Elections are hard to predict. But even with that, some of the notional “surprises” we’re seeing tonight are less surprises than a measure of GOP dominance over current press narratives. People were looking for an upset in New Jersey. Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin speculated that New Jersey might be moving toward becoming the next swing state. In fact, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D) currently appears on track to crush Republican Jack Ciattarelli. A similar failure of conventional wisdom appears to be unfolding in the Virginia Attorney General’s race. A lot of D.C. insiders had convinced themselves that a controversy over some intemperate texts (not nothing but fairly close to it) had doomed his campaign. As recently as a couple days ago, betting markets (which are proxies for conventional wisdom) gave his opponent Jason Miyares 3-to-1 odds of victory. Jones now appears on his way to a clear though not resounding victory with a 3-to-4 percentage point margin.
These results aren’t terribly surprising. You’d expect Democratic gubernatorial candidates to do well in blue states in a climate where the Republican president is deeply unpopular. In the Jones case, apart from the details of the texts story, when one party is doing very well up and down the ticket it’s pretty rare that one story will convince voters to shift to the other party, even if people do find the story troubling. If it’s not disqualifying, voters generally won’t be so easily moved from the partisan message they’re trying to send.
The issue, again, is the power of Republican political narratives currently have over the elite political press. That’s been the case for decades. I’ve frequently noted the way DC and the elite political press remains wired for the GOP, through periods of Democratic and Republican ascendency. But it’s moved to a genuinely new level in 2025. And it accounts for these notional surprises discussed above.
