Labor Day has passed, which means election season is upon us yet again. Even though it’s an off-off-year election, there are three governor’s mansions up for grabs in 2021.
The first is in New Jersey, where Democratic incumbent Governor Phil Murphy is facing Republican Jack Ciattarelli, a former member of the General Assembly. Prognosticators expect Murphy to win this race easily, and a recent Monmouth poll suggests he has a solid lead. It’s possible the damage wrought by Hurricane Ida might hurt Murphy—the storm took the Garden State by surprise and left 27 people dead, making it one of the deadliest storms in the state’s history—but voters have praised Murphy’s handling of the pandemic so far and may see him as a steady hand in moments of crisis.
Even though the race doesn’t look competitive at this point, history tells us we should keep an eye on it. From the 1960s through the 1980s, the winner of gubernatorial elections in New Jersey could usually be predicted by picking the candidate from the party occupying the White House. (The lone exception was 1973, when Democrat Brendan Byrne won in the midst of the Watergate scandal.) Since then, however, New Jersey’s voters have seemed to cast their ballots in protest of the president’s party: Democrat James Florio became governor during Republican George H.W. Bush’s presidency, Republican Christine Todd Whitman became governor during Democrat Bill Clinton’s presidency, Democrats Jim McGreevey and Jon Corzine won successive elections during Republican George W. Bush’s presidency, Republican Chris Christie became governor during Democrat Barack Obama’s presidency, and Murphy won four years ago with Republican Donald Trump in office. Barring a dramatic turn of events, it seems political polarization is about to render that trend obsolete, meaning New Jersey—a solid blue state that went for Joe Biden by about 16 points, which mirrors Murphy’s current lead in that Monmouth poll—is likely to keep sending Democrats to statewide office for the foreseeable future.
Prognosticators agree the more competitive race is in Virginia, where Democratic former Governor Terry McAuliffe is running against Republican businessman Glenn Youngkin. (Virginia law prevents incumbent governors from running for re-election to consecutive terms, so incumbent Democrat Ralph Northam is term-limited this year.) Like New Jersey, it seems Virginia prefers governors who do not belong to the president’s party, but the trend here stretches back to 1977 when Republican John Dalton became governor during Democratic President Jimmy Carter’s term. (For the record, Democrats Chuck Robb, Gerald Baliles, and Douglas Wilder were elected during the Reagan-Bush years, Republicans George Allen and Jim Gilmore were elected during Clinton’s presidency, Democrats Mark Warner and Tim Kaine won office during George W. Bush’s presidency, Republican Bob McDonnell served during the Obama presidency, and Northam was elected while Trump was in the White House.)
The only exception to that rule was in 2013, when McAuliffe won a year after Obama was re-elected. Since then, most political observers have concluded that Virginia—which had voted Republican in every presidential election between 1952 and 2004 except 1964 (LBJ’s landslide)—has changed from a reliably red to a reliably blue state in about ten years time, a shift driven mostly by explosive population growth in the DC suburbs. You may recall that Hillary Clinton selected Kaine as her running mate in 2016 on the assumption that if she could pin down a victory in Virginia, she’d all but guarantee herself a national victory. What few expected was that Virginia, which Clinton would end up winning by 5 points, had already slid to the left of such states as Minnesota, Nevada, and (more fatefully) Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. In 2020, Biden would win the state by 10 points.
It’s for that reason that my gut tells me the governor’s race in Virginia is less competitive than pundits would lead us to believe. I’d set the over/under on a McAuliffe victory at 7.5 points. McAuliffe does have a few things working against him. First, it’s hard for any party in a relatively competitive state like Virginia to win three consecutive gubernatorial elections. Still, it’s not as though there are signs the state has become less blue over the past couple decades. Second, Democratic state leaders have found themselves in hot water over the past four years, with Governor Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring embroiled in blackface scandals and Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax accused of sexual assault. Northam, however, seems to have patched things up with voters and has earned good marks for his handling of the pandemic, which has kept Democrats in good standing.
