Did you hear about the big bellwether election for gun control politics on Tuesday? A candidate with an F rating from the NRA who was bold enough to openly support universal background checks and limits on ammunition magazines won in a purple state with a strong gun culture, the home of the NRA. Pundits everywhere are ready to make grand proclamations about what the result will mean for the gun issue nationwide, just as they did when two Colorado state senators who supported tougher gun restrictions were recalled in a September election that involved vastly fewer voters.

Actually, only one part of that paragraph is accurate. Terry McAuliffe is the next governor of Virginia. But very few pundits have been framing the race as having anything to say about the state of the gun control cause, despite McAuliffe’s remarkably forthright support for tighter gun restrictions, which included proudly touting his F rating in a debate with Republican Ken Cuccinelli. Most summaries of the race make zero mention of the gun issue at all, despite the fact that both sides of the issue have engaged heavily in the race, with the NRA spending $500,000 against McAuliffe and Mayors Against Illegal Guns, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s group, and Gabby Giffords’ Americans for Responsible Solutions spending roughly $2 million combined.

What gives? Well, it’s hard not to see it as yet another manifestation of the national media’s tendency toward fatalism when it comes to gun control. Elections that can be construed as wins for gun-rights supporters—the 1994 Republican sweep, Al Gore’s 2000 loss of West Virginia, the Colorado recall—are taken as heralding the “death of gun control.” Meanwhile, there is no such declarative over-reading as the gun-control side makes steady advances—as when, say, a string of senators with F ratings keep winning election in red and purple states, among them Tim Kaine, who has now won statewide election three times in Virginia despite being an avowed supporter of sensible gun regulations.

“The story line we were told by so many pundits after the Colorado recall was that gun control is dead, that no candidate in his right mind would campaign on gun control,” said Ladd Everitt of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. “Well, that’s total b.s. What we’ve seen in Virginia is the exact opposite…Any notion that the Colorado recalls had broader significance has been squashed.”

Granted, one reason that it’s been hard for the gun control side to get that message out is that the Virginia governor’s race has been about far more than just guns. The race has focused above all on Cuccinelli’s starkly conservative views on social issues such as abortion, his affiliation with the Tea Party movement that brought the federal government to a standstill, and his role in the Star Scientific scandal that engulfed Gov. Bob McDonnell; to the extent the spotlight’s been on McAuliffe, it’s focused on his own ethical gray areas and his close relationship with the Clintons.