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      How did Republicans turn critical race theory into a winning electoral issue?

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      US politicsHow did Republicans turn critical race theory into a winning electoral issue?Glenn Youngkin won the race to be Virginia’s governor having exploited concerns over teaching about race in schools David Smith in Washington@smithinamericaWed 3 Nov 2021 14.28 EDTLast modified on Wed 3 Nov 2021 15.34 EDTWhat is critical race theory?Developed by the former Harvard Law professor Derrick Bell and other scholars in the 1970s and 80s, critical race theory, or CRT, examines the ways in which racism was embedded into American law and other modern institutions, maintaining the dominance of white people.CRT argues that racism is not a matter of individual bigotry but a systemic issue that creates an uneven playing field for people of colour.Body blow for Biden as voters in Virginia and New Jersey desert DemocratsRead moreKimberlé Williams Crenshaw, a law professor widely credited with coining the term, told the New York Times: “It is a way of seeing, attending to, accounting for, tracing and analyzing the ways that race is produced, the ways that racial inequality is facilitated, and the ways that our history has created these inequalities that now can be almost effortlessly reproduced unless we attend to the existence of these inequalities.”A year or so ago few people had heard of it, yet Republicans have whipped up a moral panic that CRT is being rammed down the throats of schoolchildren. They caricature it as teaching Black children to internalise victimhood and white children to self-identify as oppressors.Is it taught in schools?No, it is not a part of the secondary school curriculum. The National School Boards Association and other education leaders are adamant that CRT is not being taught in K-12 schools, which teach students from five to 18 years old.But Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and other rightwing media have turned it into a catch-all buzzword for any teaching in schools about race and American history. They loosely apply it to concepts such as equity and anti-bias training for teachers.Patti Hidalgo Menders, president of the Loudoun County Republican Women’s Club in Virginia, told the Guardian last week: “They may not call it critical race theory, but they’re calling it equity, diversity, inclusion. They use culturally responsive training for their teachers. It is fundamentally CRT.“It’s dividing our children into victims and oppressors and what’s a child supposed to do with that?”Efforts to weaponise CRT were reinforced by former president Donald Trump and a rightwing ecosystem including influential thinktanks. Last year Christopher Rufo, a conservative scholar now at the Manhattan Institute, told the Fox News host Tucker Carlson that CRT was a form of “cult indoctrination”.In January the Heritage Foundation hosted a panel discussion where the moderator, Angela Sailor, warned: “Critical race theory is the complete rejection of the best ideas of the American founding. This is some dangerous, dangerous philosophical poisoning in the blood stream.”What role did CRT play in Virginia’s election?Winning Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin’s signature issue was education. He hammered government schools on “culture war” issues such as race and transgender rights and falsely claimed that his Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe, called his friend, President Joe Biden, and asked the FBI to silence conservative parents.Youngkin said he would ban the teaching of CRT in Virginia classrooms. At a campaign event in Glen Allen last month, the candidate said to applause: “What we won’t do is teach our children to view everything through the lens of race. On day one, I will ban critical race theory.”McAuliffe was forced on to the defensive and had to engage with the issue. He accused Republicans of using the Trump playbook of division and deceit, a message that did not cut through in the same way.Why did the issue resonate with voters?This can be seen as a rightwing backlash to last year’s Black Lives Matter protests and conversations about structural racism that followed the police murder of George Floyd, an African American man in Minneapolis. It also can be seen as a response to America’s changing demographics, specifically the increase in the minority population.It also comes after lengthy school closures during the pandemic infuriated many parents. School board meetings in Virginia and elsewhere have turned ugly, even violent, and protest signs calling for bans on masks and CRT are sometimes almost interchangeable.This week conservatives targeted school board elections nationwide over masking rules and teaching racial justice issues. In Virginia, 14% of voters listed education as a top issue, and about seven of 10 of those voted for Youngkin.McAuliffe did not help himself when, during a debate, he said, “I don’t believe parents should be telling schools what they should teach” – a line that was constantly replayed in Youngkin attacks ads.Youngkin also highlighted a high school bathroom sexual assault case in affluent Loudoun county, in northern Virginia, to argue against allowing transgender students into their chosen restrooms.Is it just Virginia?No. Officials in Republican-controlled states across America are proposing numerous laws to ban teachers from emphasizing the role of systemic racism. Legislation aiming to curb how teachers talk about race has been considered by at least 15 states, according to research by Education Week.Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, has described CRT as “state-sanctioned racism”.Brad Little, the governor of Idaho, signed into law a measure banning public schools from teaching CRT, which it claimed will “exacerbate and inflame divisions on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or other criteria in ways contrary to the unity of the nation and the wellbeing of the state of Idaho and its citizens”.Red states are also targeting the 1619 Project, a series by the New York Times which contends that modern American history began with the arrival of enslaved people four centuries ago and examines that legacy.Republicans are expected to use the Youngkin formula to woo suburban voters in next year’s midterm elections for Congress.TopicsUS politicsRepublicansRaceDemocratsVirginiaexplainersReuse this content More