Third, McAuliffe is by no means a fresh face, having served as governor before. He is also closely tied to the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party (he served as co-chair of both Bill and Hillary’s presidential campaigns and was chairman of the DNC from 2001 to 2005). Finally, he does not have a reputation as a progressive Democrat in a state with growing numbers of progressive voters. Yet McAuliffe has proven himself a seasoned politician and trounced his more progressive rivals in this spring’s primary (he cracked 60% in the final tally, while none of his opposition could break 20%). Virginia’s Democratic voters seem to sense that while Virginia is trending progressive, it’s not there yet, leading them to prefer consensus-driven Biden-esque candidates over nominees who might alienate old-school working-class or culturally-conservative Democratic voters.
Republican nominee Glenn Youngkin is an appealing candidate but one who seems to be facing more headwinds than McAuliffe. To begin with, Youngkin is the former CEO of the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm, and while his whole vibe is “Mitt Romney, but less awkward,” that doesn’t exactly shake the Romney comparisons. (Romney got within 4 points of beating Obama in Virginia, but that was nine years ago.) More importantly, though, is that Republicans have yet to rediscover a winning formula in Virginia. Well-healed establishment Republicans used to do well in statewide elections, but the Tea Party and MAGA crowd are hungry for a different type of politician. That tug of war led GOP party elders this spring to shift from nominating their gubernatorial candidate by convention rather than primary, which froze out a campaign by 1/6 apologist State Senator Amanda Chase. That’s left Youngkin in a tricky spot: He has to get MAGA voters to turn out in droves for him while at the same time win back the suburban northern Virginia voters who have slipped away from the GOP. That leaves him running ads like this one (make sure you wait for it).
Wait, who was that guy clapping at the end of that ad? You know, the guy in the red cap, the one the camera lingers on. What did it say on his cap? It didn’t say “Make America Great Again,” did it? I think it said “Youngkin.” Sure looked like a MAGA cap, but it wasn’t. Does Youngkin want us to think it was a MAGA cap? Do MAGA people go to his rallies? Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. I don’t know. Is he trying to pull one over on us? Seems a little too clever by half if you ask me. (That ad ran non-stop through August; it currently can’t be found on his YouTube site.)
Youngkin also faces problems trying to convince Virginians to ditch the Democratic Party. He went hard against McAuliffe on crime, but McAuliffe defended himself adeptly in ads that touted endorsements from local law enforcement officials. Youngkin has pitched himself as an outsider, but it’s hard to sell voters on outsider candidates when your ads end with this message:
If Virginia’s “good,” why switch to someone who’s never held public office? The biggest problem for Youngkin, however, has stemmed from news reports that McAuliffe quickly turned into this ad:
Ouch. Youngkin’s problem has only been compounded by Texas’ new abortion law, which has suddenly made abortion an urgent national issue. And remember, Virginia voters rebelled against the Republican Party about a decade ago when they had proposed a law that would have required women seeking abortions to get a transvaginal ultrasound before the procedure. McAuliffe is planning to run hard on the issue; Youngkin was found lamenting its sudden prominence in the race.
No one is betting the house against Youngkin, though. McAuliffe’s fate is probably closely tied to Biden’s popularity. If Biden’s numbers continue to drop as they have over the past month, McAuliffe could find himself in a close race. It will also be interesting to see if the MAGA base will be motivated enough to get to the polls without Trump at the top of the ticket, or, if Trump does show up to campaign for Youngkin, if that will help Youngkin more than hurt him. Regardless, I still think McAuliffe pulls this off. If McAuliffe loses, anticipate utter disaster for Democrats in the 2022 midterms.
New Jersey and Virginia are normally the only two gubernatorial elections that occur in the year immediately after a presidential election, but we get a bonus one this time around. It’s taking place just a week from now out in California under absolutely ridiculous circumstances. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom is facing a recall election after recall proponents gathered signatures totaling at least 12% of the turnout of the previous gubernatorial election. If a majority of voters next Tuesday vote to recall Newsom, then the candidate who receives the most votes to replace Newsom (there are 46 of them listed on the ballot) becomes governor.
