Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Elections have consequences (even for pundits)
Biden Poll Jitters & a ’24 Pre-Mortem
A conversation with strategist Tom Bonier, the Democratic data guru, about last night’s surprising election result, the Times poll freakout, and how Trump broke the political forecasting business for a generation.
The most interesting takeaways last night were in Ohio and Virginia. In Ohio, where there was a literal ballot initiative on guaranteeing abortion access, we saw very high turnout and a very wide margin for the “yes” vote to enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution. To me, that wasn’t new—it was in line with what we were seeing in other states with ballot initiatives.
In Virginia, however, both sides leaned into the abortion rights issue, more so than we’ve seen anywhere to date. Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s closing message was that this race was about abortion rights, and that electing Republicans to the legislature would essentially be a vote for a 15-week ban. I think he believed this could provide him with a mandate, and that he believed he had a sort of middle path on this issue—that 15 weeks was the compromise that Republicans were looking for. And what we saw was massive turnout in these targeted districts—in some cases, turnout exceeding 2021 (the last gubernatorial election year), which is amazing. And you clearly saw swing voters moving over to Democratic candidates based on this issue.