@theungamer
Agree on both points. Perhaps with this variant causing issues even in California, people will feel now is not the time to get rid of him.
@lovendures Many people in CA don't know the difference between state and local issues so they blame Newsom when the wind blows. My prayer is that we stop elevating people with zero government experience into top positions. People that are interested in public service have a history of public service starting at the ground floor. Sorry, got little soap box thing going there.
@theungamer I am so on that same soapbox. Thanks for posting.
Newsom needs to stay put and Feinstein needs to go.
From your lips to God's ears... ;-)
I live in Northern Virginia. Governor Ralph Northam's term is up this year, and there is an election in November. Terry McAuliffe is the Democratic nominee running against Glenn Youngkin, a wealthy Republican businessman. They are extremely close in the polls. Youngkin has been endorsed by the 45th and supports policies similar to those expressed by Ducey and other Republican governors. It took Youngkin months to acknowledge that Biden is our legitimate President. Among some of his proposed policies: Youngkin has expressed his opposition to mask mandates in schools (which Northam just instituted in Virginia), vaccine passports and vaccine mandates. He has encouraged people to get vaccinated, but does not require his campaign to get the vaccine. Youngkin is a law-and-order candidate (read between the lines) and in a big media blitz is tying McAuliffe to the rising crime rates in VA (fyi, McAuliffe was governor before Northam, but in VA you can't run for two consecutive terms). Youngkin paints himself as a moderate, but nothing could be further from the truth.
I'm nervous about this election. If Youngkin wins, he'll eliminate or scale back all of the progressive achievements made by McAuliffe and Northam. I can't get any intuitive sense because my emotions are getting in the way. Please share if any of you have an intuitive read on this election and its outcome. Thanks.
@deetoo @theungamer @tgraf66 @lovendures. A wonderful way people can help work around the voting rights restrictions in red states is to write postcards to people of color and low income voters who have been thrown off the rolls, or who must navigate a difficult obstacle course to get registered, apply for mail in voting, and/or just to get a vote to the polls.
Writing a postcard by hand, using different colored pens, grabs people's attention. They will pull your postcard out of their daily mail pile and read it. It's been shown to work!
At the moment I am writing postcards to infrequent Virginia voters in order to tell them why I vote and help them to navigate the voting system if they decide to vote too. That organization is called VoteForward.com. They provide what you need to send out postcards. You can download their data, print them on blank postcards and then put together packets with stamps, names and addresses, a script, and email your friends to help you write and send them out. Pre-pandemic, we held postcard-writing parties. Now you can just email friends and they can pick up the packets you leave for them at your porch.
Perhaps others here could help us name the organizations that we can contact if we want to start a postcard-writing campaign in our town.
For helping people who've been thrown off the voter registration rolls, we used vote.org.
I will try to think of other organizations but want to encourage people to add theirs here.
I live in Southeastern Virginia and I'm also concerned about the Virginia Governor's race. I've seen promotional signs for Youngkin for a few months now and have only just this morning started seeing signs for McAuliffe. There's a Youngkin headquarters that popped up recently in a shopping center near a store I shop, and I've also seen some Youngkin supporters canvassing my neighborhood. I've also been seeing television ads for Youngkin for the past few months. These ads do make Youngkin look moderate and reasonable. There don't seem to be as many television ads for McAuliffe and those that I've seen have seemed kind of weak to me. There's one that has some police speaking on behalf of McAuliffe and another on abortion rights, but they don't seem that powerful to me. If I were doing these ads, I'd be pointing out all the other crazy things Republican governors are doing in other states and do we really want that kind of craziness here - mask bans for elementary schools (don't we want to protect the children?), extreme abortion restrictions, voting restrictions, open carry gun laws, etc.
Those are the types of things that I think would fire up the Democratic base because honestly I fear what will happen to Virginia under a Republican governor seeing what they're doing in all these other states. Virginia has been in a much better place during this pandemic than many other Southern states and I think this has had to do with Democratic leadership (and it helps that our current Governor Northram is a doctor). We've also had many other wins under Democratic leadership that could be in peril with a Republican governor.
Seeing all these Youngkin signs and the energy behind his supporters reminds me a bit of 2016 when everyone thought Hillary was going to win the presidency. I don't have honed psychic abilities, but my gut is telling me not to underestimate Youngkin and his base - especially since I feel his base includes all those vocal anti-mask, anti-vaccine, anti-everything else folks who have been disrupting school boards and other meetings. I really hope it's just a small but vocal minority of voters, but I fear they may be the one's coming out to vote.
