VCC Magazine Fall 2018

V irginia C apitol C onnections , F all 2018 16 State Politics is Going National By Jesse Richman and Joshua Zingher In the November 2017 House of Delegates races, Republicans saw a two decade and 66-34-seat majority nearly evaporate, ultimately holding on to control of the chamber by the narrowest of threads—the literal luck of the draw in a tie-breaker. In House of Delegates contests, Democrats had won around 44 percent of the statewide vote in recent elections. This time they won roughly 56 percent. Donald Trump seems to have shifted the electoral map in a way that persisted into the 2017 election in Virginia. Trump lost Virginia in 2016 as urban and suburban areas swung towards the Democratic Party. Rural and small city areas moved towards the Republicans. Those patterns, if anything, grew more pronounced in 2017. Trump has shifted American politics in important ways that are only beginning to be fully understood. His election polarized the electorate, particularly whites, along educational and class lines, with the less educated trending Republican, and those with higher education trending Democratic. In Virginia this realignment hurts Republicans more than in most places: the Commonwealth has one of the highest levels of college attainment in the country. Turnout was high, particularly on the Democratic side. In 2013, 43 percent of registered voters voted. Up to 47.6 percent in 2017. Turnout as a percentage of the vote eligible population in 2017 was 43.4 percent, higher than at any time in at least the last forty years of gubernatorial elections. And turnout was particularly up for the Democratic slate. In 2013 McAuliffe won the governorship with only 1.07 million votes whereas Northam won 1.41 million votes. Trump-leaning areas of Virginia turned out (albeit not at the level of intensity they had for Trump) and the rural and mountain parts of the state voted more heavily for Republicans than they had in the last gubernatorial election. But the opposite pattern occurred in urban and metropolitan areas, and at higher levels of intensity. Democrats capitalized upon these opportunities. Virginia Outcomes The Virginia outcomes in 2017 reflect a broader trend we have observed in state elections across the country and detail in a recent academic journal article ( https://doi.org/10.1177%2F153 2673X18788050 ). As national politics have become increasingly polarized, the degree to which state legislative candidates and state parties can resist national electoral patterns has diminished sharply. For state legislative parties, being closer to the voters is not enough. Voters must also be supporters of the national party. As the national parties have polarized, voters often put increasing weight on national party positions, to the point of ignoring what state parties stand for. One consequence is that, increasingly, the only competitive state-legislative-control contests are in national-level swing states. The figure shows that in recent years almost the only legislatures experiencing a change in party control have been ones in presidential- election swing states. In states like Massachusetts and Utah, one party seems almost guaranteed to win, no matter what. Such stable domination is hardly the stuff of democratic accountability. If scholars who argue that party competition plays a key role in incentivizing good government are correct, then this poses a challenge for the health of democracy. Even in national-level swing states, increased dependence on national trends may short-circuit responsiveness. Swing states like Virginia may still see frequent legislative party control changes, but these are due to national partisan winds rather than anything the state parties have accomplished. Democrats had an opportunity to take advantage of nationalization in 2017, but the shoe was on the other foot just a few years ago. Republicans in Virginia surfed the national Tea Party wave to seat gains during the Obama years. Target Rich for Democrats Previously in Virginia (2017), nationalization of the election resulted in a target rich environment for Democrats. Sixteen of 100 House of Delegates seats were held by Republican incumbents in districts carried by Clinton in 2016. These were natural targets. The Virginia Democratic Party worked hard to recruit competitive candidates and brought significant money to bear. In key races Democratic challengers had financial parity with Republican incumbents. Trump was unpopular with the 2017 electorate, and in the exit poll many (51 percent) said they voted partly to send a message to the President. Overall, the nationalization of state politics leads to state electoral outcomes driven by national political patterns. Voters who are less likely to respond to their state’s unique political circumstances. Arguably statehouse democracy suffers as a result. Voters ought to pay attention to what happens at the state level, as it can have enormous consequence for their lives. But such attention is getting harder for state parties to attract. Eyes are fixed on DC. Former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Tip O'Neill famously stated that “all politics is local.” In the polarized media- frenzy circus of today’s national politics, however, that needs a rewrite: Even local politics is national. Jesse Richman is an Associate Professor at Old Dominion University. He received his PhD from Carnegie Mellon University in 2005. He has published articles in a number of journals including American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Electoral Studies and State Politics and Policy Quarterly. Joshua N. Zingher is an assistant professor of Political Science at Old Dominion University. His research focuses on mass political behavior, elections, and representation. His work has appeared in a number of academic journals including the British Journal of Political Science, Electoral Studies, Party Politics, and the Journal of Politics. Zingher Richman Figure: The Proportion of non-Southern States that Experienced an Alternation in Partisan Control of State Legislatures in the Previous 10 Years V