On Glenn Youngkin

I’m writing this a week before the election because Republicans tend to vilify and then forget their gubernatorial nominees in Virginia the moment they lose. While the winds are at Glenn Youngkin’s back in Virginia, the odds still favor Terry McAuliffe because of the demographic shifts in that state. Youngkin can win. He might just pull it off. If he does, it will probably be a 30,000 to 50,000 vote win. The odds, however, do favor McAuliffe. If McAuliffe loses, he will, like Abrams, undoubtedly refuse to concede.

Early on, I was critical of Youngkin’s lack of an issues-based campaign. He made it all personality and pablum. I was not alone. But those of us who had that concern have been proven wrong. His campaign is something Republicans need to study headed into 2022 as Democrats attempt to make everyone the second coming of Donald Trump.

Youngkin spent his early days defining himself and his personality. As McAuliffe tried to define Youngkin as a Trump clone, Youngkin spent his time, talent, and treasure making sure voters saw him as his own man. Then he seized on education as a key issue and made it about the needs of Virginians. He was able to contrast himself with McAuliffe’s failures. Notably, by then, McAuliffe had spent so much energy trying to define Youngkin, he never defined himself.

McAuliffe has presumed voters would just put him back in office and that they knew him. But McAuliffe seems to have ignored that when last he ran against Ken Cuccinelli, Cuccinelli would have won that race but for a well-funded third-party challenger. McAuliffe was never that popular.

McAuliffe and the Democrats also have lived in a bubble wherein they could tell themselves the issues voters care about aren’t really issues voters care about. Education is a big cross-party issue. Democrats and the media have together decided no real parents care about it — only conservatives. They have ignored the people showing up at school board rallies except to vilify them. Democrats have, for so long, led Republicans on the issue of education, they could not fathom they’d lost credibility with parents.

On top of that, McAuliffe has been tone deaf on race. The current governor dressed as either a Klansman or in black face. McAuliffe called for Ralph Northam to resign only to now campaign with him and embrace it. It all looks cynical. It looks like, yet again, Democrats are taking black voters for granted while doing nothing to get those same black voters’ kids a good education.

It has been too late for McAuliffe to pivot. He tried to tie Youngkin to Trump. Youngkin never took the bait and has been fantastically diplomatic on the issue of Trump. He has neither embraced Trump nor alienated Trump and his supporters. It frustrated Democrats so much they even hired a plane to circle Mara Lago to taunt Trump in an effort to sow divisions. That too hasn’t worked.

Republicans have unfavorable odds in Virginia and still manage to find themselves headed into the last week of the election with the wind at their backs. Events can change things, but Youngkin’s campaign team has done a great job. We should acknowledge this a week before the election because if things don’t work out, there’ll be revision and recrimination. So pay attention now to what has worked.