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      Body blow for Biden as voters in Virginia and New Jersey desert Democrats

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      US politicsBody blow for Biden as voters in Virginia and New Jersey desert DemocratsGovernor’s races bring more bad news for president whose domestic agenda hangs in the balance Lauren Gambino in Washington@laurenegambinoWed 3 Nov 2021 12.04 EDTLast modified on Wed 3 Nov 2021 15.33 EDTLess than a year after taking control of the White House and Congress, Democrats were reeling on Wednesday from a shocking defeat in Virginia and a too-close-to-call governor’s race in New Jersey as Joe Biden’s popularity sinks and his domestic agenda hangs in the balance.Democrats suffer disastrous night in Virginia and a tight race in New Jersey – liveRead moreIn Virginia, a state that had shifted sharply left over the past decade and that Biden won by 10 points in 2020, Republican Glenn Youngkin, a political newcomer, defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe, the state’s former governor. And in New Jersey, the Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, was struggling to turn back a challenge from Republican Jack Ciattarelli, an unexpected turn of events in a state that is even more reliably Democratic.“Together, we will change the trajectory of this commonwealth and, friends, we are going to start that transformation on day one. There is no time to waste,” Youngkin said, addressing jubilant supporters in the early hours of Wednesday.Republicans’ resurgence after five years of stinging defeats during the Donald Trump era offers a stark warning for Democrats already wary of next year’s midterm elections. Their wins have echoes of 2009, when Republican victories in Virginia and New Jersey presaged their stunning takeover of the House in the 2010 midterms.“In a cycle like this, no Democrat is safe,” said Tom Emmer, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. On Wednesday, the group announced it was expanding its list of Democratic targets for the 2022 midterms following Youngkin’s victory.The final weeks of the governor’s race in Virginia were dominated by education, as Youngkin, a 54-year-old former business executive, sought to harness parents’ frustration over school closures, mask mandates and anti-racism curriculum.Exploiting the nation’s culture wars over race and education, Youngkin repeatedly promised to outlaw “critical race theory”, an academic concept about the effects of systemic racism that is not taught in Virginia schools but has nevertheless galvanized conservatives across the country.McAuliffe, 64, worked relentlessly to tie his opponent to Trump in an attempt to revive the backlash to Trump that powered Democratic gains in recent years. But the effort was in vain.Exit polls showed Biden was nearly as unpopular as Trump in Virginia, with Youngkin outperforming the former president in counties across the commonwealth. His success offered Republicans a strategy for how to mobilize Trump’s most ardent supporters while appealing to moderate voters in the suburbs who felt alienated by the former president.Tuesday’s elections were the first major test of the national mood since Biden took office in January, and the results were deeply disappointing for the president and his party as they try to keep control of wafer-thin majorities in Congress.Democrats were not well served by Biden’s sagging poll numbers, which have slumped to near-historic lows after months of infighting among Democrats over his nearly $3tn legislative agenda on Capitol Hill, a devastating evacuation from Afghanistan and the ever-present threat of the coronavirus.“This election is a warning for all Democrats,” Guy Cecil, chair of the Democratic political group Priorities USA, said in a statement. “While DC Democrats spent weeks fighting each other, Republicans were focused on mobilizing their base and peeling away voters from the Biden coalition using deceptive, divisive tactics.”It remains unclear whether the defeat in Virginia will spur Democratic lawmakers to action on a shrunken version of Biden’s agenda – or if it will cause them to retreat from the sweeping plans.On Wednesday, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, signalled that Democrats were prepared to charge ahead as planned. She announced that the rules committee would hold a hearing on the $1.75tn domestic policy and climate mitigation bill, paving the way for a vote on the legislation and a companion $1tn infrastructure measure.“Today is another momentous day in our historic effort to make the future better for the American people, for the children, to Build Back Better with women, to save the planet,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to Democrats on Wednesday.Arriving at the Capitol on Wednesday morning, Pelosi brushed off any suggestion that McAuliffe’s loss changed the outlook for their agenda. “No, no,” she told reporters.But in the wake of Tuesday’s elections, some Democrats expressed fresh doubt about the party’s resolve to enact both pieces of Biden’s agenda. Centrist lawmakers said the defeat was reason to swiftly pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill, regardless of what happens with the larger spending measure, amid concern that the effort would further alienate moderate and suburban voters who were critical to Biden’s victory in 2020 but shifted back toward Republicans in Virginia on Tuesday.But progressives argued that abandoning their ambitious policy proposals would only spell further doom for their party, in desperate need of an economic message.