It was singular

Not plural.

Jay Jones prevailed. Manic text messages and a lead foot notwithstanding, Jones will be the next Virginia attorney general—and, you know, that’s democracy. Abigail Spanberger is now the Governor-elect. Virginia Sen. Ghazala Hashmi will be lieutenant governor. They racked up big margins, and it was impressive.

The results in the House of Delegates — the dramatic growth of the Democratic caucus — was a tad beyond impressive.

Jones had been the source of worry, of course, though you could feel the winds shifting about after revelations of his colorful texting. Dancing phone fingers, even in the service of the scatological, don’t trump the need to trump Trump.

Election night was destined to be about Trump, and it was Trump. You can do a half dozen “factors” or “13 reasons” or “21 takes.” But it was still one big, inescapable thing in the form of Donald Trump and all the many matters that have animated the president since retaking the White House.

Gov. Youngkin said it wasn’t Trump. Blame the federal government shutdown, Youngkin said. Ha. I like Youngkin; he’s been great on economic development. But it was Trump.

Trump imagines that the way to govern well is to govern all. He believes he has the capacity for all-inclusive executive leadership. Need a decision? Trump will provide. Redo a White House bathroom in marble? Done. Rewrite the rule book on trade? Got it. Invade Nigeria?

Is it Nigeria or Nicaragua? With the U.S. Navy bobbing around the Caribbean, we might save a few bucks by keeping the festivities local.

The president just announced that he wants America to fly 10 percent less in 40 markets. I kid you not. That must be about the air traffic controllers he’s not paying.

It never stops.

The phrase “tipping point” is a cliché. It’s also a real thing, and Trump, in recent months, tested that moment when all his many, busy inclinations became more than overbearing. At some point—perhaps already achieved —his inexorable persistence becomes unsupportable, undesirable, and ultimately un-American.

Not that America can’t just get up and change its basic political nature. But was that the bargain during the 2024 presidential election? Trump identified some truths, no question. But did we really want to rip the whole thing out of the ground and hand it over, with a smile, to Donald Trump?

The election night results said, overwhelmingly, no. Abigail Spanberger’s election as governor rebuked him. So did everything else. Local races were built around a national debate and answered with a continental conclusion.

Five Virginia jurisdictions—Northumberland, Mecklenburg, Appomattox, Charlotte, and Lancaster—trended Republican compared with the 2024 presidential vote. That’s it. Five.

Every other jurisdiction, based on those that have fully reported, trended Democratic.

Yikes.

Now it’s on to the next stage—the next stage being the present stage. Whether it’s 2025 or 2026, the impulse remains the same: Stop Trump.

Thus exuberance rules. As of this morning, there are seven Democratic Party candidates in the race to defeat GOP incumbent Jen Kiggans in the 2nd Congressional District. Happy days are here again.

Abigail Spanberger’s tight ship mauled Winsome Earle-Sears’ leaky skiff. Similar, but better metaphor: Remember the Jack Kennedy World War II biopic, when the Japanese destroyer appears in the night and plows through the future president’s PT 109? It was like that. Fire, destruction, and everyone’s in the water.

Earle-Sears’ campaign was doomed from the get-go and made worse by consistent inconsistency. Spanberger was all the other things: deft, steady, predictable.

Will Abigail govern that way? Start praying. The new House Democratic majority is foreboding and matches the largest margin (63 seats) since 1987, as some reporters noted.

I remember that well, but mostly the part in 1987 about Henrico County state Senator William F. Parkerson. Governor Baliles helped raise more than $1 million (a massive amount back then) to hold off the candidacy of Republican Edwinna P. (Eddy) Dalton, the widow of former Governor John Dalton.

Parkerson lost, and Eddy sashayed into the Senate, for which she was unprepared. She lasted a term, and Walter Stosch followed. Walter came over from the House, did just fine in the Virginia Senate, and made a thoroughly credible contribution to the governance of Virginia. All told, Stosch served 33 years in the General Assembly.

Will these new House members seek sustained service as well? Will they stick around and fulfill their potential as lawmakers?

Right now, a lot of them resemble Eddy Dalton: enthusiastic, eager, and ill-equipped. They have a lot to learn, and unlike the 1980s, when Democrats had many seasoned pros to tutor the newbies, the General Assembly has been remade and reconfigured over the past decade or so. “Pros” are in notably short supply.

Not to be obnoxious, but come January we may be looking at the least knowledgeable collection of Virginia state lawmakers ever. Deficiencies abound.

The Commonwealth of Virginia is not a small undertaking, and it helps to know how local, state, and federal governments function, including the division of powers, legislative process, and oversight mechanisms.

There’s also past policy, current demographics, and immediate demands. I wrote my first editorial on the “costly burdens of Medicaid” more than 40 years ago. I should find that and doctor it up. It might be worth running again.

Also, in the category of things worth knowing, there’s some knowledge of constitutional principles, statutory interpretation, and legal constraints. State finances. Familiarity with education, public health, transportation, or economic development. Ethics rules, transparency laws, and conflict-of-interest guidelines. You then try to lather it all up with effective negotiation, public speaking, and writing skills.

You should know all this stuff to make laws, but the legal requirements—you have to be breathing, more or less—for legislative service are not high. Ergo, we end up where we are.

Maybe the Democrats will consider some remedial education. Might not be a bad idea. Virginia 101 for anyone who’s willing. Discrete night classes.

Speaker Don Scott got up before the press on Wednesday and, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, announced that the “word of the day” is “restraint.”

“We can’t overreach. We have to be restrained. We have to be wise with the gift that the voters have given us. It’s going to be important for us to have a coalition that’s restrained, that’s smart, that’s disciplined and focused on what voters want.”

Oh, really? That would be a departure from the Democrats’ record prior to the arrival of Gov. Glenn Youngkin four years ago. Only the governor’s veto has held the Democrats in check.

Based on what Scott said, have the Democrats learned a few things? Now, maybe, they will check themselves?

Glory hallelujah, if so. That would be the smartest, most forward-looking choice by the Democrats in years.