This year’s marquee ballot box showdown could very well take place in Virginia rather than Kentucky, Louisiana or Mississippi, the three states with high-profile off-year gubernatorial elections.
Virginia is holding pivotal contests for legislative control in November, and Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin hopes to boot Democrats from their last stronghold in Richmond, where Democrats hold a slim majority in the state Senate. If Youngkin is successful, the governor will be able to advance a conservative agenda in a state that has been trending blue for the past two decades.
If Republicans succeed, it could boost Youngkin — a rising star in the GOP — toward a potential run at the White House, perhaps next year. Just as important, the results in Virginia will be seen by the GOP as a bellwether ahead of next year’s presidential election, and the battles for control of the Senate and House.
“The most important election in the country, I believe, is Virginia this year,” Youngkin told Fox News Digital in a recent interview. “We are laser focused on holding our House, winning our Senate.”
YOUNGKIN DOESN’T RULE POTENTIAL 2024 PRESIDENTIAL RUN
If Republicans win Virginia, it would set up a remarkable electoral comeback.
When former President Barack Obama carried Virginia in the 2008 presidential election, it snapped a streak of 10 GOP victories in the Commonwealth in White House contests dating back to 1968. Democrats now enjoy a streak of winning streak, capped by President Biden’s 10-point loss to former President Donald Trump in Virginia in 2020.
Democrats also won six consecutive Senate elections in 2006.
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But Youngkin, who as a first-time candidate hails from the business wing of the GOP, has revitalized the Virginia GOP in his 2021 upset of former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe. Republicans also swept statewide contests for lieutenant governor and attorney general, and won back the state House of Delegates.
And Youngkin’s gubernatorial campaign, which made parents’ rights to their children’s education central to his bid, immediately served as a road map for Republicans going forward.
What happened in Virginia?
“In 2021, Glenn Youngkin touches on the core bread-and-butter issues that matter to people in their daily lives,” said Mark Rozell, dean of the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason. University, on Fox News. “The whole play on the education issue, with parental rights being absolutely key, has worked well in swing areas of the state — especially the suburbs and exurbs — that have been trending Democratic.”
The GOP’s victory in Virginia in 2021 was not replicated in last year’s midterms. What many expected to be a red wave in 2022 turned into a drop in races across the country, which certainly happened in the commonwealth.
HOW THIS IMPORTANT MIDWESTERN BATTLEGROUND MOVED INTO THE RED
In the battle for Congress, Republicans flipped their easiest House target in Virginia, but fell short of expectations as Democrats successfully defended two more contested congressional seats.
In anticipation of the November elections, Virginia Democrats are sounding the alarm that their national party isn’t doing enough to blunt Youngkin and his GOP allies, who are building up the dreaded chest. of war.
Should Republicans regain a majority in the state Senate and gain total control of Virginia’s government, Youngkin’s to-do list includes passing a controversial 15-week ban on abortions, with exceptions for rape, incest and saving the mother’s life.
WHAT’S BEHIND GEORGIA’S TRANSFORMATION FROM RELIABLE RED STATE TO TOP BATTLEGROUND?
Democrats have been focusing on the issue, which has helped them at the ballot box in elections across the country since last year’s blockbuster move by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority to overturn the decades-old landmark Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide.
“Only the Senate blue brick wall stopped us [in] the last two years since Virginia’s abortion ban. We cannot return the entire state government to the MAGA party,” Virginia Democratic Party chair Susan Swecker emphasized in a recent statement.
Rozell said that in last year’s midterms in Virginia, “the abortion issue, more than anything else, gave a lot of energy to the Democratic grassroots and brought out younger voters.”
Looking ahead to November, Rozell believes abortion is “the key issue for Democrats… there’s a lot of energy there. Much of that is due to the perception that what happened in some other states may be coming to Virginia.”
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Rozell said this year’s election in Virginia “could offer some important previews of the dynamics that will fuel 2024.”
“In a purple state with vast, reliably Republican rural districts, Democratic voting towns and close suburbs and vast areas that tend to be a moderate mix, nationalized issues like abortion, guns, LGBTQ+ concerns, race as well as public school curriculum and library censorship issues are of great importance,” he wrote in an upcoming column. “Those are already prominent issues in the 2024 congressional campaign in addition to the economy, national security and immigration.”
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more in our Fox News Digital election hub