I don’t know who will win Virginia’s gubernatorial election on Tuesday. The latest Washington Post-Schar School poll shows Democrat Terry McAuliffe with a one-point lead over Republican Glenn Youngkin. An earlier Fox News poll had Youngkin ahead by eight points. In a winner-take-all election, no one gets much credit for coming close but it looks like Youngkin must be doing something right. The momentum is on his side, and even if he ultimately falls a little short this should worry everyone. That’s because he’s running a very Trumpian campaign based on The Big Lie, election audits and Critical Race Theory.
I agree with Jackie Calmes who writes in the Los Angeles Times that Youngkin’s “cynicism is galling. And it’s the opposite of what the Republican Party — and the nation — needs.”
Youngkin can’t believe much of what he says. A Harvard Business School graduate and former private-equity CEO, he brings to mind other Ivy League Republicans who are conning voters by their Trumpian talk, like Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas.
As a former Republican state legislator said of Youngkin to the New York Times: “Whether he believes in this Trump stuff or if he’s trafficking in it, I don’t know. But if he doesn’t really believe this stuff and is just trafficking in it, that’s worse than believing it.”
It’s not unusual for the party in the White House to see a drop-off in voter enthusiasm in off-year elections, and the news out of Washington DC has been largely about Democratic infighting rather than Republican obstruction, so Youngkin’s strong standing in the polls has more than one explanation. But his dishonest demagoguery isn’t tanking his campaign. The signs suggest that he’s found a good political formula.
If Youngkin wins, it will say a lot about the typical American swing voter, and it won’t be good news. Even if he doesn’t win, if he performs significantly better than recent statewide Republican campaigns in Virginia, we should expect his strategy to become a template for other GOP candidates running in bluish states.
I also need to add that Virginia typically reports the vote in the Democratic-leaning north last, which means Youngkin will likely be ahead in the count for a long time on Tuesday night even if he eventually falls behind. That’s a perfect recipe for a repeat of the 2020 presidential election, where Trump was initially ahead in several states that he ultimately lost. That will feed the conspiracists’ theories that the election was stolen. So, even a narrow McAuliffe win could create more erosion of trust in our elections.
It seems that no good outcome is on offer Tuesday, but it certainly will be best if McAuliffe wins, and wins as convincingly as possible.
He’s running two campaigns. You’re not accurately describing the advertisements he’s using on television. His online and Republican audience persona is as you describe. But all of his TV advertisements are directed to “giving parents a voice in schools” and a talking about grocery taxes. Terry’s gaffe probably played into that line of attack, lending it salience and credence.
Of course, let us not ignore that the CRT panic as you describe is being raised in salience because our national media and credulous centrists are telling the middle and moderates that the far left is taking over our education system — they’re the ones who are being duped though! And then they give affirmation to the “feelings” that white independents feel to be true, rather than exposing the lies for what they are.
Ultimately, however, none of this matters. What matters is that Biden’s job approval rating is in the gutter. And that’s why the race is close.
The last paragraph says it all. It could have been different were it not for two lousy senators. S
“It seems that no good outcome is on offer Tuesday, but it certainly will be best if McAuliffe wins, and wins as convincingly as possible.”
Agreed. Not that there’s a blessed thing to be done about it, but McAuliffe (according to my longstanding Virginia political sources) is one of those politicians who has whatever the opposite of charisma is. Even when he was governor, doing a good job, in a good economy, his approval ratings were disturbingly low.
You run a suboptimal candidate, you lose. Examples: Anthony Brown (2014) and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend (2006) in heavily Democratic Maryland.
I’m a hard core Democratic voter. Now that I see the old Build Back Better Plan has gotten smaller and less inclusive, I’m not very optimistic. We voted for you. We gave you as much of a majority as we could. You control both Houses and the Presidency. And you are blowing it. Apparently nothing can be done. (Unless your a super rich individual or a corporation, then your tax cuts and environmental issues are passed immediately.) If it keeps going like this, the 2022 interims will be a blood bath for us Dems.