WaPo's Virginia columnist/blogger: Joe Biden's Virginia advantage

[highplainsdem]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/09/joe-bidens-virginia-advantage/

A recent presidential poll confirmed a hard truth for Virginia Democrats: Former vice president Joe Biden may be the only guy who can keep the commonwealth out of President Trump’s column in November.

That’s the takeaway from a recently released Mason-Dixon poll that shows the former vice president ahead of the president. The rest of the Democratic field achieves the seemingly impossible: Losing to an impeached Republican incumbent a year after Virginia Democrats won their first trifecta in a generation.

-snip-

Biden leads Trump 49-45 percent in Virginia. Not bad — not that much different from Hillary Clinton’s 49-44 percent victory over Trump in 2016 or Barack Obama’s Virginia victories in 2008 and 2012.

The good news for Democrats ends there.

Trump leads Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) by 6 percentage points, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) by 4 percentage points, and former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg by a scant 2 percentage points.

All of this is can change. But don’t count on it changing much, because Biden has a few, very significant things working in his favor (in addition to endorsements from former governor Terry McAuliffe and Rep. Don McEachin).

The Mason-Dixon poll shows Biden leading Trump in two key constituencies: women and black voters. That isn’t surprising. Neither group is keen on Trump, and nothing will change that between now and Election Day, regardless of whom Democrats nominate.

But black voters are the foundation of Biden’s support — in Virginia and elsewhere. We’ve seen just how influential this group of voters can be in Democratic primaries, and why there’s real reason to believe Biden is stronger not just in the primary but the general election, too.

In 2016, Clinton’s overwhelming support from black voters on Super Tuesday swamped Sanders.

In the Virginia primary, alone, Clinton won 84 percent of the black vote, which helped propel her to an easy 64-35 percent win over Sanders.

Women and black people stuck by Clinton in the general, where she won 56 percent of the women’s vote and a whopping 88 percent of the black vote (and 91 percent among black women).

Clinton needed every one of those votes to win Virginia in 2016, just as Obama did in 2012 and 2008.

The political calculus is no different for Biden in 2020.

-snip-

The Mason-Dixon poll may not be perfect, and there’s ample time for everything to change. But the numbers tend to reinforce the idea that, despite many, many caveats, Biden really might be the only Democrat who can defeat Trump in Virginia.

Put another way: If Democrats nominate anyone other than Biden, then Virginia becomes a swing state again.

[Demsrule86]

1. Biden is the only Democrat who can beat Trump.

K&R

[Thekaspervote]

2. Indeed!!

[Demsrule86]

7. Thank you! good morning.

[Amishman]

5. I wouldn't say the only one, but I think he is absolutely the safest choice

I like Biden for 4 years to stabilize things, then move on to a younger candidate

[Demsrule86]

6. Fair enough...as long as Biden is healthy, I would prefer he remain...so we have four continuous

years...he will have a younger VP. And and running an incumbent make it easier to win. Plus we will have four years of the GOP making every effort to destroy whoever the VP is so eight years would be better...give that person some teflon similar to what Biden has now.

[Scurrilous]

3. K&R

[Hortensis]

4. Biden the ONLY candidate who can keep Trump from taking VA?

That's a scary thought.

If VA were to swing right again with Trump, Republicans would probably regain control of the state legislature, and all too possibly afterward the governor's office. That election's just a year later, and the incumbent Democratic governor can't run again.

So many of our midterms and special election flips to blue were by very narrow margins.

[Demsrule86]

8. We have had the House to stop the worst Trump has to offer...God forbid we lose the House or

Virginia...I will never understand why some insist on certain ideologies or candidates...when clearly we will lose if they get their way.

[Hortensis]

9. Yes. I suspect I'd be on medication for the first time

ever now without the midterms, with their reassurance of voter sanity and, blessedly, control of the house and many state institutions. I wish I could throw myself on the chest of the house in gratitude, but maybe they feel the same about us sometimes too.