“Trump has now endorsed him for the tenth time today,” McAuliffe said after the former President issued a new statement backing his opponent on Monday. “What does that tell you? The little MAGA people, not as excited as you thought.” McAuliffe even went as far as to claim Monday night that Youngkin was “doing an event” with the former President, although a Youngkin aide confirmed to CNN that the Republican candidate did not call into a tele-rally held by Trump on Monday evening.
It can be dangerous to extrapolate too much about the nation’s political destiny from a single race. And what happens on Tuesday will not define critical congressional elections in 2022 or the 2024 presidential duel.
But Virginia and New Jersey are often seen as referendums on a new White House since they vote a year after the presidential election. They offer the first real health check on Biden’s first year in office, after he’s endured a brutal summer and has struggled to enact his massive social spending and infrastructure plans. A McAulliffe loss would be billed as a disaster for Democrats and a sign voters have already turned against them. And even a narrow victory in a state Biden won easily in 2020 would likely still be seen as a warning sign for Democrats and suggest their political position has seriously eroded after a year controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress.
Unusually, the previous presidency — with its racial overtimes and violent end — has also loomed over this Virginia campaign, testimony to Trump’s still hugely divisive role in US politics. Bitter cultural and ideological clashes have rocked this campaign and are already beginning to shape the midterm races. Youngkin has leaned into a fierce backlash from conservatives to the push by progressives for transgender equality and an accounting of America’s past racial sins in the teaching of history in schools.
And Virginia — with its wealthy, diverse suburbs and rural, conservative tracts, plus strongholds of African American voters around the state capital of Richmond and toward the coast — offers a demographic profile of America in miniature.
Now could be the time for the GOP
Until then-Sen. Barack Obama won Virginia on the way to the White House in 2008, Virginia was considered a solid, conservative, southern state for presidential votes even while electing some Democrats statewide. But it has gone blue in the last four presidential elections, which is one reason why McAuliffe’s struggles this year — after a successful term between 2014 and 2018 — are surprising. (Virginia does not allow governors to serve consecutive terms).
The national cultural fights over masks and vaccine mandates electrified the gubernatorial race, while Youngkin tapped into existing frustration with remote schooling for months during Covid-19 to get a hearing for his more partisan messages on the rights of parents to decide how their children are taught about America’s racial history. He also referred to several alleged assaults in schools in the city’s pro-Democrat Loudoun County that triggered controversy over the rights of transgender students.
McAuliffe had left the door wide open with an ill-advised comment in a debate earlier this year, when he said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” Youngkin took the comment out of context, but in retrospect, that was the moment when his campaign really gained traction as he chased down his rival’s polling lead in October and made the race a dead heat by Election Day.
Trump looms over the race
For all McAuliffe’s claims that a victory for his foe would open the door to another Trump presidential campaign, the Republican former investment banker has done a skillful job of not being Trump. Framing his campaign on local issues, despite its national implications, and vowing to raise spending on education and nix the grocery tax, Youngkin has tried to appeal to suburban Virginians while sending coded messages to Trump voters that he needs to turn out in big numbers.
Youngkin has not campaigned with Trump — whose low ratings in suburbs nationwide helped doom his party in the US House in 2018 and the Senate and White House in 2020. But the former President’s statement backing Youngkin on Monday looked like an attempt to try to claim credit for his victory should he win.
The towering, mild-mannered Youngkin comes across as a poor model for McAuliffe’s Trump-fueled attack — a problem that Obama, one of the Democratic heavyweights imported to boost McAuliffe’s campaign, took on during a rally last month. “You can’t run ads telling me you are a regular old hoops-playing, dish-washing, fleece-wearing guy, but quietly cultivate support from those who seek to tear down our democracy,” Obama said.
Youngkin does not have to win suburbs in Arlington, Fairfax and Loudoun counties on Tuesday. He just has to do well enough, especially with independents, to limit McAuliffe’s edge while driving out Trump’s base voters downstate.
If he wins, Youngkin will validate a possible template for future Republican candidates who want to broaden their appeal but also need to avoid alienating Trump’s base. He has already demonstrated the potency of running a campaign focused on parents frustrated with public schools. And given the size of the task he faced, a Youngkin victory would crown a new star of the GOP — especially for those conservatives who envision a post-Trump future.
A Youngkin victory would raise questions among Democrats about whether tying GOP candidates to the extremism and anti-democratic incitement of the ex-President is a viable strategy for 2022. And yet Trump — who appears to be using the midterms as a springboard for his own possible 2024 campaign and is backing candidates who promote his lie that the last election was stolen from him — is likely to be a ubiquitous and explosive presence next year who will be difficult for any downballot candidate to escape.
But anything less than a clear victory for McAuliffe would posit that Democratic House seats in Virginia could be in grave danger next year if there is a similar turnout. Given House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s narrow majority, there would be panic among scores of Democrats about a possible GOP rout next year, which could possibly precipitate a wave of retirements from incumbents in threatened seats.
A close race or a small McAuliffe victory will also be closely watched for new signs that Trump and his acolytes will seek to fuel their lies about a broken election system and allege voter fraud. Such claims would further damage faith in US democracy — already gutted among Trump supporters. But it would fuel the ex-President’s personal political goals.