After the Democratic wins in elections Tuesday, Republicans will need some legislative achievements to bring in voters for the 2018 midterm elections, Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said Wednesday.
"A positive accomplishment would help. Pick one and then they can talk about it for months and Republicans would say, 'Hey, it's worth showing up to vote for them," Sabato told Fox News' "America's Newsroom."
Ralph Northam, the Democrat who won the Virginia governor's race, took advantage of voters who wanted to protest President Donald Trump, Sabato said, and while voter turnout for Republican candidate Ed Gillespie was higher than the previous GOP candidate, Northam also got an increase in turnout over his Democratic predecessor.
"Turnout shot up, but it was mainly Democratic turnout," Sabato told Fox News. "They were the ones energized this year, just like the Republicans — the Trump Republican — were energized last year.
However, he said that seeking a pattern for the 2018 election was not a good idea.
"Is this an exact pattern for what's going to happen in 2018? I doubt it, with 365 days to go, and every day seems like a dog day. So much happens," Sabato said.
Sabato said on Twitter that Democratic wins in Virginia were reactions to Trump "plain and simple."
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