Youngkin calls for GOP to ‘deliver results’ in order to win future elections
Heather Hunter
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In a sit-down interview with Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum on Thursday, Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) addressed the hard-fought races that he campaigned for in the midterm elections and stressed that, ultimately, Republicans must deliver on their campaign promises.
“I think the big message for Republican candidates is to deliver results, ” he said on The Story. “Voters enjoy a speech, but they are going to vote based on who they think is going to deliver for them. And that’s what we’re doing in Virginia.”
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The governor pushed for “results” in his state’s Senate and General Assembly money committees by unveiling his proposed amendments to the two-year state budget to provide $1 billion in tax relief to Virginians.
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Youngkin also expressed disappointment in his party’s election results in the 2022 midterm elections. He had actively campaigned for Prince William County’s Yesli Vega, who lost to incumbent Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), and for retired Navy Capt. Hung Cao, who tried to unseat Rep. Jennifer Wexton in Virginia’s 10th Congressional District, previously a Republican district before 2018.
Despite the heavy losses, he celebrated incoming Rep. Jen Kiggans’s (R-VA) upset win over Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) in Virginia Beach.
“We picked hard races, races where the states were set up a bit like Virginia, where Joe Biden had won by 10 points, and we went to work to try to flip those states,” he said in the interview, defending his campaign record. “It’s hard to unseat an incumbent.”
Just five out of the 15 gubernatorial candidates he campaigned with in the midterm elections won. Youngkin also emphasized that it was time for the GOP to “look forward, not backwards.”
MacCallum inquired whether that meant the party must move on from former President Donald Trump.
“I think we cannot ignore the fact that he has great influence in the Republican Party. I do believe that there are lots of other folks that do, as well. And I think part of the process over the next couple of years is to sort through that. My job today is to deliver for Virginians,” the Virginia Republican said.
The Fox host pressed the former business executive about his own presidential aspirations.
“Right now, the possibility of me focusing on Virginia and delivering as a governor is 100%,” he told MacCallum. “That’s where my attention is. And I think that’s what Virginians expect from me. They elected me to lead change. They elected me to lead Virginia forward. And that’s what we’re doing.”
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Youngkin added he is very humbled by suggestions that he could be a possibility in the 2024 race.
“Two years ago, I was a private citizen who had just left my dream job,” he said. “Forty years ago, I was washing dishes and taking out trash as a kid who needed a job. And to even have my name surfaced is so humbling.”
When MacCallum pressed him again, the governor insisted to MacCallum that leading the Old Dominion was his top priority. “I don’t have to make a decision.”