The Battle Begins
By the time you read this, the first skirmish in the 2022 election battle will be over, and we will all know who won the race for governor of Virginia. I suspect that winner will be Glenn Youngkin, a Republican businessman who has been crisscrossing the state in a bus covered with the signatures of supporters. He speaks in a direct but folksy manner and communicates well. Having begun his race far back, he now (according to polls) has a lead of around eight points over Hillary favorite Terry McAuliffe (a former governor of the state).
The major association of law enforceement has endorsed Youngkin. So has Donald Trump. As I write this, Democrats are sufficiently worried that they have members of their leadership and former leadership (including Barack Obama) making the rounds in Virginia speaking on the Democrat's behalf. At this moment (two days before the election) it doesn't seem, to be working. They are attempting to attack Youngkin by tying him to Trump (which may not be a particularly wise move when polls show Trump as being significantly more popular than Biden).
The turning point in this election was probably McAuliffe's statement in a televised debate that parents shouldn't have a say in the education of their children and that childhood education should be left to the school boards. That pronouncement was devastating and should be right up there in the pantheon of blunders with Hillary's declaration a few years ago that Donald Trump's supporters were “deplorables.”
Due to the pandemic, Virginia children attended class for the last year via the Internet. That gave parents a unique opportunity to see what they were being taught, and they were not pleased at what they found out. The co-educational bathroom controversy and rape of one of their daughters by some boy wearing a dress and cornering the girl in a bathroom (with the school board attempting to cover up the incident) was the last straw.
Youngkin describes his campaign as a “movement” and doesn't see the race as partisan. He seems to have attracted a good many Democrat supporters since education transcends politics. That's not to say, however, that he shys away from espousing Republican positions. He promises, for example, to abolish the tax on food his very first day in office and issue a tax refund to taxpayers. He also laments the small number of charter schools in Virginia and promises on day one to create 20 new charter schools as a down payment on additional future schools. He vows to cut taxes while raising salaries of policemen and teachers.
Virginia in recent years has been a solidly blue state, so if Youngkin wins, that will be seen as remarkable. Even a close loss would be considered a victory by most. Youngkin, himself, sees his race as the beginning of something much larger. He sees his state legislature as flipping and becoming strongly Republican. He sees his victory as defending the Bill of Rights in the United States Constitution. Furthermore, he sees his victory as a harbinger of success for Republicans throughout the country in the upcoming off-year election.
There is one other state with a gubernatorial race this week. That is New Jersey. New Jersey, however, contains a million more Democrat voters than Republicans. A Republican loss there, therefore, would not be viewed as particularly predictive (although Democrats would likely point to it as making up for a loss in Virginia). The race there has been complicated by Project Veritas recording some of the current Democrat governor's advisors as admitting that the governor is hiding his plans for a Covid-19 vaccination mandate until after the election so as not to lose votes. So much for transparency.
New Jersey is also “iffy" for another reason. That state is so deeply in debt that neither Republican nor Democrat can possibly save it from future insolvency. The big issue in New Jersey is the outrageous level of property taxes. A small bungalow has a yearly tax rate of $15,000 to $20,000, and the people are desperate for relief. That could at least partially make up for the large Democrat voter majority.
The current governors' races give a hint as to what to expect next year in the mid-term election. Another hint is provided by the campaign plans of those Republicans who opposed Trump in the aftermath of the presidential election. So far, two of them have announced they don't plan to run for re-election. In other words, they don't think they can win. Trump summarises their actions as follows: “Two down and eight to go.”
Haughey is Senior Advisor of the Texas Republican County Chairman’s Association.