All eyes in the political world today are on Virginia. Whatever happens in tomorrow's gubernatorial election is going to, in large part, drive the entire political narrative for at least the next 3-to-6 months. If the Democrat wins, it will be seen as a sign that Republicans should worry that they may be permanently losing the suburban voters who defected from their party under Trump -- even without Trump on the ballot. If the Republican wins, it will be seen as a sign of a possible giant red wave in the midterm elections next year, and the triumph of Trumpism even when Trump isn't on the ballot. Neither of these storylines will be completely accurate -- voters' motivations are a lot more complicated than pundits like to imagine -- but these storylines will still dominate the political strategizing as we head into the midterm season. Which is why everyone is metaphorically holding their breath waiting to see the Virginia results.

The real story is that the race is even close. Democrat Terry McAuliffe should really be running away with it. He is a proven quantity in Virginia, having been the Old Dominion's governor previously, from 2014 to 2018. A strange state law prevents sitting governors from holding consecutive terms in office, so this really is nothing short of McAuliffe's re-election campaign. And the state is significantly bluer than when he first won, in 2013. So it should really have been a cakewalk for him.

Obviously, that's not true. If it had been true, then nowhere near as much national attention would be being paid to the race right now. New Jersey is also holding a governor's race this year, but you don't hear much about it (since the Democrat is probably going to handily win). But the Virginia election is hanging on an intangible -- Democratic voter enthusiasm.

The Republican candidate's campaign has tried to seize on hot-button social issues (like battles in local schoolboards) and the party's stance on COVID-19 restrictions (which really equates to: "Let's do everything possible to help COVID win!"). But even with all that, the real question remains: "How many Democrats are going to turn out to vote tomorrow?"

If McAuliffe loses, some will blame him and his campaign strategies. He did make one unforced error in a debate, and he's not the most charismatic guy around. But others will point to the electorate's mood about national issues, which makes more sense in Virginia than in any other random state.

The big demographic shift in Virginia's populace over the past few decades has taken place through the growth of the Northern Virginia suburbs. That's where the votes are, and that's why the state has shifted from red through purple and now (perhaps) solid blue. But "Northern Virginia suburbs" can also mostly be described as "D.C. suburbs." They surround not just any city, but a city where the hometown industry is government. A huge number of the people living in the suburbs (both in Virginia and in Maryland) work either in government offices, or for government contractors or subcontractors. They make their money off the day-to-day operations of the federal government, whether that means getting a paycheck from a defense contractor or a high-tech government services company. Even those who don't directly get paid by either the government or a supplier to the government wind up being indirectly tied to this money pipeline as well (by working in stores or restaurants that mostly serve government workers, for instance).

Therefore, the D.C. suburbanites see the federal government a little differently than, say, suburban voters around Omaha or Detroit. They want the federal government to work and work smoothly, above all else. Their own paychecks depend on it. And they are much more in tune with what the federal government is doing than most of the rest of the country. This includes paying close attention to politics and what is going on in Congress.

This is why McAuliffe is having problems, probably above all else. Because there are a lot of Democratic voters who turned out in 2020 to get rid of Donald Trump who are becoming disillusioned if not downright disgusted. They see the agenda Joe Biden ran on being held up by his own Democrats. Black voters in particular are not happy about the failure to pass voting rights legislation.

President Joe Biden, to be blunt, looks weak. By extension, the Democratic Party also looks weak. A Washington Post reporter went out and talked to some Democratic voters, and here is what he found:

Particularly troubling, some said, is that nearly a year after a coronavirus vaccine was approved, mitigation efforts and COVID restrictions remain a part of everyday life, the economy doesn't seem to be working for the most vulnerable and intraparty infighting has stalled progress promised by Biden and the Democrats.

Talking to individual voters seems to verify this as well (from a different article):

Al Riutort, 80, of Newport News, said he still favors Biden, but has had a hard time pointing out to friends and neighbors the significant things the president has done, other than not being Trump.

"I think he's trying to play nice," said Riutort, a retired city planner, who favors McAuliffe, but believes the former governor will lose on Tuesday in part because of Biden's insistence on compromise with an infighting Democratic Party.

