Democrats face tough road, win or lose

Virginia’s high-stakes governor’s race between Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin is coming down to the wire as voters go to the polls on Election Day.

But the tight election is expected to yield important clues beyond Virginia about the nation’s political landscape going into the 2022 midterms and beyond. Polls close at 7 p.m. ET.

Pollsters and politicians are looking to the off-year election in Virginia as a predictor of next year’s midterms, when Democrats will try to maintain their thin majorities in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate.

“There have been four times when the party that’s been on the outs has won the House from the incumbents, four times in the last 50 years,” veteran GOP pollster and strategist Frank Luntz told CNBC on Tuesday. “Every one of those four times, 100% Virginia has predicted the outcome, which is why everybody’s watching it so closely.”

In one scenario, McAuliffe will come out on top and be elected to his second, non-consecutive term as governor of the commonwealth. McAuliffe’s strategy of aggressively linking his well-financed GOP opponent to former President Donald Trump will be used by Democrats as template for future campaigns to employ. 

In another scenario, Youngkin, a former Carlyle Group CEO, will secure a first-in-a-decade victory for Republicans. His Democratic opponent will be criticized for focusing too much of his campaign on Trump, and Youngkin will be hailed for showing that it is possible for a GOP candidate to win the governor’s seat in a blue-leaning state while keeping the former president at arm’s length.

While no one can be sure of the outcome until after polls close Tuesday night, some experts say one thing will be clear after this race, regardless of election results: Democrats are facing an uphill battle. 

“Democrats are going to struggle to maintain their very thin majorities in the House, especially in the midterms, regardless of what happens in this Virginia gubernatorial race,” said Karen Hult, a political science professor at Virginia Tech. 

Momentum has shifted toward Youngkin. Polling has tightened in recent weeks, showing the candidates neck-and-neck in the race that was expected to be a relatively easy win for Democrats. President Joe Biden won the state by 10 points in 2020.

A Washington Post-Schar School poll released Friday found McAuliffe leading his Republican opponent by a mere one percentage point, well within the poll’s margin of error of four percentage points. And a week earlier, a Monmouth University poll found the candidates with identical…