“The lesson going into 2022 is that Democrats need to use power to get big things done for working people and then run on those accomplishments. Period,” the Progressive Change Campaign Committee said in a statement.“Democrats won’t win simply by branding one opponent after another as a Trump clone, and then hoping to squeak out a razor-thin win. When Democrats fail to run on big ideas or fulfill bold campaign promises, we depress our base while allowing Republicans to use culture wars to hide their real agenda.”Democrats have only a five-vote margin in the House and are tied in the Senate, relying on the vice-president’s casting vote. Historically, the party in power in the White House almost always loses seats in Congress.Elsewhere across the US, it was a night of historic firsts for Asian American candidates, a sign of the growing political strength of the AAPI community amid a rise in anti-Asian hate.Michelle Wu became the first woman and person of color elected to be mayor of Boston in the city’s 200-year history. Wu, a progressive Democrat endorsed by her former Harvard law professor, the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, defeated fellow city councilor Annissa Essaibi George, who ran as a pragmatist with the backing of the city’s traditional power players.In Cincinnati, Aftab Pureval, the son of immigrants from Tibet and India, defeated the former Democratic congressman David Mann. In Dearborn, Michigan, voters elected Abdullah Hammoud, a state lawmaker, as its first Arab American mayor.In New York City, Democrat Eric Adams, a former NYPD police captain, was elected mayor of the nation’s largest city. He will be the second Black mayor in the city’s history.TopicsUS politicsVirginiaDemocratsJoe BidenUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesNancy PelosinewsReuse this content More

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      Biden plays up positives but frustrations apparent after Cop26 talks

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      Cop26Biden plays up positives but frustrations apparent after Cop26 talksTrip to Glasgow was heavy on dire warnings but light on deep emissions cuts – and ended with him blaming China and Russia Oliver Milman@olliemilmanWed 3 Nov 2021 08.07 EDTLast modified on Wed 3 Nov 2021 11.05 EDTJoe Biden returned to the US in the pre-dawn gloom on Wednesday to a climate agenda still held in frustrating limbo by Congress, following his high-profile cameo at crunch UN climate talks in Scotland that was heavy on dire warnings but light on deep cuts to planet-heating emissions.Nuclear arms hawks give bureaucratic mauling to Biden vow to curb arsenalRead moreThe US president had aimed to arrive in Glasgow for the Cop26 summit with historic climate legislation in hand, which he could use to brandish at world leaders who still harbor resentments over four turbulent years of Donald Trump, where the climate crisis was variously ignored and mocked.Instead, the intransigence of Senator Joe Manchin, a centrist Democrat and leading beneficiary of fossil fuel industry largesse, has left the landmark climate bill pared back and not voted upon, its fate left uncertain throughout Biden’s trip.In Glasgow, Biden vowed America will “lead by the power of our example”, but was the target of activist protests over oil and gas leases issued back home, while leaders of several major emitters either did not show up or failed to submit vastly improved emissions reduction plans.Biden ended his time in Scotland by ladling blame upon China for not taking the climate emergency seriously.“The most important thing the president needed to do was reassure the rest of the world that the US is back in addressing this global crisis,” said Christy Goldfuss, an environment adviser to Barack Obama and now a policy expert at the Center for American Progress.“But we have to have some humility, we have ground to make up. We can’t reclaim the mantle of leadership until the US can deliver on its commitments. Every Democrat, apart from one senator, supports climate action. That is untenable and everyone understands that.”Biden has sought to play up the positives of his time at Cop26, where he has left negotiators to thrash out a deal aimed at averting disastrous global heating of beyond 1.5C. “I can’t think of any two days where more has been accomplished on climate,” he said.The highlights include a global pledge, led by the US and European Union, to slash methane, a potent greenhouse gas, by 30% by 2030, based on last year’s levels. More than 100 countries, including six of the 10 largest emitters of methane, have signed on to the agreement to cut methane, which is spewed out by oil and gas drilling operations and agriculture and is about 80 times more powerful in trapping heat than carbon dioxide.Biden backed this move with new regulations rolled out by the US Environment Protection Agency to cut methane emissions by about 75% from hundreds of thousands of oil and gas wells. “The pledge to cut methane is the single biggest and fastest bite out of today’s warming,” said Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development.There was also a sweeping accord, which Biden vowed to support with billions of dollars, to end deforestation within a decade. The pact encompasses 85% of the world’s forests, vital for biodiversity and to soak up excess carbon from the atmosphere, and is backed by Brazil, Russia and China, countries often reluctant to make such promises.But the US was clearly piqued at how little the relentless diplomacy of John Kerry, Biden’s climate envoy, had done to extract deeper emissions cuts from leading carbon polluters. Neither Russia’s Vladimir Putin nor China’s Xi Jinping, who both offered barely improved new targets at the talks, traveled to Glasgow. Biden’s frustration bubbled over as he prepared to depart on Tuesday.