"I think it's hurting him. And I think the Democrats not being able to move forward with some important bills is really hurting him and it's going to hurt McAuliffe. I was telling my wife, I said, you know, why is it that you know, that two senators, the one from West Virginia and the one from Arizona, how can they have so much leverage over him? Doesn't he have any power to say 'look, I need your votes?' "

Nobody in the party has this leverage, right now. Pretty much every other Democrat not named Kyrsten Sinema tried to get Senator Joe Manchin to agree to a "framework" for the Build Back Better bill before tomorrow's election. President Biden made a personal plea, right before leaving for his European trip. Neither Manchin nor Sinema budged -- they refused to publicly agree on any framework, leaving everything up in the air. This postponed votes in the House which were meant to lift McAuliffe's chances by allowing him to tell the voters: "See? Democrats are getting stuff done!" But that final campaign argument was denied, by the two holdout senators. Manchin even taunted the rest of his party by essentially declaring: "What's the big rush?"

This isn't completely Joe Biden's fault, of course. Any Democrat would be behind the same eight-ball. Biden has one of the narrowest majorities in American history in both houses of Congress right now, meaning every single vote is just as critical as all the others. This empowers Manchin and Sinema (and, to a lesser degree, their counterparts in the House) to gum up the legislative works for as long as they please. Since they both see their own political fortunes as being helped by this obstructionism, this would likely have happened no matter who was sitting in the Oval Office.

Maybe if Joe Biden had cruised to the party's nomination without any serious ideological challenge, the voters might feel differently. If Biden had won solely on the idea that he would be a caretaker president who just calmed the country down after four years of chaos, then perhaps voters' expectations wouldn't have been so high. But Biden was dragged to the more-progressive side of the party, first by multiple candidates and then by the last one standing, Bernie Sanders. Astonishingly, after winning the nomination, Biden didn't back down from a lot of these very progressive stances. He leaned into them instead.

This did get voters' expectations up. Most pundits refuse to admit it now (because it runs counter to their whole false "it's the reasonable moderates versus the radical progressives" narrative they've been applying to the whole congressional fight), but the agenda items that progressives are now fighting hard for are the ones Joe Biden ran on. These aren't just some wild-eyed progressive pipe dreams, in other words, they are what the voters want and expect from not only Biden but from his fellow Democrats in Congress.

But a year from when Biden was elected, voters are asking: "What has really changed?" The pandemic situation has gotten a lot better, but where is all the action on the other promises? Voting rights and election reform are stalled. Gun and police reform both look dead. A minimum wage hike already crashed and burned. Holding the Trump administration accountable doesn't seem to be going anywhere very quickly. And that's not even mentioning things promised on the campaign trail which haven't even gotten off the ground under Biden. Remember when Biden said he was for a public option rather than Medicare For All? Haven't heard a peep on that one since he was sworn in.

Of course, all this could change if the two bills do eventually make it to Biden's desk. If Manchin and Sinema finally relent and agree to something (anything!), then Democrats will have a case to make that progress is actually happening. Both the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the Build Back Better bill are chock full of great ideas that the public is likely going to appreciate.

The critical thing will be whether any of it happens fast enough for it to do the Democrats some political good. It's too late for that in Virginia, obviously. But even if McAuliffe loses tomorrow, it's not too late for the rest of them.

Assuming the bills do pass (before, say, Christmas), what the politics will really hinge on is how fast the new ideas can be implemented. One is already underway -- the Child Tax Credit checks being mailed to millions of parents. That will merely continue uninterrupted instead of vanishing in January (although, disappointingly, the Democrats haven't done a very good job of claiming credit for this huge change in parents' lives). Perhaps the most important things politically which are still contained in the Build Back Better bill will be the ones dealing with education, simply because of the school year calendar. Can the new "two free years of pre-K education" begin by next September? Will child care be reformed by then as well, so that families don't have to pay more than seven percent of their income for child care? Those two would be monumental changes for millions upon millions of voters. Democrats -- if they can get such things up and running in time -- will be able to campaign on all of this at the perfect time: September. Two months before the midterm election.

Just remember: Terry McAuliffe's fate rests on the enthusiasm level of Virginia voters. This same sort of dynamic is going to affect the Democrats' chances in the midterms. And it's a simple political fact -- if you give people something to be enthusiastic about, they will become more enthused. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema killed any chances of that happening in Virginia this year. Let's hope they don't do the same thing for Democratic chances in 2022 as well.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant