IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Amber Athey reports for The Spectator on Governor Glenn Youngkin’s efforts to help Virginia Republicans hold the House and flip the Senate in the upcoming General Assembly elections.
Youngkin has been traveling throughout Virginia, sharing his commonsense agenda to empower parents and lower the cost of living, campaigning with quality candidates for the House and Senate, and promoting Secure Your Vote Virginia to ensure Republicans are competing in early and absentee voting.
Athey writes that the “Youngkin blueprint” could serve as a model for Republicans across the country for winning elections.
Click here to read the full story.
THE SPECTATOR: The Youngkin blueprint - Can Virginia be a model for Republicans nationwide?
By Amber Athey
It is late August, and he has just finished up one of his “Parents Matter” listening sessions, this one in Virginia Beach. Youngkin has been traveling the Commonwealth and hearing directly from parents to fulfill one of his biggest 2021 campaign promises: protecting the rights of parents from government overreach in matters concerning their children.
Parents groups mobilized during that election to great effect. Covid-related school closures and the intrusion of divisive gender and racial politics into the classroom made parents a crucial and energized part of the coalition that elected Youngkin.
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The “Parents Matter” events are more than just rallies for the governor. As Youngkin listens to attendees share their experiences with their children and the public education system, he has his head down as he takes vigorous notes. These chats will help inform his priorities for the next Virginia legislative session.
“They’ve been very consistent across the state where parents have been concerned about learning loss, and we heard today that there are some parents who feel very, very prepared to deal with learning loss and others who don’t,” Youngkin tells me after the event. “And so this is a place that we’re going to work very constructively across the aisle in order to address quickly the need to provide extra resources for students. I also see consistently this concern about the role of social media and behavioral health with regards to their children.”
The social media issue is one that Youngkin asserts is “not political” and one that he is “hugely frustrated” he has been unable to work productively on with Virginia Democrats.
“Our bill last year that was going to require parental permission to open a social media account for minors was blocked by Senate Democrats,” he said. “I think they should pass that. I do not believe that social media companies should be harvesting the data of our minors.”
That’s where Youngkin’s other big objective comes in: doing everything he can to help remove the roadblock to parts of his agenda created by the Democratic majority in the State Senate. The governor is working to keep control of the Virginia House of Delegates and take back the Senate in state elections this November. Republicans currently have a four-seat majority in the House of Delegates and are at a four-seat deficit in the Senate. If Youngkin is successful, it would be the first time in ten years that Republicans had the “trifecta” and could push through their legislative priorities unencumbered by partisan spats.
“I do believe that given the way that I think we’ve been performing as a state, we’ll have a real chance of winning these elections,” Youngkin said. “But I’ll still work across the aisle with folks, even if we have control of both the House and the Senate.”
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Youngkin enjoys an approval rating in the high fifties, has already accomplished a fair bit of his agenda, and some of the major issues he ran on in 2021 — education, the economy, and crime — remain hot-button topics in the Commonwealth. Virginians should know, Spirit of Virginia believes, that a vote for the GOP this fall is like a second vote for Youngkin and his agenda.
“Virginians are worried,” state delegate Chris Head argues. “They are worried about their children’s education. They are worried about historic inflation. They are worried about the weaponizing of justice against political adversaries. In 2021, Republicans swept Virginia because voters across our Commonwealth wanted a fresh start. They were, and continue to be, motivated by our positive message of prosperity and encouraged by our vision for a government that works for, of, and by the people.”
Jimmy Keady, the founder of JLK Political Strategies, a consulting firm that is working with many Virginia candidates, says that “by focusing on the economy, education, and public safety, our candidates are addressing the issues that matter most to Virginia voters, and it should pay dividends come November. We know this because of our work in previous election cycles where Republicans won tough races in Democrat-leaning districts on kitchen-table issues.”
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In June, Youngkin’s team celebrated the fact that all ten of the GOP candidates he endorsed in contested primaries won their races. This not only proved the governor’s cachet but showed that the party has a stable of high-quality candidates who can compete in toss-up districts.
One such candidate is Tara Durant, a mom, a former teacher, and Marine wife who emerged victorious in her primary in Virginia’s 27th Senate district, which includes southern Stafford County, Spotsylvania County, and Fredericksburg; it leans only slightly Democratic.
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Another promising candidate in a key Senate race is Lt. Cdr. (Ret.) Kevin Adams is a Navy veteran and small business owner who is married with nine children. Adams is running to represent the 22nd Senate district, which includes Virginia Beach and Norfolk.
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Virginia Republicans are also pushing their “Secure Your Vote” program, which is a model for early and absentee voting designed to rival the Democrats’ historic ability to get their voters out to the polls well before election day.
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“I don’t think I’ve ever seen as much effort, and honestly resources, being put into a serious effort to get early voting on the Republican side happening,” Ritter explained. “Youngkin is doing a lot of earned media around this and a lot of paid media around this, and I think it’ll be a blueprint. It really does, at the end of the day, produce more votes. I think we’re going to take the Democrats by surprise in that regard.”
Virginia GOP officials have definitely noticed that Democrats seem to be sleepwalking their way through the current election cycle. They don’t seem to know how to handle the fact that Youngkin won, is still popular and that voters still have many of the same priorities they did two years ago.
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Instead of deploying a new strategy or softening on the issues, the Democrats have doubled down. Senators Tim Kaine (who is up for election next year) and Mark Warner are seeking outside funding from the Biden political shop. In the primary season, Democrats kicked out some of their more moderate members, such as Fairfax-based Senator Chap Petersen, who sided with Youngkin on getting rid of the public-school mask mandate, in favor of progressives.
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Call it the Terry McAuliffe playbook. Some state legislators even borrowed from the former governor and failed 2021 gubernatorial candidate’s infamous debate reveal where he declared that “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” Democratic Virginia state senator Monty Mason and state delegate Shelly Simonds were caught on a hot mic in April ripping the parental rights movement. Mason referred to parental concerns over easily accessible online pornography as “garbage” and mused, “I mean, it’s just all a part of this parental crap that they’re selling.” Simonds offered, “This is why we have to keep the Senate… because the House is in the hands of the Republicans, and they can push through all kinds of stupid things. We rely on the Senate to kill it all.”
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Republicans acknowledged that this fall’s election really comes down to a few toss-up seats in both the House and the Senate and that it’s not going to be easy. But everyone seems consistent in their assessment that it’s Youngkin’s leadership that gives them a fair shot.
Adams remarked, “The governor is really trying to take the issues that they have and actually do something about it.”
When asked how the governor is supporting the party’s candidates, Adams said, “If I reach out to him, he will get back with me with answers. Or he’ll give me an opportunity to be able to share what’s going on. So I think he’s the right captain of this team.”
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More importantly, though, the Virginia strategy could prove to be a helpful election blueprint for the Republican Party across the nation.
