Democrat Ralph Northam has beaten GOP nominee Ed Gillespie fairly decisively (54/45) in the Virginia governor’s race. I’d have preferred a different outcome — say,  “‘SANCTUARY CITY’ ISSUE FUELS GILLESPIE UPSET.” Stlll, there are several promising spin possibilities. Let me know (in comments) if you have others to recommend.

1) Virginia’s now just a hopeless swamp state, thanks to the government-dependent Northern suburbs of D.C.

2) Gillespie was always a K St./donorist gotta-have-an-amnesty type. [Fact check: True!]

3) It was Northam’s last-minute flip-floppish opposition to “sanctuary cities” wot done it. [Did he do it because polls showed the issue was hurting him?]

4) Problem was Gillespie’s failure to embrace Trump! [This seems to be Trump’s theory]

5) The election script has flipped: Dems now do well in low-turnout off-year contests, because their passionate distaste for Trump gets them to the polls. Republicans will do better in presidential years — and maybe in even-numbered Congressional years — when there’s more at stake and their passionate distaste for national Democrats drives them to the polls.

Update …

6) Adopting his primary opponent’s Trumpism is only thing that got Gillespie close …

7) Gillespie got 35% of the Latino vote, despite Gillespie’s MS-13/sanctuary cities ads. Or was it because of them? Latino voters more likely to know MS-13’s a real issue. …