It’s good to see Virginia Democrats win elections they never thought they would and use it to forward a socialist agenda that the voters aren’t clamoring for.
It shows the willingness for Democrats to hand back a lot of the legislative seats they just won.
And Democrats know it. Whispers of senior Democrats in the House of Delegates are getting pretty loud about how extreme these new Democrat delegates are and how unpopular their agendas are.
They know where this will get them in November, 2019.
First up is a new push for Medicaid expansion, and although health care was the number one issues in exit polls on election day, exit polls also show that the voters who put the Democrats over the top weren’t poor.
The Democrat/Republican split for households under $50,000 was basically what it has been before. The big gain for Democrats this year was among households making as much as $100,000 a year.
Guess what! They aren’t getting Medicaid. They’ll wind up paying for others’ Medicaid.
Know what they are getting? Record high premiums for insurance with deductibles so high that they never actually benefit by having insurance without having a major five-figure expense.
So in two years, even if Democrats succeed in expanding Medicaid, it won’t mean anything to the voters who meant the difference between winning and losing.
Minimum wage. Oh, do these new Democrat delegates want to raise the minimum wage!
Guess what? People making up to $100,000 a year aren’t making minimum wage. In fact, they might even get their jobs cut so companies can afford to give their lower-income employees an income-doubling raise.
See what’s happening?
These new Democrats will do what old Democrats used to do. Turn off the middle class and make it totally clear that unless you are in a special group or class, the Democrats aren’t interested in helping you.
Experienced Democrats know that this was a backlash election in a state that routinely has backlash elections. To misread 2017 as an affirmation of their liberal agenda will give them electoral whiplash that will be fun to see in 2019.
I’ll bring the popcorn.