“The fact that China is trying assert a new role in the world as a world leader, not showing up? Come on,” Biden said. “It’s just a gigantic issue and they’ve walked away. How do you do that and claim to have any leadership now? Same with Putin in Russia: his tundra is burning. Literally his tundra is burning. He has serious, serious climate problems and he’s mum on his willingness to do anything.”The blame placed at Cop upon China, which is now the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, comes amid frayed US-China relations on several fronts. The Global Times, a newspaper run by China’s Communist party, said in an editorial that Washington’s attitude had made it “impossible for China to see any potential to have fair negotiation amid the tensions”.Goldfuss said: “The blame game is not something the US should be really playing right now given we have so much work to do ourselves.”Back home, Biden has acknowledged his presidency will probably be defined by the proposed reconciliation bill that contains $555bn in climate measures. The White House says the legislation would bring the country close to the president’s goal of cutting emissions in half this decade and help curb disastrous climate breakdown that is already unleashing severe heatwaves, floods and drought at home and around the world.The far-reaching legislation needs every Democratic vote to pass the Senate but West Virginia’s Manchin has questioned its scope, said it is filled with “gimmicks” and has already ensured that a centerpiece plan to phase out fossil fuels from the American electricity grid was axed from the bill.Democrats continue to fret over the fate of the bill, with a vote that could take place as early as this week, with Biden saying he is “confident we will get it done”. But climate campaigners say the president could do more without the help of Congress to stem the flow of fossil fuels that are causing the climate crisis.The opening week of Cop26 saw Biden’s administration announce it will sell off oil and gas drilling leases across 730,000 acres of the US west, with a further auction of 80m offshore acres of the Gulf of Mexico, an area larger than the UK, set to commence later this month. The International Energy Agency has said that no new fossil fuel projects can commence if the world is to keep to the agreed 1.5C warming limit.“With all eyes on Glasgow this week, the Biden administration seems to be turning its back on reality and throwing climate leadership into the toilet,” said Jeremy Nichols, climate and energy program director for WildEarth Guardians.TopicsCop26Joe BidenUS politicsDemocratsJohn KerryUS foreign policynewsReuse this content More

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      Democrats’ stinging Virginia defeat raises stark questions for Biden’s tenure

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      US politicsDemocrats’ stinging Virginia defeat raises stark questions for Biden’s tenureAnalysis: Glenn Youngkin’s victory comes as the president’s agenda has stalled and danger looms for the party in Congress David Smith in Tysons, Virginia@smithinamericaWed 3 Nov 2021 01.02 EDTLast modified on Wed 3 Nov 2021 02.42 EDTJoe Biden exuded confidence. “We’re going to win,” the US president told reporters before departing Cop26 in Glasgow. “I think we’re going to win in Virginia.”But as Biden returns to Washington, he faces questions about why his prediction was so wrong – and whether Democrats’ loss in the most important election of the year will send his presidency into a downward spiral.Republican Glenn Youngkin poised to win Virginia governor’s race in blow to BidenRead moreThe Republican Glenn Youngkin’s surprise victory over the Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the race for governor of Virginia is a brutal rebuke for Biden, who had personally invested in the race, twice making the short trip from Washington to campaign for McAuliffe at rallies.It will particularly sting because Donald Trump, whom he defeated in Virginia by 10 percentage points in last year’s presidential election, will doubtless seek to claim credit for the result and savor his revenge.But the truth is that this election was more about the current president than the spectre of the last one.Biden’s ambitious agenda has stalled in Congress. By his own admission, the inertia has sucked oxygen away from priorities such as a police reform and voting rights, disillusioning the activists who fuel Democratic turnout. Inflation and gasoline prices are up. Global supply chains are buckling. And Biden’s sunny predictions for post-withdrawal Afghanistan were as off the mark as his predictions for Virginia.The president’s sagging approval rating of 42% combined with historical headwinds to drag McAuliffe down. Nothing energizes a political movement like opposition: the president’s party has lost every election for governor of Virginia over almost half a century – the exception was McAuliffe himself in 2013.But this time McAuliffe failed to inspire. The chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential primary campaign had a distinct whiff of Clinton 2016: a career politician imbued with a sense of entitlement who constantly found himself on the defensive against an upstart candidate drawing bigger crowds.Like Hillary Clinton’s reference to “deplorables”, McAuliffe made a perceived gaffe – “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach” – which was replayed endlessly