So this morning when I was driving to work I noticed that a number of the new McAuliffe signs that I first saw yesterday have been removed. The sign frames are still there, but someone removed the poster part from the middle - the part that was promoting McAuliffe. These were signs that were in the medians between lanes. It looks like a handful of McAuliffe signs that were on the side of the road and near the sidewalks survived.
I'm a New Jersey resident/native myself and am intensely curious about this.
Like the logical part of me says Murphy will win reelection as they put a total tfg-Republican on the ballet and NJ really doesn't like that. I also think Murphy will win reelection because even Republicans in this state - and I know multiple ones - are like the other guy is crazy. Helping Murphy on reelection is the fact that some of the talk radio shows that cover the topics and are considered 'trusted' are annoyed by Ciaterelli (who I like to call 'citronelli', like the candle.)
So we have a situation that leads to Democrats and Independents voting, and voting hard, for Murphy and Republicans either voting for Murphy or not voting at all. Which is good for Murphy.
That said, any predications about this would be super appreciated as its giving me agita. :)
@herukane I live in Jersey also and I see Jack sign scattered around. Im praying we never go that way. Not in the state or for the country. I’ve voted for republicans from time to time but in my opinion they are just too scary. Especially if they drank the kool aid.
So I'm teleworking today and heard a knock on my front door. I'm always skeptical of opening the door because despite having a "No Soliciting" sign on my porch, more often than not it's someone trying to sell me something. So I opened the door and there was a woman there and she said she was canvasing the neighborhood and asked if I was planning to vote in the Virginia Gubernatorial election. I said that yes I was and she asked if it wasn't too personal if I minded sharing who I was going to vote for. I had no problem sharing that I was planning to vote McAuliffe. She said she was with the Youngkin campaign and that she and a number of other folks had come in from Alabama to canvass for Youngkin as she believes it's so important for Youngkin to win.
She then asked my reasons and I let her know that I'm not happy with the direction of the Republican Party, January 6, Republican views on masking and vaccinations, and so on. Initially, I think she was going to continue trying to convince me to vote Youngkin, but between me telling her that I couldn't really talk because I was teleworking and perhaps because it was obvious that I had strong opinions, she left. As she left, I did cordially wish her well.
Just a few stray observations I have about this. 1) as I've said in this thread before, the enthusiasm and vigilance of Youngkin supporters seems to outweigh that of McAuliffe. I have yet to see anyone coming around canvassing for McAuliffe (though possibly they respect "No Solicitation" signs more than Republicans); and 2) she came from Alabama so she was not a Virginia resident and it appears that there were more folks that came from Alabama to canvass.
Anyway, I'm very likely to look for a bigger or more specific "No Soliciting" sign when I go shopping this weekend, and perhaps I'll ignore knocks at the door until after the election is over.
I signed up with Vote Forward and prepared some letters to send out to VA voters for the upcoming election, hope it helps!
I live in NM and our Governor has done good with the Covid precautions among other things. She's up for re-election next year- and has her share of haters... Hope we stay Blue!
Is anyone getting a read on the upcoming Gubernatorial race in Virginia? It's next Tuesday, 11/2. I'm a Virginia resident and feel too close to it to get a read. I'm trying to ignore the polls which has the race neck-in-neck, the panicky "sky is falling" emails I've been receiving from the DNC, and the number of McAuliffe signs in Northern VA, which is not necessarily representative of other areas of the state.
I live in southeastern Virginia, and I too have been concerned about this race. There do seem to be a great many more "Bumpkin" signs than McAuliffe in my area and I find that concerning. I have read some articles that suggest that McAuliffe raised a lot more in funds than Youngkin - whereas Youngkin is spending a lot more of his own personal wealth on his campaign. ( https://apnews.com/article/elections-campaigns-virginia-election-2020-terry-mcauliffe-05fea3e6a32e46e915c5104769d2f695 ). Like you said, the polls are all showing a close race.
One thing that occurred to me earlier this week is that with all the craziness and even violence coming from the Right these days, a lot of Democrats and other McAuliffe supporters may not be putting signs on their lawns to avoid being a target of violence. Of course, many Republicans are emboldened to be vocal right now.
That all said, I fear this election will be close. I honestly don't know which way it will go, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Virginia will stay Blue.
@melmystery, I agree with your observations about the volatile political environment we're experiencing and the fear of being targeted. I have my McAuliffe sign on my lawn, as do many of my neighbors -- but I also live in Northern Virginia, which is really a part of the DC metro region and has a more progressive, Democratic-leaning population. Were it not for Northern VA and parts of Richmond and Charlottesville, I doubt that we would have seen the Blue wins.