Democrats suffer a thorough drubbing at the polls

ONE YEAR ago, America’s Democrats were celebrating: Joe Biden had just made Donald Trump a one-term president. This year’s (much smaller) election day left them in a considerably grimmer mood. In Virginia, Glenn Youngkin became the first Republican to win a gubernatorial race since 2009. Democrats are on course to lose the lower chamber of the statehouse, as well as races for lieutenant-governor and attorney-general. In New Jersey, Phil Murphy, the incumbent governor, came within just a percentage point of losing despite winning by 14 points in 2017. The party’s progressive wing fared even worse: voters in Minneapolis rejected a measure to replace the city’s police department with a “Department of Public Safety,” and a socialist mayoral candidate in Buffalo, New York lost to her defeated primary opponent who was running as a write-in candidate. Partly these results simply hew to form: the party in power tends to fare poorly in off-year elections. But the size and shape of the defeat augurs ill for Democrats’ chances of holding their congressional majorities in next year’s midterm races.

A few factors may have exacerbated the Democrats’ poor performance. Mr Biden had hoped to have Democratic candidates boasting about all the party has accomplished so far. But his congressional agenda has stalled amid factional party infighting, which may have depressed the base. Terry McAuliffe, whom Mr Youngkin defeated, ran a flat-footed campaign focused almost entirely on Mr Trump, who was not on the ballot. Moderate Republican voters who supported Mr Biden last year to get Mr Trump out of office may have found their way back home.

Mr Youngkin, by contrast, appeared moderate enough for moderates and Trumpy enough for farther-right voters, running up Belarusian margins in white rural counties. His campaign focused on parents’ rights and education; he vowed to ban critical-race theory from being taught in schools (which it is not). Mr McAuliffe called that tactic a racist dog-whistle, but failed to muster a more persuasive response or present a broader positive vision for the state. New Jersey’s race followed a similar pattern. Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican candidate for governor, ran a moderate campaign focused on cutting taxes, and he avoided mentioning Mr Trump. That may have helped him win independents, while Mr Murphy’s low-key style (perhaps along with some complacency) may have kept Democratic turnout low.

The bigger force at play, however, is the typical backlash against the party that controls the White House. The off-year Virginia governor’s race has swung against a newly elected president in every contest since 1981. The average swing in vote margins against the incumbent party is about ten percentage points, though the penalty can be as high as 17 in rare cases. In comparison, the two…