Glenn Youngkin’s victory in Virginia’s election, on Tuesday (2), sparked a warning for Democrats: the tactic of attracting voters on the grounds that a return to trumpism was possible did not work. And the Republican campaign’s focus on so-called culture wars, Donald Trump’s frequent tactic, was able to mobilize supporters even without the former president’s name on the ballot.
Youngkin, 54, won by a narrow margin. With an estimated 99 percent of the votes counted, he scored 50.9 percent, against Democrat Terry McAuliffe’s 48.4 percent — a difference around 80,000 voters in a state of 8.5 million people.
The Republican has had impressive results in areas of Democratic rule in recent years, such as Virginia Beach, one of the largest cities in the state. And even where he didn’t win, as in the Washington suburbs, he increased the party’s voting margin compared to previous elections.
The result shows that the mobilizing effect of addressing cultural aspects of society —in the case of Virginia, the defense of children against supposed indoctrinations in the school environment— remains effective in elections.
In a campaign that began with the Democrat at the head of the polls, education became the turning point for the Republican turn. Youngkin heavily exploited, in the final stretch of the campaign, a phrase by his Democratic rival said in an October debate: “I don’t think parents should tell schools what they should teach.”
In response, the Republican sought to encourage the feeling that children are at risk. “I get messages and calls from parents across the country saying, ‘Glenn, stand up for our kids, they can’t wait any longer.’ unacceptable,” he said at a rally.
The candidate went on to emphasize that he would broaden parental involvement in defining the school curriculum and promised to ban the teaching of critical theory of race to early-level students — even if that topic is not part of the state curriculum. A commercial for the campaign showed a mother’s anger when she discovered that her son, a high school student, would have to read a book about slavery that includes explicit accounts of sex as a school activity.
“There was a stark contrast between the two candidates on many issues, but perhaps none more important than education,” says Tommy Binion, vice president of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. “At a time when the left wants to give more control to government bureaucrats, conservatives have made a winning argument that parents should be in charge of their children’s education.”
In the campaign, the Republican also emphasized that he intended to improve the fight against crime, generate jobs and lower the price of everyday products — such as market items and fuel — by reducing state taxes. The shrinking of the state is one of the banners of the party and Trump.
The Biden government has defended the opposite stance: increasing public spending to stimulate the economy and advance in the fight against climate change. Two packages, each with more than $1 trillion in new spending, are up for debate in Congress but stalled for months because of internal divisions among Democrats.
The delay in processing reduces the chances of Biden’s party having practical results to present in the “midterms”, midterm legislative elections scheduled for November 2022. With this, the tight majorities in the Chamber and in the Senate, which would make the second half of the president’s term difficult.
The election in Virginia is part of this context for having functioned, on recent occasions, as a kind of political thermometer for the country. That is why the president went to campaign for McAuliffe — in acts in which he dedicated himself more to attacking Trump than to praising the results of his administration.
Biden has 53 percent disapproval in the state, according to a poll last week by The Washington Post, and its rejection rate in the country has been rising since mid-year after the chaotic withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan in August and a high of Covid cases. In the 2020 election, the Democrat beat Trump in Virginia by a ten-point lead.
After confirming Youngkin’s victory, the president stated that the people are “upset and insecure about many things” and promised to move forward with his agenda in the legislature.
“The Democrats’ delay in sorting things out at the national level has probably affected the party voters’ interest in going to vote,” says Alex Keena, professor of political science at VCU (Virginia Commonwealth University). “It’s like when a football team is losing: in a bad season, fans lose interest. McAuliffe didn’t run an exciting campaign, and he tried all the time to connect Youngkin with Trump.”
The Republican, despite having explored a strategy of Trump, being endorsed by him and having mobilized supporters of the former president, tried not to mention him in the campaign. The Republican leader only participated, by telephone, in an event led by his former strategist Steve Bannon — which the candidate himself did not attend.
“Youngkin did something very difficult, which was to attract voters from the countryside and mountain regions who really like Trump, but also Republicans who don’t like the ex-president and live in the suburbs,” says Keena.
The candidate also highlighted his religious side, which gave him extra credence with the conservative public. And it took a stand against actions to combat the pandemic, such as the requirement of employee vaccination by companies and the closing of schools during outbreaks in Covid.
On the Democratic side, there was greater emphasis on defending civil rights, such as abortion and same-sex marriage, banners that conservatives dislike. McAuliffe also promised to improve the quality of schools and create jobs, but his campaign addressed this less emphatically.
If the tactic of playing on the fear of the return of trumpism (which had a positive effect in September in traditionally Democratic California) failed, the bet on a traditional political name, but with little public appeal —which had worked with Biden in 2020— , also shipwrecked. McAuliffe has a decades-long career and had previously ruled the state, while Youngkin was in his first election and sought to embody the profile of novelty in politics.
The new governor made a career at the investment company Carlyle, where he stayed for 25 years and amassed a fortune estimated by Forbes at US$ 440 million. He ran for office shortly after he retired and said in the campaign that he was not a politician, but a citizen willing to fight the state bureaucracy that hampered people’s development, while his rivals would only be looking out for their own interests.
Keena, from VCU, believes that Democrats, from now on, have an opportunity to review the profile of candidates and seek figures closer to the population. “They should have picked someone who wasn’t a white man, but one of the very qualified black women who ran in the primaries. But it’s hard to know how they’re going to act in the future. Some lessons are hard to learn.”
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