A year before the fateful presidential election (does Donald Trump succeed in re-election for another four years?) The U.S. Democrats cheer. Both Regional elections in the states of Virginia and Kentucky they did well over expectation. They conquered the majority in Virginia in both chambers of the regional parliament.
They now control all three political centers of power in the state for the first time since 1993, since they also represent the governor with Ralph Northam. For example, they can tighten gun laws and redraw the constituency boundaries after the 2020 census. In this way, they can also increase their chances of defending majorities in the regional parliament.
Sensation in Kentucky: A democrat becomes a governor
In Kentucky, on the other hand, they created a sensation: The Democrats will in future place the governor in a traditionally conservative state. Democratic challenger Andy Beshear defeated Republican incumbent Matt Bevin by a margin of 5100 votes.
At first glance, this looks like a strong tailwind for the Democrats and acts as an encouragement to advance impeachment against Donald Trump. However, regional election results in the United States generally have regional reasons. And the lessons of success are quite ambiguous for the Democrats.
In governor elections in particular, the people standing for election are often more decisive than the party for which they stand. A good candidate from the smaller opposition party can beat a bad incumbent from the majority party. That happened in Kentucky. This does not indicate a general change of mood. The other electoral offices in Kentucky went to the Republicans.
No turnaround against Trump in Mississippi and New Jersey
This shows that if the comparison of the people involved does not make much difference for the voters, the traditional balance of power between the parties in the respective state is decisive. In the parallel governor election in deep red Mississippi – red is the color of the Republicans – the conservative Tate Reeves, as expected, prevailed against the Democrat Jim Hood.
Also from New Jersey there are no signals for a change of mood in favor of the Democrats. There, shortly before the end of the count, it looked as if the Republicans would gain two seats in the regional House of Representatives and one seat in the Senate.
The Democratic victory in Virginia is impressive. But to a large extent it has demographic reasons. For two decades, Virginia, which used to be a fairly conservative state, has moved more and more to the center and has now moved to the left-center area.
This is due to the high influx in the northeast of the catchment area of the federal capital, Washington DC. More and more people are working in Washington, but are unable to find a home in the limited District of Columbia. Or they supplant the long-established “Washingtonians”, who are over 90 percent supporters of the Democrats. The apartment seekers move to the metropolitan region, to Maryland or to the sleeping cities in northeast Virginia.
The fate question of the Democrats: who will face Trump?
The south of the state from the Blue Ridge Mountains in the west to Norfolk in the east, the seat of the Atlantic fleet, is very conservative, as is the region around the state capital Richmond, which was the seat of government of the southern states during the civil war. The high influx in the northeast has now made up for this conservative basic character and has led to a latent preponderance of the progressives.
Therefore, it is questionable whether the election results in Virginia and Kentucky stand for a general change of mood away from Trump and the Republicans. The other results from Mississippi and New Jersey speak against it. And as far as the general doctrine “Person beats party” for governor and presidential elections can be applied to the struggle for the White House 2020, it reads: The Democrats must first agree on a candidate who, from the majority of the US, believes – Voter is far better than Trump.
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