On Wednesday, former Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe conceded the Virginia gubernatorial race to his Republican opponent Glenn Youngkin in a closely watched showdown with national implications as a bellwether for the 2022 midterm elections.
In a statement given by McAuliffe, he admitted that he “came up short” and offered “congratulations to Governor-Elect Glenn Youngkin on his victory.”
“I hope Virginians will join me in wishing the best to him and his family,” the former governor said.
I was hoping McAuliffe would contest the election results and ask for an audit so that I could immediately use the Democrats’ standard and call him an insurrectionist.
Youngkin narrowly defeated McAuliffe in a race that several news networks called late Tuesday night into Wednesday early morning. It was a real barn burner for sure.
“Alrighty Virginia, we won this thing,” Youngkin told supporters during his victory speech a little after 1 am ET on Wednesday.
The governor-elect told the crowd, “together, we will change the trajectory of this commonwealth.”
A first-time candidate, Youngkin ran a very good campaign, very disciplined and almost perfect. He focused on local and state issues, things like lowering taxes, fixing the crime problems in the state, supporting parents concerned about what their children are being taught. Youngkin campaigned heavily on making sure that Virginia public schools are held accountable to parents and not the other way around. He accepted Donald Trump’s endorsement and wisely did not ask the former president to campaign for him. I say wisely because though Trump was the greatest president of my lifetime, until yesterday, Virginia was a solid blue state with Democrats controlling practically everything. Had Trump gone into Virginia and campaigned, the Democrats would have made the Youngkin campaign entirely about him to move the focus off the fact that McAuliffe was pouring gasoline on the dumpster fire his campaign really was. Youngkin played it smart, and it paid off.
McAuliffe, on the other hand, for some unknown reason took the awful advice from one of his political consultants to make his campaign about national politics, invoking Donald Trump’s name a gazillion times, so much that a reporter asked him if he thought he was mentioning the former president too much. Unaware of the irony, McAuliffe answered, “No.”
McAuliffe only has himself to blame for his loss. A couple months ago, he had a single-digit lead over Youngkin in a state that Biden won by 10 points over Trump just a year ago. Youngkin capitalized on serious political stupidity by McAuliffe in the final weeks of the election.
The former governor caught a lot of heat from parents when during a debate he said that he doesn’t think parents should have any say for how their children are taught in public schools. He doubled down later by saying that parents should have no say about books that are held in school libraries. That got parents enraged as they were already fighting to stop public schools from teaching critical race theory (CRT) in the classrooms. McAuliffe stated that public schools in Virginia are not teaching CRT only to find out days later that CRT is listed on Virginia’s education website.
McAuliffe pulled several dirty tricks during the campaign. He lied by saying Youngkin wanted to ban books from schools, and he did so by playing the race card claiming Youngkin wanted to ban a popular book written by a prominent African American woman. Virginia voters saw right through the lie, because the truth was when McAuliffe was governor he vetoed a bill that would have alerted parents of controversial books being added to a school library. Youngkin said he supported such a bill because he believes parents have the right to protect their own children from radical books that Democrats always want to bring into public school libraries. McAuliffe made up the part about his opponent wanting to ban books, because Youngkin never said anything of the sort.
What I think was a big mistake was when McAuliffe brought in Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris. Those three fully support CRT and labeling parents who complain to school boards as domestic terrorists. They are against school choice, and they are government tyrants, so he didn’t do himself any favors by bringing them in to talk on his behalf.
The news outlets are all saying Youngkin beat McAuliffe by 2 points, but it’s really 12 points. As previously stated, just a year ago, Trump lost the state to Biden but 10 points. Youngkin made up that deficit and he went even two points further.
Youngkin let it be known that he supports the parents’ right to determine how and what their children are taught in public schools.
“We’re going to embrace our parents, not ignore them,” Youngkin said in his victory speech.
The governor-elect said that “a campaign that came from nowhere…turned into a movement.”
Hopefully Youngkin’s victory in a state where Republicans have not won a statewide race in a dozen years will increase Democratic anxieties as they try to defend their razor-thin House and Senate majorities in the 2022 midterm election season. They should be afraid. They suck as leaders.
McAuliffe, in his statement, said that “while last night we came up short, I am proud that we spent this campaign fighting for the values we so deeply believe in.” You mean like race-baiting, lying about your opponent, sending a man wearing a confederate flag on a brand new jacket into a Youngkin campaign rally only to stand right in front of news media cameras? You mean things like creating a Facebook page to push fake news stories onto websites that were made to look like legitimate news sites but were as fake as the news the campaign was peddling?
McAuliffe deserved to lose Tuesday’s race, and better yet, Glenn Youngkin deserved to win.
