Re: “Gillespie basically defeated himself...”
Gillespie got a higher percentage of Virginia voters than Trump got.
Trump - 44.4% - 2016
Gillespie - 45.0% - 2017
I get why people want to spin this defeat, but there’s nothing wrong with being honest about things: Virginia is now heavily populated with government workers who will never vote Republican. It is not a normal state in that regard - MD is the only one like it. There are plenty of other states with more gettable voters. It sucks for those of us who live in VA, but it’s time for national R’s to cut bait. It’s not any kind of bellwether state anymore, so it’s not worth paying any attention to.
Forget about percentages. I think Gillespie got something like 600,000 fewer votes than Trump.