Virginia Should Dispel the ‘Democrats Always Steal the Close Ones’ Argument

 As of this writing, Republican Glenn Youngkin won the governor’s race by about 70,000 votes over Terry McAuliffe, or about 2 percentage points.

Republican Winsome Sears won the lieutenant governor’s race by about 56,000 votes, or about 1.74 percentage points. Republican Jason Miyares won the state attorney general’s race by about 34,000 votes, a bit more than one percentage point.

The pre-election contention from Newt Gingrich that if Virginia’s elections were close, Democrats would steal them, was paranoid nonsense. What, did the vast evil Democratic vote-stealing or vote-switching conspiracy just take the night off? Did the Venezuelan hackers get lazy? Did somebody forget to program the Chinese-built thermostats? Was the paper used in Virginia’s ballots certified bamboo-free?

Also note that Virginia has excellent voter ID laws and relatively easy early voting. With record turnout for a gubernatorial election, the claim that any vote was suppressed is utter nonsense. The Virginia elections were run the way they’re supposed to be run. Everyone who wanted to vote and who was eligible could vote, once. At this point, there is no evidence that anyone who was ineligible to vote cast any ballots.

Election fraud exists, as the Heritage Foundation database of cases and convictions amply demonstrates. But it rarely if ever exists on a scale large enough to alter the outcome of a statewide or U.S. House district election. A lot of candidates who lost, and who are embarrassed they lost, hide behind the cries of “stolen” elections to obscure the fact that they just didn’t run a good enough campaign.