In Virginias gubernatorial race on Tuesday, the Democratic Party has a chance to score its first major political win since President Donald Trump s election.

Many Democrats worry, however, that the party is going to blow what once seemed like a made-to-order opportunity.

A victory for Democrat Ralph Northam, the current lieutenant governor, would provide the restive party a much-needed dose of optimism. But the consequences of a win by Republican Ed Gillespie, an inveterate Beltway power broker, would have reverberations far beyond Tuesday.

It would signal to Republicans , once wary of Trumps toxicity, that wielding his brand of right-wing populism is a winning strategy even in a state with a popular Democratic governor that Hillary Clinton carried by a 5-percentage-point margin in the 2016 presidential election.

It will be incredibly demoralizing, said Yasmin Taeb, a Virginia Democratic National Committee member who has been volunteering for Northams campaign.

Taeb, who organized many of the Washington-based protests against Trumps ban on travel from majority-Muslim countries, frets that a Northam loss could dull the enthusiasm of many of the people inspired to become politically active by the presidents election.

If they feel as though theyve been showing up since January, and it ends up not paying off on Nov. 7, Im worried that well see a lot of folks dropping off, she said.

And that could hurt Democrats in other states in the 2018 midterm elections, in which the party hopes that anti-Trump fervor will propel it to gains.