The petitioners’ main gripe is that California’s taxes, along with homelessness, are too high, which leads to California having the lowest quality of life in the nation. While Republicans love to hate on California—its economy is actually much more vibrant than they claim, although the state does face a serious housing problem—their stated complaints are mostly just pretext. The real reason for the recall is that Newsom does not inspire much enthusiasm nor devotion among voters, and Republicans—flashing back to their successful 2003 recall of Democratic Governor Gray Davis, who was replaced by Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger—smell blood. Newsom may be an underwhelming governor, but he’s not a bad one who needs to be tossed from office. Newsom did blunder badly, though, when he was caught last November without a facemask at an indoor gathering after he had imposed some of the nation’s strictest pandemic mandates in the state. Republicans are hoping that in a low-interest election, their voters will be more motivated to turn out and oust Newsom than Democrats will be to save someone they have faint affection for despite their preference for a Democratic governor.
What makes this election so ludicrous is that if Newsom is recalled, significantly more people will probably have voted to keep Newsom in office than voted for whomever is selected to replace him. The leading candidate to succeed Newsom at the moment appears to be conservative radio host Larry Elder, who opposes the welfare state, believes the minimum wage should be reduced to $0.00, is pro-life, has a long history of climate change denial, voted for Donald Trump, has disparaged women and members of the LGBTQ+ community, thinks slave owners deserve reparations for the loss of their “property,” and would end pandemic restrictions. It’s hard to believe that’s the sort of person the people of a state that voted almost 2-1 for Biden over Trump want as their governor. In fact, it would seem if Elder did become governor that Democrats wouldn’t have a hard time running a recall against him if the California State Assembly—which Democrats control by 3-1 margins in both houses—doesn’t impeach and remove him from office first and replace him with Democratic Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis.
Unlike 2003, Democrats opted not to place an official party candidate on the ballot, essentially signaling to their voters to ride or die with Newsom. At this point, it looks like he’ll survive the recall despite festering problems like wildfires and COVID. Newsom has enough money for a vigorous GOTV campaign and can dominate the airwaves, and California is awfully blue. Signs are Democrats are waking up to the challenge and mailing in their ballots. Like McAuliffe, Newsom will also probably benefit from the fallout of the Texas abortion law, which is likely to drive pro-choice voters to the polls.
If there is a lesson to be had in this year’s California recall, though, it is that progressives should remember that their best intentions often go astray. Progressives in California adopted the recall in 1911 as a way to break the power special interests held over state politics. Instead, it’s bequeathed the state with a carnivalesque mechanism that can find a governor kicked out of office with support just shy of 50% and replaced with someone whose support only amounts to half that total. I’m not a huge fan of recalls—I’d rather let politicians serve out their terms and leave it up to legislatures to hold them accountable for any egregious misdeed that requires their removal—but we’re going to have them, let’s put some care into their design.
Photo credit: Jeff Gritchen/Getty Images
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Vincent’s Picks
(Vincent’s Picks theme song here)
One of the main storylines of The Chair, a new dramedy now streaming on Netflix, revolves around the furor that engulfs the fictional Pembroke University after an English professor punctuates a mid-lecture quip with an offhand Nazi salute. Some students take offense, his half-hearted apology goes awry, and soon enough the campus is swept into the national scuffle over political correctness. It is perhaps telling, though, that while the debate over political correctness is often said to pit the radical left against the troglodyte right, there is probably not a single character on The Chair who would have voted for Donald Trump.
The Chair stars Sandra Oh (Killing Eve) as Ji-Yoon Kim, the newly appointed head of Pembroke’s English Department, whose courses are bleeding enrollment thanks in part to a trio of ancient professors who refuse to cater their classes to student interests. One of those professors is played by Bob Balaban, who nails his part as the all-but-emeritus scholar immersed in research and unyielding in his devotion to academic rigor. Another, played by Holland Taylor in a role that should earn her an Emmy nod, has a dirty streak that’s reflected in her pornographic interest in The Canterbury Tales. Pembroke’s dean (David Morse, burying his exasperated jerkiness beneath the veneer of a studious administrator) wants Ji-Yoon to put these profs out to pasture.
