Virginia, the fix is in

An article in left-leaning Politico today is trying to nationalize the result of the upcoming Virginia gubernatorial election, and by proxy, all elections.  Perhaps they think it's a winning strategy for the left to make every election about federal politics.  The far left has been in lockstep with voting Democrat for a long time.  Nationalizing the race might actually be a boon to the right instead.  Unless the fix is in and they know that far left governor Terry McAuliffe is going to win, allowing them to make national claims about the election result.

We don’t need to wait until the results are in, however, to draw one clear conclusion from this contest. It will or should deal another decisive blow to one of the most enduring, least useful observations about American elections: “All politics is local.”

Oh really? Why would this election prove that?  Based on what evidence? The article glosses over specifics to jump straight to this numeric observation: 

Presidential elections have almost always been driven by broader factors than local matters: war, inflation, recession, domestic upheaval, corruption. Over the last decade or two, the drift — more like a surge — toward political polarization has seen the steady disappearance of split ticket voting, where a personally admirable candidate of one party could win the votes from those who identify with another party. In 2020, only one Senate candidate, Maine Republican Susan Collins, won in a state carried by the other party’s presidential nominee. A decade ago, 23 senators came from states that had voted for the other party’s presidential candidate. Today, the number is six.

That doesn't speak to nationalization of elections, it speaks to geographic polarization, or coincidence, or possibly an alignment of local politics with federal politics.  It does not mean people will vote for governor or mayor based on who is president or who controls congress. At least not on a 1:1 ratio.

Of course there have been other reasons to want this race nationalized.  McAuliffe has been as disastrous as  a candidate as he has been as a governor.  They've been bringing in the big guns like Obama and Biden to try to nationalize this race, and they've tried to often as possible mention president Trump.  It's a distraction from McAuliffe's bungled approach to schools and parents wanting to have a say in what their children are being taught.

Should McAuliffe lose, you can bet just as quickly they will at least publicly start saying it was his issue, not about a national referendum on Biden.  Even if they believe that it actually was.  Nationalizing it is just a talking point as of today.  But it is also possible the fix is in and they are saying it's a national referendum because they are going to make sure they get the result they want.