Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Democrats face tight race in Virginia
Without Trump as motivator, party struggling to gain gubernatorial voters
RICHMOND, Va. — Democrats in Virginia are scrambling to stave off disaster in the state’s gubernatorial race — the most competitive major election since Donald Trump left the White House.
The surprisingly tight contest has exposed the depth of the party’s dependence on Trump as a message and motivator. Without him being top of mind for many, and with head winds from Washington, Democratic officials have privately expressed fear that on Tuesday they may lose their first statewide election in Virginia in more than a decade.
Public polling has been shifting in Republican newcomer Glenn Youngkin’s direction in recent weeks, while Democrat Terry McAuliffe, a former governor and close ally of President Joe Biden, has struggled to energize his base as Biden’s approval ratings sink. Republicans, consumed by infighting while Trump was in office, are suddenly optimistic that they can win in a state Trump lost by 10 percentage points last year.
“Virginia is a very blue state — I do not consider Virginia a purple state — so the fact that we’re this competitive speaks volumes about the state of our country and the popularity of Biden,” said Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.
A loss in the Virginia governor’s race, long considered a bellwether for midterm elections, would trigger panic among Democrats far beyond Virginia. The party is already wary about its chances in elections that will decide control of the House, the Senate and statehouses next year.
Jaime Harrison, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, acknowledged that a McAuliffe loss would be a “doomsday” scenario. But he argued that Virginia Democrats would show up and pull off a win for McAuliffe.
“I’m not running around with my hair on fire, not at this point,” Harrison said.
Regardless of the outcome, the race will be picked over for clues about what resonated with voters — and what didn’t.
The politics surrounding Trump, who left office more than nine months ago, remain complicated. McAuliffe’s team believes that Trump remains very unpopular among the Democratic base, independents and even some moderate Republicans in Virginia.
As such, he should be a good motivator for McAuliffe’s coalition. But the former president’s absence from the spotlight, combined with voter fatigue and the lingering pandemic, seems to have diluted anti-Trump passions — at least for now.
Still, McAuliffe spent the vast majority of his record fundraising haul in warning voters that his opponent, who was endorsed by Trump but kept his distance from him, is a “Trump wannabe.” McAuliffe’s closing TV ads featured footage from the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection led by Trump supporters who believed the former president’s claims about a “stolen election.”
Youngkin created the opening for those attacks when he made “election integrity” the centerpiece of his run during the nomination contest and when he declined, until after he locked up the nomination, to say Biden was legitimately elected.
But McAuliffe’s attacks against his opponent may have undermined the Democrat’s relatively weak favorability ratings. He has earned the support of less than 50% of the electorate in all but a handful of public polls this year.
Meanwhile, Youngkin has not played the part of an angry Trump loyalist.
A former private equity executive who often dodges questions on thorny policy issues, Youngkin devoted more than $20 million of his personal fortune to a monthslong advertising campaign defining himself as an affable, suburban dad. He has not campaigned with Trump or any high-profile Republicans, and he told reporters that he would not be involved with a Trump telerally set for Monday.
To connect with the party’s base, Youngkin seized on conservatives’ frustrations with schools over pandemic policies and race and diversity education.
He’s benefited from a network of parent groups, some led by political professionals with ties to the GOP and Trump administration, activated in key suburbs. He ran an ad featuring a mother and GOP activist who eight years ago led an effort to ban “Beloved,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Black Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, from classrooms.
McAuliffe calls it a “racist dog whistle,” an allegation Youngkin denied.
Youngkin’s team points to Biden’s slipping popularity, which has fallen close to Trump’s levels at this point in his presidency. Last week, Democrats dropped a popular paid family leave proposal, disappointing many Democratic women in Virginia, a critical constituency.
Aside from being disappointed, Democrats in Virginia say they’re exhausted.
“We’ve had four years of being on high alert, coming out of covid, coming out of a lockdown. I think people were just living their lives and didn’t want to think about an election,” said state Sen. Jennifer McClellan, who ran against McAuliffe for the Democratic nomination.
A Republican presidential candidate hasn’t carried the state since 2004. Census data shows the state’s Democratic-leaning northern part of the state growing, while GOP strongholds lose population.
The trends, combined with a Democratic shift among suburban Republicans during the Trump era, suggest that Democrats can win easily on Tuesday if they turn out their supporters. But the early voting period, which ended Saturday, did not attract the surge in voters in key areas that Democrats hoped for.