Virginia's New Governor Glenn Youngkin to 'Restore Excellence' in Schools

Republican Glenn Youngkin defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia’s closely watched governor’s race, dealing a blow to President Joe Biden and Democrats’ hopes to keep control of Congress in next year’s elections.

With all but a few precincts reporting, Youngkin led McAuliffe with 51% to McAuliffe’s 48.3%, according to The Associated Press. The results highlighted a stunning collapse by McAuliffe, a former governor and Democratic party chairman who led in the polls throughout the summer in a state that Biden won by 10 percentage points over former President Donald Trump just last year.

In his remarks to cheering supporters, Youngkin said he plans to cut taxes, invest in education and law enforcement -- with no mention of Trump.

"We are going to restore excellence in our schools," said Youngkin. "We are going to embrace our parents, not ignore them."

Democrats’ woes extended beyond Virginia to New Jersey, where Republican Jack Ciattarelli held a thin lead over widely favored incumbent Democratic Governor Phil Murphy, according to AP.

“This is our Virginia to build together and we are going to go to work on day one,” Youngkin said. “There are always those, those that say that hill is too steep to climb but we are empowered.”

McAuliffe’s summertime lead evaporated along with Biden’s approval ratings as the president struggled to pass a tax-and-spending plan, oversaw a messy U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and took blame for supply-chain disruptions, fanning inflation. He failed to benefit from appearances late in the campaign by a flood of prominent Democrats, including Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

While McAuliffe tried to tie Youngkin to Trump in order to energize Democratic turnout, it was his own party leader’s unpopularity that weighed on his campaign. McAuliffe campaigned alongside Biden a week before the election, just three weeks after characterizing the president and his party as a headwind.

The race drew national attention as both sides sought clues about next year’s elections when control of Congress is on the line. History is already against Democrats, as the party that controls the White House typically loses seats in midterm elections.

Youngkin sought to harness the energy of Trump supporters by raising concerns over “election integrity” and waiting until he had secured the nomination to agree that Biden had won the 2020 election. Youngkin’s campaign sold red baseball caps that mimicked Trump’s signature ones, while the candidate said that Trump “represents so much of why I’m running.”

Yet Youngkin’s appeal to suburban independents could be a preview of Republican campaigns up and down the ballot next year, as the party uses cultural issues as a way to excite voters even when the former president is not on the ballot.

Democrats control the House by just five seats, and the 50-50 Senate only with Harris’s tie-breaking vote.

Virginia’s gubernatorial election is often watched as a referendum on a president’s first year, since it’s one of the few significant offices up for grabs the year after presidential elections.

But Virginia also tends to punish the party in the White House. In the last 12 Virginia gubernatorial elections, the president’s party has won only once -- by McAulliffe in 2013.

Youngkin, who began his fleece-vested campaign on a bread-and-butter platform of economic issues, lagged in the polls for most of the campaign. But the tenor, and momentum, of the race changed when McAuliffe said in a September debate that he didn’t think “parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

The Republican seized on the moment, running ads centered on McAuliffe’s veto of a bill to give parents the ability to opt their children out of reading books with sexually explicit material. But the issue also resonated with parents upset about mask mandates, how race and racism are taught in schools and a Northern Virginia school system’s alleged coverup of sexual assault.

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