Decency loses on the ballot

In Virgina, Attorney General Jason Miyares has lost to Democratic challenger Jay Jones. Jones is the former commonwealth legislator who texted a colleague about Jones’s desire to kill the former Republican speaker of the House in Virgina and his children. Miyares won Republican and independent voters, but Democrats not only overwhelmed the polls, they refused to reject Jones. Decency lost.

We have reached a point in American politics where, contrary to Tip O’Neill, all politics is national, not local. When Democrats control the White House, Republicans vote as if their lives really depend on voting. When Republicans control the White House, Democrats do the same. The nation swings from existential crisis to existential crisis with both sides convinced the other really wants to kill them.

Very quickly, in just the few hours after media prognosticators declared Jones the winner, some Republicans declared candidate quality no longer matters and Republicans just need to stand by their man, no matter why. But they are taking from one off-off year election and extrapolating too much.

First, the government was shut down. Northern Virginia has a large number of federal workers who were furloughed, already lean Democrat, and spent a lot of time working for the Democrats. They all had plenty of time to vote and they did. It is no surprise Senate Democrats refused to reopen the government until after Election Day.

Second, in Virginia, which is not really a purple state, the party that controls the White House very often has enormous influence on who wins the statewide races. A Republican in the White House almost always guarantees a Democratic sweep of the state and vice versa.

Lastly, the top of ticket really does matter and candidate quality is extremely important there. In Virginia, Democrats ran Abigail Spanberger, a congresswoman, and Republicans ran Winsome Earle-Sears, the current lieutenant governor. On paper, Sears is impressive. She’s a retired Marine and immigrant with a compelling story. But on the campaign trail, Sears’s campaign was a mess. Republicans in Virginia have known for months that Sears would lose just because of how lousy her campaign was.

Her campaign was not just lousy, but it failed at basic blocking and tackling and getting out core votes. Because she was the candidate at the top of the ticket and, as a result, driving much of the party apparatus in Virginia for the Republicans, her disastrous campaign had spillover effects.

A comparison would be to North Carolina in 2024. Though Sears was not scandal plagued, in North Carolina, Donald Trump won the state and Republicans held onto the state legislature during the presidential year, but Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson was so scandal plagued and ran such a disastrous campaign, it had spillover effects down ballot with the GOP losing the governor’s race, the lieutenant governor’s race, and the attorney general’s race. Candidates at the top of the ticket matter greatly and the caliber of each candidate matters.

It hurts to lose a good attorney general like Jason Miyares. Voters across the country are increasingly voting for the letters “R” or “D.” Had Sears ran a better campaign, the very closeness of Miyares’ loss suggests he actually could have won. That should encourage Republicans to pick the best candidates with the least baggage, not just stand by scandal-plagued candidates and double down. Jay Jones won, but it was very close, and Winsome Sears’s campaign failures directly played a role.

Virginia is more of a blue state than a purple state. New Jersey is even bluer. Democrats had a great Election Day. Republican voters did not show up and struggle to get engaged without Donald Trump at the top of the ballot. But there are only so many lessons that can be learned from an odd year election in the year before the midterms. Many of the swing states are not as blue as Virginia. Republicans have very good recruitment. More Republicans will be engaged in the midterms than the off-off-year elections. But it does hurt to lose a good man to a man like Jay Jones.

Christians, though, should not lose heart, nor should they lose their moral compass when it comes to candidates. A government shutdown and a poorly run gubernatorial campaign contributed to Jason Miyares’s close defeat. Interpreting the results to insist Christians should stand by a candidate like Jay Jones were the shoe on the other foot is a failure to learn the right lessons from this defeat.