in Youngkin attack ads.McAuliffe’s central argument – that Youngkin is an acolyte of Trump – was about the past. Youngkin’s central argument – that schools are under attack from culture warriors on race and gender – was about the future, even if it was riddled with falsehoods. To many voters, the future tends to be more persuasive.Enough of them did not seem to know or care that Youngkin’s arguments on schools were based on a lie. He stoked fears about critical race theory being taught in schools – it isn’t – with a caricature of Black children learning to think they are victims and white children learning to self-hate.It cut through and proved effective in a febrile, pandemic-era atmosphere where parents shout and even turn violent at school board meetings debating issues such as gender identity and mask mandates. Whereas McAuliffe wanted to nationalize the election, Youngkin managed to keep it local, albeit by tapping into Fox News talking points following last year’s Black Lives Matter protests.Expect this incendiary mix of children and racism to be chapter one of the Republican playbook in next year’s midterm elections for Congress. Expect chapter two to be How to Deal with a Problem Called Donald Trump.The 45th president will still be welcome in the safe districts of the Make America Great Again nation, sure to draw fanatical crowds and turn out the vote. But in swing states, Youngkin has shown Republicans the way to have their cake and eat it too.In the Republican primary, he praised Trump and fanned his false claims of voter fraud by raising concerns about “election integrity”. In the general election, he was willing to tacitly pat Trump on the back without ever embracing him – he eschewed mentions of the former president in campaign speeches and must have been tremendously relieved that Trump never turned up in person.Youngkin squared the circle that many Republicans have struggled with, creating a template for how to win over moderates and independents without alienating the Trump base, or vice versa. Call it the Goldilocks principle of strategic ambiguity: neither too hot nor too cold, but just the right temperature.Democrats knew exactly what he was doing. McAuliffe relentlessly tried to conflate Youngkin with Trump. At a rally last week, Biden warned: “Extremism can come in many forms. It can come in the rage of a mob driven to assault the Capitol. It can come in a smile and a fleece vest. Either way, the big lie is still a big lie.”But it was all in vain.Youngkin, like Trump, might have emphasized his status as a businessman and political outsider but otherwise came over as a suburban dad, more polished and less profane: the acceptable face of Trumpism. Yet his tactics were just as dark, dishonest and divisive.Democrats will now need to find a counter-strategy fast. Some commentators have suggested that members of the House and Senate could desert Biden and rush to the exits, retiring rather than facing a bloodbath in the midterms, so weakening the president’s hand at a crucial moment for his agenda. Virginia is a warning cry that the party needs strong leadership to get it done before things fall apart.Wednesday marks the first anniversary of Biden’s defeat of Trump in a presidential election like no other. But the pandemic of Trumpism rages in new and unexpected ways – and the Youngkin variant may prove among the most dangerous.TopicsUS politicsVirginiaJoe BidenDemocratsRepublicansUS CongressanalysisReuse this content More

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      Republican Glenn Youngkin wins Virginia governor’s race in blow to Biden

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      VirginiaRepublican Glenn Youngkin wins Virginia governor’s race in blow to BidenYoungkin stoked culture wars on education while walking political tightrope over Donald Trump David Smith in Tysons, Virginia@smithinamericaWed 3 Nov 2021 00.55 EDTFirst published on Wed 3 Nov 2021 00.33 EDTJoe Biden suffered a bitter political blow early on Wednesday when Democrats went down in a shock defeat in the election for governor of Virginia.The Democratic candidate, Terry McAuliffe, had campaigned with Biden and Barack Obama but it was not enough to prevent the Republican Glenn Youngkin pulling off an upset.The AP called the race for Youngkin in the early hours of Wednesday morning. The Republican took an early lead after polls closed that he maintained throughout the evening, while McAuliffe lagged in key counties that Biden swept in 2020.Clenching his fists then clapping his hands, Youngkin addressed jubilant supporters in Chantilly just after 1am. “All righty, Virginia, we won this thing!” he exclaimed. “How much fun!”The 54-year-old political neophyte described it as “a defining moment” for millions of Virginians “sharing dreams and hopes”. Youngkin promised: “Together, we will change the trajectory of this commonwealth and friends, we are going to start that transformation on day one. There is no time to waste.”In a nod to what became his defining campaign issue, the Republican said: “We are going to restore excellence in our schools… We are going to introduce choice in our public school system… Friends, we’re going to embrace our parents, not ignore them. We’re gonna press forward with a curriculum that includes listening to parents’ input.”As on the campaign trail, Youngkin did not utter the name “Trump”.The battle in Virginia has been seen as a litmus test of Biden’s presidency one year after he won the White House, and it coincided with his agenda stalling in Congress and his approval rating sinking to 42%.“The fight continues,” said McAuliffe in a speech on Tuesday night, thanking his campaign staff for a hard-fought race, but stopping short of a concession.