept all three statewide offices and picked up 12 seats in the Virginia House of Delegates. It ended up being even worse than that. (In 2017, Democrats picked up 15 seats in the House of Delegates and swept the three statewide offices…albeit not by as wide margins as last night. – Lowell)
Abigail Spanberger defeated Republican Winsome Earle Sears in the race for Governor by an overwhelming margin of 57%-42%, a much larger margin of victory than anyone had predicted. (Actually, State Navigate’s poll on 10/22 had Spanberger +13, Hashmi +11 and Jones +5, as well as Democrats picking up 12 seats in the House of Delegates – so almost EXACTLY NAILED IT – wow!)
The giant suckng sound created by the total implosion of the Sears campaign also impacted down-ticket races.
Democrat Ghazala Hashmi defeated Republican John Reid in the race for Lieutenant Governor by a margin of 55%-44%.
And Democrat Jay “Two Bullets” Jones defeated incumbent Republican Jason Miyares by a margin of 53%-47%.
And in the House of Delegates, it appears as though Democrats picked up 13 seats, defeating many long-serving Republicans across the state.
What were the factors that made 2025 such a good year for Democrats and such a bad year for Republicans? While I certainly reserve the right to revise this list once I have seen the exit polls, I suspect it had to do with the following:
BAD ENVIRONMENT: 2025 was always going to be a tough political environment for Republicans. This has everything to do with national politics. President Trump’s approval rating in Virginia is in the upper 30s or the low 40s. That created a lot of political head winds for Republicans, and the federal government shutdown, which disproportionately impacts a state like Virginia, sure didn’t help. (Sure, but you can see Trump-supporter Bill Bolling not wanting to just admit that Trump is an unmitigated DISASTER – for the country, the world, and also politically for the Republican Party.)
BAD CANDIDATE: Let’s face it, Winsome Earle Sears was a bad candidate. Sears had little experience in state government. She had served one term in the House of Delegates 20 years ago. She then reemerged four years ago and was elected Lieutenant Governor on Glenn Youngkin’s coattails. And over the past four years Sears had done nothing to distinguish herself as Lieutenant Governor. She had no record to run on. That not only impacted Sears credibility as a candidate, but it also impacted her ability to raise money, which is the “mother’s milk” of any political campaign. (Right, plus she came across to many voters as nutty, including via the Spanberger campaign’s brilliant use of that weird “I AM SPEAKING!” clip from the Buena Vista Labor Day event in September 2024. Also, she was utterly obsessesd with where people go potty – as Speaker Don Scott said, the VA GOP is basically the “pee-and-poop caucus” – and other right-wing hot-button issues that poll after poll showed most voters barely cared about, certainly weren’t top priorities…)
BAD CAMPAIGN: Sears ran a bad campaign. I don’t know who her political consultants were, but whoever told Sears to run a campaign based on cultural issues like the transgender issue was guilty of political consulting malpractice. Sears should have tied herself to the hip of Glenn Youngkin and talked about economic issues – jobs, inflation, the cost of living, etc. That may not have helped her win given the other challenges she faced, but it might have helped. (The problem is, Republicans had zero case to make on the economy, so I disagree with Bolling that this would have been effective for Earle-Sears. But she probably should have at least tried. As for Youngkin, the polls vary somewhat, but it looks like he’s going to end his governorship as the least-popular, or very close to the least-popular, governor in Virginia history. So tying herself to Youngkin would have accomplished…what exactly?)
BAD RESULT: All of these factors produced a very bad result for Republicans on Election Day.
Democrats now control all three of our statewide elected offices and both houses of the General Assembly. What will this mean for the future of Virginia? A lot of very bad liberal policies, but I’ll talk more about that in a later post, once all the political dust has settled. (And this right here is why Bolling votes for Trump, despite the fact that he must know Trump is an utter disaster – because Bolling’s a conservative who HATES liberal policies, which he thinks are “very bad,” even though most of them are popular with voters and also very positive economically, etc. But sure, with a governing “trifecta,” VA Democrats will now have to show that they can govern effectively and deliver on their promises. That’s fair enough. And then the voters can decided whether they’re happy with those policies or not.)
P.S. Forgive the cartoon below. It just seemed so appropriate. 🙂
UPDATED November 6 – Bolling’s analysis of how Jay Jones won:
