Glenn Youngkin: Virginia victory hands Republicans ‘road map’ for retaking White House

Republican Glenn Youngkin has been elected as the next governor of Virginia in a victory widely viewed as a national bellwether for next year’s midterms.

The “shock win” has left Joe Biden’s presidency “in crisis”, said The Telegraph. The vote was seen an early “referendum” on the president, who is suffering a slump in the polls following the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan and a string of mounting domestic crises.

Political pundits say Youngkin’s victory hands the Republican a potential “road map” for reclaiming the White House in the 2024 presidential campaign. The newly elected governor had “to overcome Trumpism more than he had to rely on it” during his campaign, said Politico, but “his two-track strategy worked”.

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‘Defining moment’

After clinching his win over Democrat Terry McAuliffe, who was governor of the southeastern state from 2014 to 2018, Youngkin told a crowd of supporters that he would “work in real people time, not government time”.

Pledging to throw himself straight into delivering key campaign pledges, he added that the GOP success – the party’s first statewide victory in Virginia since 2019 – was a “defining moment” for the Republicans.

The millionaire politician, a former CEO of private equity firm The Carlyle Group, “focused during the bitterly fought election on crime and the economy, as well as how schools handle race, gender and mask mandates”, the BBC said.

His opponent “campaigned on other cultural issues, such as abortion rights and voting reform”, the broadcaster added, and attacked Youngkin in an election debate for promising parents more say over what schools “should teach”.

In last year’s presidential election, Biden won Virginia by ten percentage points, claiming more than 2.4m votes to Donald Trump’s 1.9m. But the unexpectedly tight governor race has highlighted the challenges now facing the president to retain public support.

In New Jersey, Democratic Governor Phil Murphy this week “narrowly won re-election in a state the president won by 15 points on his way to the White House”, reported Sky News. The governor races “are the first major tests of voter sentiment” since Biden took office, added the broadcaster – and the Democrats have cause for concern.

Biden told reporters on Tuesday that the election in Virginia was “unpredictable”. But the loss has triggered a “Democratic freakout”, according to Politico.

Before leaving the US last week to attend the Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow, Biden told Democrats in the House of Representatives that it was not “hyperbole” to say the governor elections would determine the “the house and senate majorities and my presidency”.

The US leader was warning that losing majorities in the lower and upper house in next year’s midterm elections would mean further “inaction” on his key election pledges, explained the news site. And after the defeat in Virginia, “Biden may have been prescient”.

Shadow campaign

Youngkin’s victory is being credited to the Republican candidate’s ability to “​​not to make everything about Trump”, said The Washington Post.

Keen to tether his opponent to the former president, McAuliffe “pushed the issue”. But voter research suggests “it didn’t work”, with exit polls showing “a majority of voters viewed Youngkin favourably, compared to 42% who said the same for Trump”.

Notably, “Youngkin was also winning 17% of voters who viewed Trump unfavourably, which is a big number”, the paper added.

Biden “embraced the race as a referendum on his presidency and campaigned in the state”, said Politico, while “Trump, to his great annoyance, was persuaded to stay away”. Keeping the ex-president at arm’s length allowed Youngkin to run “a campaign that was a throwback to pre-Trump Republicanism”, the site added.

Accusations of vote rigging in the 2020 election were replaced by “racial appeals to working-class white voters, combined with technocratic conservatism focused on education, low taxes and government efficiency via TV ads and rallies”.

“The GOP’s ability to distance itself from Trump in the coming years – as well as “Democrats’ ability or inability to tie Republicans to him –matters in upcoming elections, especially with Trump out of office,” The Washington Post said.

Youngkin’s win has provided the party with a “road map” for how to run an election campaign “when Trump isn’t front-of-mind for most people”.

Deliberately or not, Trump nodded to this in his post-election statement, when he attacked McAuliffe. “All he did was talk Trump, Trump, Trump and he lost,” said the former leader.

What remains to be seen is “whether Trump will stay so out-of-mind ahead of the 2024 election”, the paper added, and whether the GOP “can actually put forward candidates” who, like Youngkin, “can effectively craft their own brand”.