“We’ve got to make sure we protect women’s right to choose here in the commonwealth of Virginia. We’ve got to make sure everyone gets quality, affordable healthcare here in the commonwealth of Virginia. Everybody’s entitled to a world-class education here in the commonwealth of Virginia and we are going to continue that fight tonight, and every day going forward.”McAuliffe’s all-out effort to portray Youngkin as an acolyte of Donald Trump proved less effective than the Republican’s laser-like focus on whipping up parents’ fear and anger about culture war issues in Virginia’s schools.Youngkin made false claims that critical race theory – an analytic framework through which academics examine the ways that racial disparities are reproduced by the law – is rampant in the state’s education system (in fact it is not taught).His campaign zeroed in on a perceived gaffe by McAuliffe at one of their debates: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”Why this governor’s race is shaping up as a referendum on the Biden presidencyRead moreImportantly, Youngkin was also successful walking a political tightrope in which he accepted Trump’s endorsement but never mentioned him in stump speeches or invited him to campaign with him in person. He cultivated sufficient ambiguity to appeal to moderate Republicans without alienating the Trump base.History was on Youngkin’s side in that the party that loses the White House tends to be energised and usually wins the Virginia’s governor’s race a year later. But McAuliffe himself had bucked that rule when he became governor in 2014 (he was limited to one term).However, no Republican had won statewide office since 2009, and Biden beat Trump in Virginia by 10 percentage points, meaning that a Democratic loss here would reverberate across the nation.Meanwhile, in New Jersey, a similar story was unfolding as the Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, fought to win re-election against his Republican challenger, Jack Ciattarelli. That race was too close to call, with Ciattarelli narrowly ahead. If Murphy holds his office, he would be the first Democrat re-elected as the state’s governor in 44 years, while a defeat would bode ill for national Democrats.At McAuliffe’s election night event at a hotel in Tysons, Virginia, giant TVs that had been showing cable news coverage were switched off long before any result was finalized. Stunned supporters trailed out into the chilly night.Manisha Singh, 48, an analyst, said: “It’s extremely disappointing. I can’t imagine all the lies that were spread to influence voters. I was knocking on doors and people were saying take the porn out of public schools, which is a lie. They were just repeating what they had seen on Fox News.”Singh added: “This might be a huge wake-up call to Democrats. We always play nice when the other party spreads lies. We need to be more aggressive. “Argument quickly broke out among national Democrats over what had gone wrong. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee said in a statement: “Terry McAuliffe sadly can blame his loss on a few corporate-aligned obstructionist Democrats who blocked bold action in Congress, plus his own reliance on backward-looking Trump messaging.It added: “Democrats won’t win simply by branding one opponent after another as a Trump clone, and then hoping to squeak out a razor-thin win. When Democrats fail to run on big ideas or fulfill bold campaign promises, we depress our base while allowing Republicans to use culture wars to hide their real agenda.”McAuliffe, a career politician and establishment Democrat, is likely to point to Biden’s falling popularity and Washington gridlock as factors in his defeat. Youngkin, a former executive at the private-equity firm the Carlyle Group, sold himself as a political outsider challenging the liberal elite.His strategy – a delicate balancing act of stoking culture wars in education and winking at Trump without fully embracing him – is seen as a potential blueprint for Republican candidates in next year’s congressional elections.Trump said in a statement: “All McAuliffe did was talk Trump, Trump, Trump and he lost! What does that tell you, Fake News? I guess people running for office as Democrats won’t be doing that too much longer. I didn’t even have to go rally for Youngkin, because McAuliffe did it for me.”Dan Conston, president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super political action committee dedicated to electing Republicans to the House of Representatives, said: “Tonight’s results put every Democrat in Congress on notice.“Virginia was once ground zero for suburban decline but has now become the epicenter of a Republican comeback in 2022. If Republicans can win even in a state so blue that Joe Biden won by 10 points, then far more Democrats are in peril next year than they want to admit.”The battles in Virginia and New Jersey came as voters in states across the US headed to the polls on Tuesday, an off-year election day, to cast their ballots for local governors, mayors and public measures.In New York, the former police officer Eric Adams easily won his race to become the next mayor of New York City. In Boston, Michelle Wu made history when she defeated Annissa Essaibi-George to become the first woman of color and Asian American elected as the city’s mayor. History was also made in Durham, North Carolina, where Elaine O’Neal became the city’s first Black female mayor after campaigning on neighborhood safety, housing and economic relief in the aftermath of the pandemic, while Abdullah Hammoud won the mayoral race in Dearborn, Michigan, making him the city’s first Arab American leader.In Minneapolis, voters rejected an initiative that would have replaced the police department with a new department of public safety, nearly a year and a half after the police killing of George Floyd inspired nationwide protests against police brutality.Maanvi Singh and the Associated Press contributed reportingTopicsVirginiaUS politicsJoe BidenDemocratsDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Eric Adams, former police officer, wins New York mayor’s race

