Virginia elections offer the most important test for both parties heading into 2024

If you’re like most Americans, you couldn’t care less about elections held the year before a presidential contest.

Only a few states – all with relatively small populations – have statewide contests for elective offices this year. Virginia and New Jersey are holding elections for their state legislatures. Ohio voters will decide on two ballot initiatives. And several cities will be electing mayors.

But before you dismiss Tuesday’s elections out of hand, I want to draw your attention to what will be perhaps the last best test for both parties heading into 2024.

Election results for the Virginia Legislature over the past few cycles have been shown to correlate with what happens in the following year’s national elections. So a good showing for either party Tuesday would bode well for that party next year.

Consider what happened in 2019. Democrats were able to flip both chambers of the Virginia Legislature. The following year Democrat Joe Biden won the presidency.

In 2021, Republicans retook the Virginia House. That was followed by the GOP winning back the US House of Representatives in 2022.

The Virginia Senate wasn’t up in 2021 – state senators face their voters every four years. Still, the party that controls the Virginia Senate going into the presidential election has gone on to win the presidency every year but once since 1999. That one time was in 2011, when the two parties ended up tied in the state Senate, with the Republican lieutenant governor serving as the tie-breaker.

This year, both parties are in position to win control of either one or both legislative bodies in Virginia. Democrats hold the thinnest of majorities in the state Senate, while Republicans narrowly control the state House.

An October Washington Post-Schar poll found Democrats with a 2-point advantage – well within the margin…