SUSAN PAGE: Crushing defeat in Virginia could signal more bad news for Democrats ahead.

In his first bid for public office, Youngkin managed to unnerve Democrats nationwide and give Republicans a template to succeed even in places Joe Biden carried by double digits in the presidential campaign one year ago.

The outcome fortified Republican hopes of winning back control of the House and the Senate in next year’s midterms. It complicated Biden’s embattled efforts to push his ambitious agenda through a Congress that is still under Democratic control, albeit narrowly.

Joe Biden couldn’t push Terry McAuliffe over the finish line in deep-blue Virginia, where a Republican hadn’t won statewide office since 2009. Whatever clout he might still have still held with Senate holdouts Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin has evaporated.

Biden is every bit as inept and toxic as a lot of us have been saying for years, and as of this morning it looks like he’ll be the worst thing to happen to down-ticket Democrats since Barack Obama.