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      New YorkEric Adams, former police officer, wins New York mayor’s raceAdams, who defeated Republican and founder of the Guardian Angels Curtis Sliwa, will become city’s second Black mayor Adam Gabbattin New York@adamgabbattTue 2 Nov 2021 22.33 EDTFirst published on Tue 2 Nov 2021 21.17 EDTFormer police officer Eric Adams will be the next mayor of New York City, after the Democrat defeated Curtis Sliwa in Tuesday’s election.Adams was on course to easily beat Sliwa, the founder of the Guardian Angels, with a lead of 66% to 29% after more than half of projected votes were counted.Adams will now take charge of the largest city in the US in January, when he will be faced with overseeing recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 34,500 New Yorkers.Adams, 61, becomes only the second Black person to be elected New York mayor, after David Dinkins, who led the city from 1990 to 1993. Adams, who defeated several progressive candidates in the Democratic primary, has pledged to cut government inefficiency and made public safety a central part of his campaign.In a speech, Adams urged unity and told his story as a working-class child who grew up to become mayor. “Tonight, New Yorkers have chosen one of their own,” Adams, said in a victory speech. “I am you.”Adams urged unity. “Today, we take off the intramural jersey and we put on one jersey, Team New York,” he told supporters at a celebration at the New York Marriott. “Tonight is not just a victory over adversity, it is a vindication of faith. It is the proof that the forgotten can be the future.”The centrist politician has been a disappointing choice for many progressives who hoped to see radical reforms in the criminal justice system. Adams has promised to strike a balance between fighting crime and ending racial injustice in law enforcement.After winning a contentious primary, Adams was always the favorite to defeat Sliwa, a Republican, in a city where Democrats outnumber Republicans seven to one. He will replace Bill de Blasio, a fellow Democrat who is limited to two terms as mayor, in January.Adams was born in Brownsville, Brooklyn, in 1960, and spoke during the campaign about his impoverished upbringing. He decided to join the New York City police department in an effort to change the force from within, Adams said, after being beaten by officers when he was 15 years old.He joined the police in 1984 and became a captain before leaving in 2006 to run – successfully – for state senate. During his time in the state legislature he was criticized by the New York inspector general for his role in attempting to bring a casino to a racetrack in Queens, New York City. Adams had accepted campaign contributions from a politically connected group bidding for the gambling franchise.In 2013 Adams was elected to Brooklyn borough president, a power-light position that chiefly involves championing the borough, but one which also boosted Adams’s profile as he weighed a run for mayor.Adams trailed Andrew Yang, a 2020 presidential candidate, in the early months of the Democratic primary, but came through New York’s ranked choice voting to edge out Kathryn Garcia, a former New York City sanitation commissioner, in July.His campaign raised eyebrows over the summer when Adams was forced to answer questions about whether he actually lives in the city he was bidding to lead, given he owns a home in New Jersey and was rarely spotted at the address in Brooklyn where he claims to reside. Adams has insisted he lives in New York City.Sliwa, a talk radio host best known for founding the Guardian Angels, a volunteer crime prevention group, in the 1970s, proved a charismatic if ultimately flawed candidate.He had been a regular presence on New York City’s streets, frequently standing on top of a car-pulled float and spreading his message through a microphone and speaker. Sliwa wore his red beret throughout the campaign, including during the mayoral debates, but struggled to gain much attention in a race where Adams had long been the presumptive winner.TopicsNew YorkUS politicsDemocratsBill de BlasionewsReuse this content More

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      Virginia votes as poll expert says ‘white backlash’ could power Republican win

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      VirginiaVirginia votes as poll expert says ‘white backlash’ could power Republican winGlenn Youngkin and Democrat Terry McAuliffe make final pitch for governor as polls show unexpectedly close race Lauren Gambino in Washington, Martin Pengelly in New York and agenciesTue 2 Nov 2021 17.03 EDTFirst published on Tue 2 Nov 2021 08.01 EDTVirginians on Tuesday headed to the polls to elect a new governor, in a closely contested race between the Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin widely seen as a referendum on Joe Biden’s presidency.Why this governor’s race is shaping up as a referendum on the Biden presidencyRead moreThey did so as a leading Virginia polling expert warned that Youngkin may be riding a wave of “white backlash” all the way to the governor’s mansion, having successfully focused on controversy over the place of race in education.In the final hours of the campaign, the candidates offered starkly different closing arguments, making their cases to voters whose odd-year gubernatorial elections have long reflected the national political mood a year into any new administration.Saddled by Biden’s sagging poll numbers and intra-party wrangling that has gridlocked the president’s domestic spending agenda, McAuliffe has attempted to tether his opponent to Donald Trump, a polarizing figure in voter-rich northern suburbs.Youngkin has mostly avoided the subject of Trump while embracing many of his tactics, a strategy many Republican strategists believe could be a model for the midterm elections next year.Polls showed an unexpectedly close race in a state that has trended Democratic since the election of Barack Obama in 2008. A loss in Virginia, which Biden won by nearly 10 points in 2020, would be deeply alarming for a party already bracing for a difficult challenge next year.Hours before polls closed in the commonwealth, Biden expressed confidence that Democrats would win the gubernatorial race in Virginia, and hold the governor’s mansion in New Jersey, where the incumbent, Phil Murphy, is seeking re-election in the Garden state.