Glenn Youngkin flipped the Virginia governorship to Republican control, pulling off a win by embracing hot-button education and cultural issues and signaling trouble for Democrats nationwide heading into 2022.
He led what appears to be a Republican sweep, with Winsome Sears winning the lieutenant governor’s office, Jason Miyares leading incumbent Democratic Attorney General Mark Herring, and Republicans appearing to flip the state House of Delegates from Democratic to Republican control by a single seat.
Meanwhile, in New Jersey, the only other state with a gubernatorial election on Tuesday, the results are too close to call between Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy and Republican Jack Ciattarelli, another black eye on a bad night for Democrats.
“Alrighty, Virginia, we won this thing,” Youngkin declared as he took the stage well after midnight at his victory party in a Chantilly ballroom.
“There are always those that say that that hill is too steep to climb. But we are empowered. We’re empowered by a conviction, a righteous conviction in our children’s future. We’re strengthened by our collective belief in the Virginia promise,” he said.
Youngkin defeated a strategy by his Democratic opponent, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, to paint him as an extremist and tie him to Donald Trump despite Youngkin having a drastically different temperament and political approach than the former president.
The race started with political operatives on both sides of the aisle thinking the Democrat was a shoo-in. President Joe Biden won the state by 10 points in 2020, and Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam won by 9 points in 2017. No Republican has been elected to statewide office in the traditionally Southern state since 2009.
But polls leading up to Election Day showed Youngkin surging at just the right moment, matching or even overtaking McAuliffe in the final days of the toss-up race. His campaign attributed Youngkin’s success to his “cheerful warrior” attitude.
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Youngkin, 54, is a Virginia native and former co-CEO of the Carlyle Group private equity firm, which he left last September after 25 years. He had never run for public office before launching a campaign for governor.
His core campaign pledges include eliminating Virginia’s 2.5% grocery tax, cutting regulations with the aim of spurring job growth, and doubling the standard deduction for income tax. He also pledges to fund law enforcement fully and protect qualified immunity.
But it was his embrace of education issues at the forefront of cultural clashes that animated the Republican grassroots base, fostered enthusiasm, and helped propel Youngkin to victory.
Over the summer, northern Virginia’s Loudoun County exploded as the epicenter of angry parents confronting school boards over transgender policies and “critical race theory,” a term that started as an academic framework for examining racism that has become a descriptor for curricula and policies that frame people and society through the lens of race.
Youngkin pledged to ban critical race theory in schools, as well as keep schools open five days a week, raise teacher pay, and expand the number of charter schools in the state.
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In October, the revelation of two bathroom rape allegations further heightened tensions and brought more scrutiny to the school district. Last week, a male teenager allegedly wearing a skirt was found guilty of sexually assaulting a teenage girl at Stone Bridge High School in May. The student is accused of a second assault at another high school. Youngkin called for an investigation into the school board.
Youngkin held his final campaign rally on the eve of the election in Loudoun County.
Exit polls found that education was the second-most important issue for voters, with about a quarter saying it was the most important. Youngkin had an edge among those who said education was their most important issue, 56% to 24% for McAuliffe. The economy was the most important issue for about a third of Virginia voters.
Youngkin told his supporters that his was “a campaign that came from nowhere, but we were joined by neighbors and friends of all races, of all religions, of all ages, of all political ideologies, and it turned into a movement.”
“This stopped being a campaign long ago,” Youngkin said. “This is the spirit of Virginia coming together like never before, the spirit of Washington and Jefferson and Madison and Monroe and Patrick Henry, and Virginians standing up and taking our commonwealth back. My fellow Virginians, this is our moment.”
Youngkin won the Republican nomination in a crowded field of candidates after utilizing his personal wealth and proposing an “election integrity task force,” beating out candidates who were more of Trump loyalists.
But that didn’t stop McAuliffe’s campaign from exaggerating or falsifying Youngkin’s ties to Trump or his positions on other issues.
McAuliffe criticized Youngkin for not supporting mandatory vaccination against COVID-19 and claimed he was spreading “anti-vax” talking points, even though Youngkin ran a public service announcement to encourage Virginians to get vaccinated. He falsely claimed that Youngkin wants to ban Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved and other books from schools. He claimed that he would ban abortion despite Youngkin saying that he supports restrictions only after a fetus can feel pain and supports exceptions in cases of rape and incest.
Youngkin, though, successfully walked a tightrope of keeping the former president at arm’s length without disavowing him or alienating his supporters. While he accepted Trump’s endorsement, he did not campaign with him or regularly evoke his name on the campaign trail.
Biden’s flagging approval ratings also helped Youngkin catch up to McAuliffe, a dynamic that McAuliffe acknowledged to supporters.
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Youngkin’s win is also a nationwide boon for Republicans, who hope that a win in Virginia might stunt Democrats’ momentum on advancing major tax and spending bills in Congress and further stoke the sense that Republicans are on track to win back the House in 2022.
Virginia’s off-year elections have historically been used as a barometer for the mood of the country and a preview of the midterm elections, but its reliability as a bellwether is murky. The party that won the House in the midterm elections has matched the party that won the Virginia governorship in three of the last five cycles, dating back to 2001.
