DEven before Josh Cole won his presidential race, the Democratic candidate for the Virginia House of Representatives predicted that his party would perform well on Election Day, largely because the issue of abortion had motivated many voters to go to the polls.
“There are people who are absolutely passionate about reproductive freedom and want to ensure that an abortion ban doesn't come to Virginia,” Cole said.
Four days later, Cole was proven right, defeating Republican candidate Lee Peters to represent House District 65 in Richmond, the capital of Virginia. Cole's victory reflected the Virginia Democrats' broader success on Election Day, when the party flipped control of the House of Representatives and retained their majority in the Senate.
Democrats' victories in Virginia may now provide some useful lessons for the party heading into a crucial presidential election. A year and a half after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, abortion continues to weigh heavily on voters' minds, improving Democrats' prospects in the election. Even if Biden remains unpopular and voters express pessimism about the state of the economy, Republicans have struggled to translate that dissatisfaction into electoral success.
House District 65 in particular is a fascinating example of how Republicans failed to win the support of the swing voters who helped elect Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin two years earlier. The district, which was redrawn again after the 2020 census, is located about halfway between Washington and Richmond and includes the small city of Fredericksburg, as well as parts of Stafford and Spotsylvania counties.
The Battlefield District supported Biden in 2020 by 11.7 points, according to the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Just a year later, the district went ahead of Youngkin by 2.8 points. Both parties targeted the seat, with Youngkin himself appearing alongside Peters at an election rally in Fredericksburg the day before polls closed.
Republicans had hoped that Peters' biography as a sheriff's captain and former Marine would help him defeat Cole, a local pastor and former deputy who narrowly lost his 2021 reelection race. But Cole ultimately won the seat by six points.
“This was by no means a predetermined outcome. It's not a solid blue neighborhood at all. It was a winnable one (for Republicans),” said Mark Rozell, dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. “And it probably best represents what went wrong for Republicans in House districts, when it should have been a better year for them in legislative races.”
Democrats owe their success in the district and elsewhere to one issue: abortion. Democrats consistently reminded voters of Virginia's status as the last remaining state in the U.S. South without serious restrictions on the procedure, and warned that Republicans would enact an abortion ban if they took full control of the legislature.
Those warnings seemed to resonate with Virginians; according to a Washington Post-Schar School Survey In October, 60% of voters in the state said abortion was a “very important” factor in their election decisions. More than half of Virginia voters, 51%, said they trusted Democrats more to address abortion policy, while 34% said the same of Republicans.
During this year's race, Cole continued to relentlessly focus on the issue, citing his support for abortion rights in nearly all of his ads and mailers. offensive Peters about his 'anti-choice extremism'.
“It was really interesting because it seemed like people were focused on one issue,” Cole said after Election Day. “Of course we talked about kitchen table problems when we were at the door and the like, but our message was simple. We have to trust women and we have to protect women's right to choose and we have to make sure that the government doesn't interfere with that.”
Virginia Republicans were clearly aware that their position on abortion could become an issue in the legislative races, especially after the party's disappointing performance in the 2022 midterm elections. To address voters' potential concerns about abortion take, Youngkin opted to deploy a new and untested messaging tactic. He proposed a “reasonable limit of 15 weeks” for the procedure, rejected the label of an abortion ban and accused Democrats of being out of step with voters on the issue.
“Most people believe that abortion at the moment of birth is wrong, far beyond any reasonable limit. No Virginia Democrats,” the narrator said in a Republican ad. “They fought to make late-term abortions the rule, not the exception.”
Republicans also tried to downplay the significance of abortion in the legislative races, urging Virginia voters to focus more on other issues. Peters made this argument himself during a debate in September, saying: “Not everyone is concerned or worried about women's rights, even though there are many women who are. Some people are concerned about public safety. Some people are worried about their school.”
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But ultimately, Virginia Republicans' attempts to redefine and minimize the abortion debate were unsuccessful. Democrats retained a 21-19 majority in the Virginia Senate, while flipping control of the House of Delegates with a 51-49 majority.
“They tested some new messages around this issue – with the intention of achieving the same result, which is an abortion ban. And voters roundly rejected them,” said Heather Williams, chair of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. “Republicans are still scrambling over how to talk about an issue voters don't want.”
Even fellow Republicans have acknowledged that abortion has become a persistent problem for the party's electoral prospects. Bill Bolling, a Republican and former lieutenant governor of Virginia, attributed the party's losses to three factors: abortion, Donald Trump and a lack of a clear policy vision.
“It really doesn't take a rocket scientist to quickly analyze why Republicans haven't performed better in the polls,” Bolling wrote last month. “Democrats successfully argued that Republicans wanted to ban abortion in Virginia. While this argument was certainly not true, it was effective, especially among suburban women who have become increasingly Democratic in their voting habits in recent years.”
According to Cole, his message to voters spread beyond abortion access to include other rights, allowing his campaign to embrace a central theme of protecting basic freedoms.
“This election was about protecting rights, whether it's the right to education, women's rights, the right to live safely on the streets, or whatever. This race was about rights,” Cole said. “(Voters) understood that we absolutely must have people fighting for us at every level, caring for us and our rights.”
That theme was similarly present in the messaging of other Democratic candidates in Virginia, Williams said. She suggested their success could provide a framework for candidates running next year, when Democrats will fight to keep the White House and Senate and flip control of the House of Representatives.
“The way that message appears in an individual community or state may look different. One community could be much more likely to have good, safe schools and a planet to live on,” Williams said. “But that arc is still true — that fundamental freedoms matter and voters want their freedoms protected, not rolled back.”
For Republicans, the results in Virginia are the latest in a series of warning signs about how the party is suffering from its stance on abortion. Youngkin's failure to take control of the legislature could indicate that Republicans need to find a way to shift the conversation away from abortion, though that strategy risks alienating their right-wing base gets angry.
“It seems to me that Republicans have consistently squandered their advantage by focusing on divisive social issues where voters disagree with their position,” Rozell said. “So they have to find a way out of the trap they have created for themselves. Otherwise, they will continue to lose winnable districts.”