MANASSAS, VA — “Do you remember when you had to get a permission slip from the principal — I mean, the governor — to be out?” Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears asked in her election eve rally.
“Remember?” She prodded the faithful, gathered in a 200-person venue in the exurbs of D.C., stirring their bad memories of the state’s 2020 lockdowns under former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat. “Who died and left him in charge like that? We cannot go back to that.”
WINSOME EARLE-SEARS CAMPAIGN AD STRESSES AMERICAN DREAM
The crowd responded with groans and boos for Northam and the lockdowns. But Northam isn’t on the ballot. He’s not even on the campaign trail for Democrats. He left office in disgrace after photos came out of him wearing either blackface or a KKK hood.
Earle-Sears’s personal attacks on Northam were only slightly more irrelevant to the 2025 elections than her substantive and policy-related points: The harms and abuses of power involved in the COVID lockdowns and school closures.
Northern Virginia schools closed for an entire year. The learning loss was large. The psychological harms to kids may prove permanent. The damage to the economy and community was significant. Likewise, the state and many Democrat-run municipalities issued draconian stay-at-home orders and mask mandates. The science behind their orders was faulty, their humility was nonexistent, and they never apologized for being wrong or for the harm they did.
Virginians were rightly angry about the lockdowns and school closures, and they held it against the Democrats in the 2021 elections. A deciding factor in the GOP sweep here four years ago — Glenn Youngkin for governor, Earle-Sears for L.G., and Jason Miyares for Attorney General — was school parents who were upset that Democrats closed their schools for a year and didn’t feel bad about it.
Youngkin was a speaker at the GOP rally on Monday night. He spoke about that election and the prior administration. It made sense, as one point among others, to warn voters about the misdeeds of the last Democratic administration. “Back in 2021 Virginia was a lost state,” Youngkin said.
After mentioning the improvements in crime and the economy, Youngkin said, “That day when we sat on the Capitol steps and we signed that bill, that bill that said parents can take the masks off your kids, that was a huge day.”
But again, this wasn’t the only COVID lockdown mention. The big three speakers, Miyares, Youngkin, and Earle-Sears, all attacked Democrats for the lockdowns, school closures, and masks.
In fact, Earle-Sears concluded her speech with her attack on Northam. “COVID didn’t close our schools, Ralph Northam did. COVID didn’t shut our businesses down, Ralph Northam did. COVID didn’t shut our houses of worship down. Ralph Northam did. It matters who the governor is. We don’t need a governor who’s a dictator.”
WHAT TO EXPECT IN TUESDAY’S ELECTIONS AS REELING DEMOCRATS PLOT COMEBACK
Again, Earle-Sears is right. But in 2025, campaigning against the misgovernance of 2020 and 2021 doesn’t seem like a winning strategy. Attacking a politician who has disappeared from the scene and has no connection to the current Democratic nominee hardly seems like a very relevant tack.
It sounds like Republicans, unable to find a winning message for 2025, are desperately returning to the last winning argument they had.