Voting is now underway in Virginia’s biggest Democratic primary ever.
Between now and June 8 — welcome back to the new era of early voting — Democrats will choose between five candidates for governor, six candidates for lieutenant governor and two candidates for attorney general.
For comparison purposes, the biggest primary field for a gubernatorial primary, in either party, was four candidates in the 1949 Democratic field. It wasn’t that long ago that Democratic candidates for governor were winning their nomination by acclamation because there were no other candidates.
The big field this year reflects several trends. First, politics are less hierarchical. No longer are candidates waiting to be tapped by the party establishment. In many ways, there is no party establishment. There are Democrats who are more moderate or more traditional than others, but there is no group of party insiders sitting around constructing a ticket the way they once did. Second, this extraordinarily large field represents how valuable the Democratic nomination is perceived to be. No Republican has won a statewide election since 2009. Democrats have won every presidential election in the state since 2008. Democrats now don’t simply hope to win a statewide election; they expect to win. Whether that’s really so we’ll see in November but that’s the mindset of Democrats so if you think the party nomination is tantamount to election, why wouldn’t you seek that nomination?
There are perhaps as many ironies to this year’s Democratic primary as there are candidates. Here’s the biggest one: This is easily the most diverse field of candidates Virginia Democrats have ever seen. Of the five candidates for governor, three are Black and two of those are Black women. The six candidates for lieutenant governor include two Black men, two women (one whose parents were Salvadoran and Irish-Lebanese) and one (Roanoke’s Sam Rasoul) who is the son of Palestinian immigrants. The only white male candidate running for the nomination is gay. In the attorney general’s race, one is white and one is Black, both men.
Yet for all that diversity, Virginia Democrats could well wind up nominating a ticket of three white men. Indeed, it’s likely that at least two of the three winners will be. In the governor’s race, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe is clearly the front-runner by all the conventional measures — endorsements, fundraising, polls. It’s unclear whether he can reach 50%, although that doesn’t matter in Virginia’s system where only a plurality is necessary to win — no Georgia-style runoffs here. There are simply too many other candidates splitting the vote. A two-way race with McAuliffe would have very different dynamics.
Another irony: If you view McAuliffe as part of “the establishment” (whatever that means) and early voting as a progressive innovation — both fair assessments — then here’s a case where early voting actually helps “the establishment” candidate. If there were only one-day voting, there’d be time for some of the other candidates to drop out and rally around a single challenger to McAuliffe. Now there’s not. The Democratic voters who want to stop McAuliffe will somehow have to organize amongst themselves to decide who has the best chance to defeat him. That’s not impossible, especially in the social media era, just difficult.
More irony: Stacey Abrams became a rock star among Democrats during her unsuccessful campaign for governor in Georgia. Only two states (Virginia and Massachusetts) have ever elected a Black governor and none have ever elected a Black woman. This year’s Democratic field in Virginia includes not one but two Black women — state Sen. Jennifer McClellan of Richmond and former Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy of Prince William County. If one of them won the nomination, she’d have a better chance of becoming the nation’s first Black female governor than Abrams ever did in Georgia; given Virginia’s electoral history, she’d start as the favorite. And yet many of the state’s best-known Black and female politicians — from House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn to veteran state Sen. Louise Lucas of Portsmouth — have endorsed McAuliffe. It turns out that the Democratic interest in diversity does have some limits.
Likewise, Attorney General Mark Herring has to be rated the favorite over Del. Jay Jones as he seeks renomination for a third term. The question is how much of one? Herring has been at the forefront of just about everything Democrats would want. We’ve lost track of how many lawsuits he filed against the Trump administration. Will Democrats conclude that was nice, but not enough, especially if they have a chance to elect the state’s first Black attorney general? Or will Democrats nominate McAuliffe and Herring — just as they did in 2013? In that case, their only opportunity for any diversity becomes the lieutenant governor’s race. Ironically (there’s that word again), any of the candidates the party nominates for that office would qualify as diverse — even the men. Two of the male candidates would count as firsts in other ways: Mark would be the first openly gay candidate nominated for statewide office. Rasoul would be the first Muslim candidate nominated for statewide office. Likewise, one of the women would be a first as well — Hala Ayala would be the first statewide candidate with Hispanic heritage. Here’s another question the primary will answer: With such a crowded field, how few voters will it take to win? The current record for a low-vote winner is Leslie Byrne, who won the 2005 Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor with 32.9% of the vote (and then lost the general election).
The first televised debate between the candidates for governor earlier this month was not exactly an inspiring affair. It focused more on pleasing — or, in McAuliffe’s case, placating — liberal activists than it did laying out any kind of grand agenda for the state. That’s disappointing, but not surprising. We don’t exactly see the Republican candidates for governor (one of them will get nominated in a convention May 8) rolling out big thoughts, either. The question looming over this Democratic primary is just how much the party has changed. Its voluble activist base certainly seems further to the left then before, which would seem to make McAuliffe vulnerable. On the other hand, we thought that about Democrats in 2020 and Joe Biden won Virginia’s Democratic primary with 53.3% of the vote.
We’ll find out June 8 what Virginia Democrats are thinking now.
Dwayne Yancey
