STAT(S) of the Week

The Party in Power Always Pays: What to Expect in Virginia—and Beyond—in 2025

With our excellent Democratic nominees in Virginia and New Jersey now in the books, we can finally start talking honestly about what’s coming this fall. And in Virginia, the signs are already flashing red—not for Republicans, but for the party that holds the White House. Because here’s the truth: Virginia is a reactionary state, electorally. Virginia voters have a long, proud tradition of flipping against the party in power. It’s practically a reflex.

I use the arrow map from 2021 because I know these maps have been featured in NYT profiles and gets lots of attention on social.

Some of those arrows of decreasing performance for Democrats are in fact, evidence of a durable and real problem. As we’ve talked about endlessly, Democrats have seen consistent erosion of working class voters of all races and in all places over the past 40 years and have to fix it STAT.

But some of the mechanisms of these “shift” analyses, be they from Virginia in 2021 or the 2024 presidential map is also due in part to the in-party/out-party effect.

Since the early 2000s, Virginia has acted like a political weather vane. If a Republican sits in the Oval Office, Virginia starts leaning blue. If a Democrat sits in the White House, it starts tilting red. There’s only one time—one time—that this trend didn’t hold: in 2012, when Barack Obama won reelection and managed to carry the state again. But that was an anomaly. And like any outlier, it only confirms the rule.

What happened in 2021—when Republicans won the governor’s mansion, the lieutenant governor’s office, and the attorney general post—was not some grand realignment. It was the system doing exactly what it does: punishing the party in power.

Virginia didn’t suddenly go red. It just flipped because the Democrats were in charge of the White House. And not just any Democrats—Joe Biden’s Democrats, during a pandemic, with the economy crawling out of lockdown and into inflation, and Republicans screaming about “CRT” in your kid’s math textbook.

Now, in 2025, the roles are reversed. Trump is back in power, and once again, Virginia’s natural reflex is going to kick in.

So why do people act surprised? Why does this still feel like suspense?

Because political analysts—your Silver types, your Cook Reports, your race rating updates—they sell suspense. Their whole model depends on it. They need you to stay glued to the drama, refresh their forecasts, click on the latest polling update. It’s professional wrestling dressed up as science. But if you understand the true fundamentals of American electoral behavior, the suspense goes poof.

It also makes it much harder to get paid subscribers!! (Hint hint).

There Are Only Three Things That Matter

If you’ve read Hit ’Em Where It Hurts—or listened to a single episode of This Is America—you know I break elections down to three simple, brutal “fundamentals.”

1. In‑Party vs. Out‑Party Fundamentals

2. Partisanship, Partisanship, Partisanship

3. Swing Voters Break for Change

Let’s walk through them.

1. In‑Party vs. Out‑Party Fundamentals

It is hard to be the party in power. That’s true at the federal level, and it bleeds down to state races. Voters are deeply reactive and the only politician they know exists is the sitting president. When people are upset, they don’t write policy memos. They don’t donate to think tanks. They show up to vote and they vote against whoever they think is in charge. Period.

Trump is in charge now, and that means that Democrats are going to be on the offensive, not the defensive, in a state like Virginia. The anger, the energy, the protests? They’re all swinging left again. We’ve seen this before—in 2017, when Democrats gained 15 seats in the Virginia House of Delegates in response to Trump’s first year in office. That was the opening salvo of the blue wave. And it’s about to happen again.

2. Partisanship, Partisanship, Partisanship

Here’s the part they really don’t want you to hear on CNN: if I have a room with 100 people in it, and the only thing I know about them is that they are either (1) self‑identified Democrats, (2) self‑identified Republicans, or (3) leaners—meaning independents who, when pressed, admit which party they prefer—I don’t need to know anything else.

Not their race, gender, age, education, location, or income. I don’t need to know how often they go to church or if they love America more than Taylor Swift. All I need is that partisan cue. Because that alone will predict how they vote with 90%+ accuracy.

That’s how tribal our politics are. That’s how low the civic literacy of the electorate is. This isn’t an insult. It’s data. It’s behavioral science.

Political scientists figured this out back in the 1950s with The American Voter, a foundational survey that proved most Americans don’t know jack shit about policy, ideology, or government structure.

The average man on the street (unless those streets around Capitol Hill!) knows about 2 things about the government:

1. Who the current president is and the party he is in

2. That there are two political parties and loosely what they stand for

But it’s okay, they argued, because America has a binary choice system. There are only two options: Republicans or Democrats.

Its like back in the 80s when the only beverage choices were Coke vs Pepsi and they had a whole war about it!

And in a binary system, voters don’t need to know everything—they just need to know which team a candidate is on. D or R.

That D or R is everything. It’s the brand. Its more important than ANYTHING else on the ballot, even the candidate’s name most of the time, for most candidates/incumbents.

Most recent cases in point of what happens when your campaign strategy tries to sell the candidate while ceding the brand call Jon Tester or Sherrod Brown.

Both were both effective, bipartisan legislators with great constituency services whole fit their states perfectly and now they are great couch surfers because their electoral brand could not offset their party brand, which they did nothing to improve because they were trying to downplay the fact that they were Democrats at all.

But here’s the problem: you can’t hide it on the ballot.

That’s why you gotta’ ride for the brand. Your strategy needs to make our brand look good while making their brand look bad.

That is how the Republican Party stole our working class base.

But I digress.

3. Swing Voters Break for Change

Here’s another thing Team Suspense just kinda ignores in their election analyzing. Swing voters don’t vote based on careful evaluation. They vote based on change. It’s not “I like Biden more than Trump” or “I agree with this policy.” It’s “Who the hell is in charge right now, and who can I punish for things being bad?”

Even if things aren’t bad. It doesn’t matter. The perception is what counts. When you’re in power, you own the chaos, the gas prices, the headlines, the vibes. That’s why even popular presidents lose ground in midterms. The “change” vote is bigger than any candidate’s resume.

In other words, swing voter behavior is highly predictable.

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What This Means for Virginia

All of this is a long way of saying: Democrats should feel optimistic about Virginia in 2025. Not because the state is “blue.” It isn’t. It’s purple. But the power dynamics have flipped again—and that means the protest energy, the grassroots mobilization, and that small but crucial sliver of swing voters will swing back left.

You’re already seeing signs. The “No Kings” rallies. The “Hands Off My Birth Control” signs. Town halls erupting in boos. Trump Republicans are now the ones getting heckled by their constituents. That’s the new terrain. And it mirrors 2017/2018.

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Don’t Call It a Wave—Call It a Reflex

If you’ve read this far, you already know: this is not about candidate quality. It’s not about messaging. It’s not about some dramatic twist of fate. It’s about gravity. American elections have rules. And the party in power always bleeds.

Virginia is about to remind everyone of that again. So don’t let anyone tell you this is a toss‑up. It’s not. It’s what happens when Trump governs and Democrats get pissed off. The only real question left is: are we ready to hit them where it hurts in Virginia?

I’d like to win big.