Sometimes the “bellwether” gloss is a cheap journalistic device. But this year, the trope fits absurdly well. Seemingly every aspect of the race exemplifies America’s national political currents: An ideologically driven Republican candidate tied to the Tea Party emerges from a primary process controlled by the right-wing base. Democrats look to solidify control in an electoral off-year of a swing state where demographic change has helped them compete in presidential politics. A deeply flawed Democratic candidate bases his campaign on appeals to women, moderates, and disaffected Republicans; the GOP hard-liner focuses on turning out his base.

And if the polls are right, the result is a Democratic blowout.

Those polls have been remarkably consistent for months now, putting Democrat Terry McAuliffe ahead by an average of nearly 10 percentage points. Despite McAuliffe’s many questionable qualities, voters seem to prefer him to Cuccinelli and his vision of ideologically pure conservatism. As Republican factions vie for control of the party nationally and the Ted Cruz wing calls the shots in Congress, it’s a result that has profound implications in elections across the country in the years ahead.

On Monday, Cuccinelli stood before a cluster of microphones in a cavernous campaign field office, located behind a mattress store in a strip mall in this D.C. exurb. The reporters who had gathered in a ring for an impromptu press conference wanted to know if he supported the legislative deal that brought the government back to life last week. “I don’t know whether I would have voted for it,” Cuccinelli replied.

He had just finished rallying a crowd of supporters alongside some out-of-state allies, the Republican attorneys general of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and West Virginia. That morning, President Obama had given a defensive speech at the White House, insisting that the widespread problems plaguing the website for the new health-care law were being addressed and didn’t reflect on the law’s underlying virtues.

Cuccinelli, to put it mildly, was not buying this. He was the first state attorney general to challenge the Affordable Care Act in court—five minutes after it was signed into law—an effort eventually joined by virtually every Republican AG in the country. And though the Supreme Court eventually upheld the bulk of the law, he pointed Monday to the high court’s rejection of the mandatory Medicaid expansion as a partial victory.

Cuccinelli called the rollout a “national embarrassment,” and he called on the president to fire Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and delay the individual mandate a year. “It is tearing up opportunity across America,” he said of the law, as the 100 or so supporters who had crammed into the room murmured their approval.