The messaging issue was identified by Abigail Spanberger after last year's Congressional losses. The Republicants hammered home the false CRT and "Goverment's going to tell you what your kids will learn" messages, while much of the Democratic messaging was attempts to counter the false narrative. State and National Democratic Parties need to start addressing how they deliver messaging to voters, because the R's use of racist and false messaging is going to continue until an effective counter message is found or a majority of voters finally figure out the policies enacted as a result of voting Republicant run counter to their interests.
The other issue is the GOTV. Trumpkin was able to get within 300K or so of the number of votes tRump got last year. McAuliff's numbers trailed Biden's vote tally by nearly 600K. You can't compare the actual numbers to 2017 as many more voters participated this time (a good thing). Your message is correct, Democrats need to compete everywhere, and more important, they need to figure out how to energize the 4-year Democratic voter who only goes to the polls for Presidential elections.
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