Youngkin has done everything right in Virginia
Salena Zito
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RICHMOND, Virginia — Drive throughout Virginia, and it becomes quickly apparent there are two very different messages coming from the major political parties about what this election cycle is about in this once-blue state flirting with becoming purple.
For Democrats, everything is about abortion. Everything. Spend any time here, and it seems as though every ad supporting Democrats claims Republicans will ban abortions if they gain the majority in the state Senate. Outside liberal groups are dumping millions of dollars of ads making that claim.
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For Republicans, the race is about layers of bread-and-butter issues that are less cultural and more focused on concerns that affect Virginian’s daily lives. However, through Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA), who has been exhaustively stumping for Republican candidates, they haven’t had to play defense on abortion in the way other Republican candidates have found themselves doing in races across the country.
Youngkin has been consistent in his stump speeches and in the ad his PAC put out at the onset of the cycle in saying unequivocally, “Here is the truth, there is no ban. Virginia Republicans support a reasonable 15-week limit.”
And he reinforced that message on the ABC Sunday morning show, saying this was a moment for Virginia lawmakers to come together around reasonable limits, such as protecting life at 15 weeks when a baby feels pain, with full exceptions in the case of rape and incest and when the mother’s life is at risk.
“All the way up through birth is way too extreme,” Youngkin said. “This is a place we can come together and settle on a very difficult topic, and I think we can lead here as opposed to fight. What’s on the ballot, I think, is a choice between no limits and reasonable limits, and I think this is one where Virginians come together around reasonableness.”
And while Youngkin would prefer to talk about public safety, education, and the effects of inflation on voters, it has nothing to do with being uncomfortable talking about drawing the line at 15 weeks and everything to do with what is on voters’ minds heading into Tuesday’s off-year elections.
“Our focus remains on the kitchen table — cost of living, public safety, and empowering parents and education,” he said, adding it is particularly worrisome to consider what type of curriculum young people have been consuming for the past generation that has led to the antisemitic protests at some of the country’s most elite universities.
“To see what’s unfolding in our country and on our college campuses is deeply concerning,” he said, “There is no fence to sit on. What happened in Israel on Oct. 7 was a barbaric terrorist act where babies were slaughtered, women and children defiled.”
Youngkin said we have work to do to repair the fabric of our country because there can be no room for hate and intolerance, nor antisemitism and violence: “It’s why I issued an executive directive to make certain people of all faiths feel safe in Virginia, and I mean all faiths.”
Youngkin has set out to hold the state house and flip the Senate, a message he has said repeatedly as he campaigned in the closing days of the election for three candidates in the suburbs of Richmond. They are all seats that on paper should favor Democrats, but if the Republicans win them, it would give the GOP a majority in Virginia’s General Assembly.
All the seats in Virginia’s two legislative chambers are on the line this cycle. It is the suburbs, however, where Youngkin made headway two years ago in his historic upset win for governor, that the majority in the Senate will be decided.
Who to watch
At the top of the list to watch for Tuesday night, and likely the majority maker, will be the battle fought in Loudoun and Fauquier counties between Russet Perry, the Democrat, and Juan Pablo Segura, the Republican, for Senate District 31. Youngkin won the district by just a hundred votes in 2021 after President Joe Biden had won it by double digits a year earlier.
The baseline of this race isn’t really Biden’s vote total; it is a combination of Youngkin and the 2022 congressional races. So what does that mean? The Democrats are betting on a large turnout to win this seat, but many Youngkin voters didn’t vote in 2022, and in reaction to that, Youngkin launched an initiative, Secure Your Vote, to capture Virginia’s early vote effort.
If Secure Your Vote is effective, you will see the effects in this district.
Youngkin told the Washington Examiner earlier this summer, “Republicans have got to stop sitting on the sidelines when it comes to early voting. If we want to win, we have to erase that disadvantage that Democrats hold over us on that.”
Next up is in Prince William County with Bill Woolf, an impressive former law enforcement and child sex-trafficking expert who has worked for Republicans and Democrats in the federal administration and was a detective in Prince William for years. Woolf is bilingual and has six children. He is running for a seat that Youngkin lost by a couple of points but has some historic Republican roots that, if the Republicans get good turnout, can surprise there.
His superpower is competing aggressively in the Hispanic areas of Manassas and Manassas Park.
The third would be Siobhan Dunnavant in Henrico County in a battle between two incumbents forced together by redistricting. These are the old stomping grounds of onetime U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, but it’s a region that has obviously shifted dramatically away from Republicans. Yet Dunnavant is a superior candidate akin to U.S. Senate centrists Susan Collins (R-ME), Joe Manchin (D-WV), and Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ). In short, she’s going to get a lot of crossover support. Voter history in the district does not favor Dunnavant, but she has a fighting chance.
Every single one of these seats is almost all on Democratic terrain, yet the enthusiasm is clearly on the Republican side; all three are good candidates, all are well-funded, and all have been running strong campaigns.
The other three Senate races to keep an eye on are Emily Brewer over by William and Mary, York Sheriff Danny Diggs’s race challenging Democratic state Sen. Monty Mason for a newly drawn district in York and Poquoson counties, and Tara Durant for District 27 around the city of Fredericksburg. Youngkin won all three, but Republican congressional candidates lost all three areas in close elections.
If Youngkin’s approach on kitchen table issue messaging, the candidate quality, and the aggressive mail-in voting effort is effective, it will be key to what gets Republicans over the finish line in a state Biden won by 10 points.
What many outsiders have missed is the aspirational quality that Youngkin brings to this race for the majority. They also miss how well he connects with voters on the stump and how many appreciate that he has leaned in on basic issues of education, inflation, and safety rather than the culture wars.
This is a race that is super close and in truth could go either way. The larger story, though, is that in this strongly Democratic-leaning state (at the presidential level), Youngkin has shown that Republicans need to take more risks in reaching out to nontraditional voters with what he calls “common sense policies” in order to become a party that independents and Democrats might be willing to consider.
In short, Youngkin is following the old Frederick Wilcox philosophy in business: “Progress always involves risks. You cannot steal second base and keep our foot on first.”