Meanwhile, Ji-Yoon is trying to secure a spot in the department for the untenured Yaz McKay (Nana Mensah) a young Black professor whose classes probably have waiting lists. Ji-Yoon is also trying to navigate a professional but potentially romantic relationship with fellow professor and famed middle-aged novelist Bill Dobson (Jay Duplass) who is still grieving his dead wife and has just sent his daughter off to college. He’s an emotional wreck, which might explain why he carelessly dropped a sieg heil into one of his lectures.
Some critics of The Chair have focused on the show’s satirical take on PC campus politics, but I think that misses the mark somewhat. In the first place, I wasn’t convinced an ironic Nazi salute in an upper-level course on literary modernism with the words “fascism” and “absurdism” written on the board would have offended the students in attendance even if it is said students are easily offended these days. But maybe fascism isn’t something to joke about in modern America (although what do they say? “Nobody made fun of Hitler?”) I guess my point is that if the show really wanted to dig into the PC debate rather than simply acknowledge that as a point of pressure on today’s campus, it would have set up a more potent example.
Secondly, the show seems to be placed squarely on the “PC” side of things, if it makes sense to call it that. We might roll our eyes at the students who protest Dobson’s salute, but their point of view is never strenuously challenged. Instead, the students are represented as something like a force of nature that most of the faculty and administration struggle to comprehend. (One of the show’s faults is that it doesn’t develop any undergraduate characters.) Also, our sympathies clearly reside with Ji-Yoon (a woman of Korean descent) and Yaz, the two persons of color on the English staff and the only two professors keeping the department afloat. Besides the members of Ji-Yoon’s family, the other person of color on the show is Lila (Mallory Low) a neglected teaching assistant waiting for Dobson to read her dissertation. Like Ji-Yoon and Yaz, Lila’s position is often undermined by the seemingly benevolent white men who hold the fates of these women of color in their hands. It’s a situation many “first” people of color can certainly relate to, and The Chair does an excellent job bringing the viewer into that space. To read The Chair as a critique of campus political correctness, therefore, does not seem accurate.
The Chair works better if it is understood as a clash between generations, with an older, haughty, but not unadmirable generation trying to preserve their standing in a world rendered unrecognizable to them by a swelling generation of twentysomething-year-olds questioning the merits of the social structures they’re about to inherit. Ji-Yoon is caught in the middle of that conflict, tasked with modernizing a stale institution but also responsible for the institution’s continued survival and integrity, all while fending off an administration that treats her as an underling who is just supposed to make things run smoothly. As the show reaches its conclusion, it suggests this may be a no-win situation.
I have to say that the overall portrayal of the English staff rang a bit false to me. The professors are all identifiable types, but the lack of younger faculty members (and especially the lack of female faculty members) seemed off. Yaz needed more compatriots. And while many younger faculty members—and particularly younger faculty members of color—can relate to being ostracized by more senior faculty, I think it’s also fair to say many senior faculty root for the success of new hires and want to help them succeed. Maybe that perspective didn’t fit easily into the central conflict of the storyline, but it seemed off not to see that represented. (I could write more about other factors that drive faculty conflict, but that seems tangential to this review.) Consequently, it sometimes felt that the inter-departmental conflict portrayed on the show was somewhat dated, something that would have unfolded 30-40 years ago when entry to the halls of academia was guarded by old men in tweed jackets.
Regardless, The Chair is funny (and brisk; six episodes at an efficient thirty minutes a piece). Oh is great at portraying a character discovering as she is barely holding things together that everything’s only becoming more unraveled. Everly Carganilla, who plays Ji-Yoon’s elementary-aged daughter Ju Ju, ends up stealing every scene she’s in by the end of the show. And as mentioned earlier, Taylor is fantastic; given some of the things she says and does, it’s amazing her character still has her job after all these years. In fact, the whole show is full of one-liners and gags you at times can’t believe they get away with. If The Chair was a college essay, it may be critiqued for lacking a clear, tight argument, but it would win plaudits for its smart writing and punchy passages that effortlessly carry the reader along from start to finish.
Thanks for reading.
Exit music: “Ordinary World” by Duran Duran (1992, Duran Duran [The Wedding Album])