“We’re gonna win,” Biden said, leaning into the microphone for emphasis, during a press conference in Glasgow, Scotland. He acknowledged that the contest in Virginia was “tight”, saying the outcome would reflect “who shows up, who turns out”.But he waved off attempts to read the race as a barometer of his presidency, insisting that McAuliffe’s fortunes in the state were not tied to his poll numbers or his domestic agenda.“Even if we had passed my agenda, I wouldn’t claim we won because Biden’s agenda passed,” he told reporters.The president predicted that Americans would know the result by the time Air Force One touches down in Washington at roughly 1am local time, though some analysts have warned that it could take longer.Changes to Virginia law mean mail-in and early ballots will be tabulated more quickly than in 2020. As such, Democrats may appear to be ahead early in the night, before the localities more favorable to Republicans start counting election day ballots.On Monday, the last day of dueling events, McAuliffe continued to hammer Youngkin over his connections to Trump, warning darkly that a Republican win in Virginia could help pave the way for a Trump comeback in 2024. But then he went further.“Guess how Glenn Youngkin is finishing his campaign?” the former governor, 64, told a crowd in Fairfax. “He is doing an event with Donald Trump here in Virginia.”That was a lie. Trump was not in Virginia, though he did boost the Republican candidate with a tele-rally. Youngkin did not participate.Youngkin, 54, a former private equity executive and political newcomer, closed his campaign with a final attempt to harness parents’ anger over school closures, mask mandates and what their children are learning, and turn it into an election night upset.Asked why education had become a central factor in Youngkin’s stronger-than-expected showing, Larry Sabato of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia said: “One of the candidates decided it was his ticket to the governor’s mansion and he may well be right.”Speaking to MSNBC, Sabato pointed to the core of Youngkin’s appeal on education: a promise to ban critical race theory in schools. Critical race theory, or CRT, is an academic discipline that examines the ways in which racism operates in US laws and society. It is not taught in Virginia schools, regardless of Youngkin’s promise to ban it.“The operative word is not critical,” Sabato said. “And it’s not theory. It’s race. What a shock, huh? Race. That is what matters. And that’s why it’s sticks.“There’s a lot of, we can call it white backlash, white resistance, whatever you want to call it. It has to do with race. And so we live in a post-factual era … It doesn’t matter that [CRT] isn’t taught in Virginia schools. It’s this generalised attitude that whites are being put upon and we’ve got to do something about it. We being white voters.”Cultural issues have dominated the race, Youngkin also promising to give parents more control over how public schools handle gender and Covid-19, McAuliffe vowing to protect voting rights and abortion access.McAuliffe, a Clinton ally who was governor of Virginia from 2014 to 2018 – the state does not allow consecutive terms – has seen his lead evaporate. Polls have shown Youngkin succeeding by appealing to independents turned off by Trump without alienating his ardent supporters.Youngkin campaigned as an advocate for parents who want more say in their children’s education, capitalising on anger among conservatives who believe schools are overreaching in the name of diversity. Speaking in Richmond on Monday, he promised he would usher in “a Virginia where our government stops telling us what to do all the time”.McAuliffe also handed Youngkin a political gift when he said in a debate in September: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”He has attacked Youngkin for hesitating to say whether Biden won the presidency legitimately. Youngkin acknowledged Biden’s victory but also called for an audit of Virginia voting machines, prompting Democrats to accuse him of validating Trump’s baseless election conspiracy theories.Democrats strive to fire Black voter turnout in Virginia governor’s raceRead moreBoth Biden and Barack Obama campaigned for McAuliffe. Trump has not visited the state. In his tele-rally on Monday, the former president told voters Youngkin would protect suburbs and did not repeat his lies about voter fraud.McAuliffe responded on Twitter, saying Trump was “pulling out all the stops to win this race because he knows Glenn will advance his Maga agenda here in Virginia. Tomorrow, Virginia will choose a better way.”In their final word on the campaign, Sabato’s team at UVA moved their prediction from “leans Democratic” to “leans Republican”.“Our sense is that the race has been moving toward Youngkin,” Kyle Kondik and J Miles Coleman wrote, “in large part because of the political environment. McAuliffe’s Trump-centric campaign also just doesn’t seem as potent in a non-federal race with the former president no longer in the White House.”TopicsVirginiaUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansRacenewsReuse this content More