MCLEAN, Virginia — McLean, as one of the wealthiest localities in arguably the wealthiest region in the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, is the central nervous system of the Democrats’ uprising. The question here, politically, is whether anti-Trump fever is enough to sink Republican Glenn Youngkin.
Youngkin, a millionaire businessman, had supported President Donald Trump, but he never wanted Trump to come in and campaign for him. These wealthy, white, Republican precincts are exactly the places where Republican repulsion from Trump had created Democratic majorities. So, was Youngkin (whom Democrat Terry McAuliffe and the national news media had tried to portray as a Trump stand-in) going to do OK in these places?
When I parked at James Fenimore Cooper Middle School this morning, the closest cars were a Tesla Model S, a hybrid Porsche Cayenne, a Mercedes C 300, and a Porsche Panamera. Republican Bob McDonnell won this precinct by 14 percentage points in 2009, and Democrat Ralph Northam won by 16 points in 2017.
In 2015, Democrats took this wealthy district on their way to taking over the state legislature. Democrats won this congressional district in 2018 on their way to taking over Congress.
“For me, a lifelong Republican, honestly, it came down to Trump,” said one voter, who wouldn’t give his name for fear he would get in trouble at his union shop. “If he had participated more in this election,” the voter said, “you would have seen me go left.”
This voter, a “lifelong Republican who voted anyone but Trump,” pulled the lever for President Joe Biden in 2020, his first-ever vote for a Democrat, he said. He was cool with Youngkin, he told me, because Youngkin didn’t hug Trump. His wife, a lifelong Democrat, voted for McAuliffe (“I am a strong supporter of women’s rights.”).
“I wanted to vote against Terry,” said Jake, a lobbyist who opposed Trump. “Youngkin, I don’t know him, but he seemed like a reasonable guy.” Jake supported Marco Rubio in the 2016 primary.
“I just can’t do the Trump thing. It’s just not for me.” Jake said. “But Youngkin is not Trump. That’s who I wanted Trump to be, but he just isn’t — a nonpolitician.”
One McAuliffe voter I interviewed, when I asked why she voted that way, said one word. “Trump. Any vote against Trump is my vote. You can put that in your article,” she said.
She was a Democrat, but she claimed she “voted for Reagan.”
“More than anything else,” her husband Arthur Kales, said, “the overriding issue is Trump.”
This was always McAuliffe’s hope — that he could run a race that had nothing to do with his obeisance to teachers unions or his record in his first term or his love of corporate welfare or his own party’s hard tack to the left. He always hoped he could simply run on the fact that the opposing party had recently had a president who was a con-man, a liar, and a serial adulterer.
“I don’t think Youngkin is a Trumper,” Mary Cull, a former Trump administration appointee, told me. “In fact, I know he’s not.”
McAuliffe’s main campaign theme this fall was that a vote for Youngkin was a vote for Trump. Tuesday night’s results will tell us whether that simplistic argument was compelling.
