The folks over at Blue Virginia are hysterical with their special election in the traditional stronghold of Fairfax County. In a progressive fortress, one might expect he 63-33% result to be a drubbing of biblical proportions.
Problem is, this isn’t Republican challenger Chris Grisafe’s first rodeo. In 2011, Grisafe lost to incumbent Linda Smyth 63-37 in the November general election.
In 2017, in an environment where the Democrats ought to be facing a D+9 environment? Grisafe still managed to capture a third of the vote while the Democrats merely duplicated their 2011 effort.
On election day 2011?
Democrats were at D+1.5 according to RCP averages.
Tonight?
Democrats are at D+8.6.
…and the result mimicked the kickoff of the Republican tidal wave of 2012’s congressional elections.
In short, if I were the Democrats, I’d be putting on one hell of a brave face as well. Given that Gillespie outperformed in Fairfax in 2014, I’d be painting as pretty picture as I could to hide the very serious underperformance the Democrats put on in Fairfax tonight.
The Democrats are in deep, serious, abiding trouble tonight.
Kudos to Chris Grisafe for running in a Democratic stronghold and exposing the weakness of the statewide Democratic ticket — it could not have come at a worse time for the cheerleaders on the left.