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      The Republicans' racial culture war is reaching new heights in Virginia | Sidney Blumenthal

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      OpinionUS politicsThe Republicans’ racial culture war is reaching new heights in VirginiaSidney BlumenthalWhy is the Republican running for governor of Virginia going after Toni Morrison’s award-winning novel Beloved? Sat 30 Oct 2021 06.22 EDTLast modified on Sat 30 Oct 2021 13.29 EDTRunning for governor of Virginia as the Republican candidate, Glenn Youngkin appears to have a split personality – sometimes the generic former corporate executive in a fleece vest, the suburban dad surrounded by his sun-lit children and tail-wagging dogs, and sometimes the fierce kulturkampf warrior and racial dog-whistler. His seemingly dual personality has been filtered through a cascade of Republican consultants’ campaign images. His latest TV commercial attempts to resolve the tension by showing him as a concerned father who shares the worries of the ordinary Trumpster. In the closing hours of the campaign, he has exposed that his political identity can’t be separated from Republican identity politics in the decadent stage of Trumpism.The Republican party has long specialized in fabricating esoteric threats, from the basements of Pizzagate to the stratosphere of “Jewish space lasers”. Youngkin’s campaign, though, has contrived a brand-new enemy within, a specter of doom to stir voters’ anxieties that only he can dispel: the Black Nobel prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison and her novel Beloved.His turn to a literary reference might seem an obscure if not a bizarre non sequitur, at odds with his pacifying image, but the ploy to suppress the greatest work by the most acclaimed Black writer has an organic past in rightwing local politics and an even deeper resonance in Virginia history.In his first TV ad, introducing himself as a newcomer who had never before run for political office, Youngkin warned voters not to misperceive him as yet another nasty Republican and to dismiss not-yet-stated “lies about me”. They should ignore whatever negative material they might hear about how he “left dirty dishes in the sink”. “What’s next, that I hate dogs?” Big smile. Cue: cute kids and puppies. Soundtrack: bark, bark.For a while the nice guy Youngkin tried to walk his thin line, lest he lose the party’s angry base voters. He attempted to use the soft image to cover the hard line. He is vaccinated, but against vaccine mandates. He is inspired by Donald Trump, has proclaimed his belief in the need for audits and “election integrity”; opposed to abortion, but was careful not to appear with Trump at his “Take Back Virginia” rally. He appeared on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News in a ritual cleansing to profess that his motive is pure.“You know, Tucker, this is why I quit my job last summer,” Youngkin said. “I actually could not recognize my home state of Virginia.” He had, he explained, left the corporate world to take up the sword for the Republican culture war.Actually, according to Bloomberg News, he “flamed out” as co-CEO of the Carlyle Group, with a “checkered record”, losing billions on “bad bets”, and “retired after a power struggle”. In May, just before leaving the firm and speaking to Carlson, after the murder of George Floyd, Youngkin signed a statement affirming that contributions to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Equal Justice Initiative and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund would receive matching grants from Carlyle. When asked about this later, however, a campaign spokesperson fired back, “Glenn has never donated to the SPLC and does not agree with them. He is a Christian and a conservative who is pro-life and served in his church for years.”Youngkin’s seeming confusion around controversial racial issues highlighted his conflicting roles. In Washington, while at Carlyle, he was the responsible corporate citizen practicing worthy philanthropy. In the Republican party, where that sort of non-partisan moderation is not only suspect but mocked as a source of evil, he has had to demonstrate that he is not tainted.Soon enough, Youngkin waded into the murky waters of racial politics. He offered himself as the defender of schoolchildren from the menace of critical race theory, even though the abstruse legal doctrine is not taught in any Virginia public school. Yet he suggested that his opponent, former governor Terry McAuliffe, would impose its creed on innocent minds, depriving parents of control. “On day one, I will ban critical race theory in our schools,” Youngkin has pledged.But his brandishing of critical race theory, nonexistent in the schools’ curriculum, has been apparently insufficiently frightening to finish the job. Perhaps not enough people know what the theory is at all. He needed one more push, searched for one more issue and produced one more ad.So, Youngkin seized upon a novel racial symbol, in fact a novel. The danger, he claimed, comes from Beloved by Toni Morrison – the Pulitzer prize-winning novel by the Nobel prize-winning author, about the psychological toll and loss of slavery, especially its sexual abuse, and considered one of the most important American literary works.While no other Republican has ever before run against Beloved as a big closing statement, there is a history to the issue in Virginia.“When my son showed me his reading material, my heart sunk,” Laura Murphy, identified as “Fairfax County Mother”, said in the Youngkin ad. “It was some of the most explicit reading material you can imagine.” She claimed that her son had nightmares from reading the assignment in his advanced placement literature class. “It was disgusting and gross,” her son, Blake, said. “It was hard for me to handle. I gave up on it.” As it happens, in 2016 Murphy had lobbied a Republican-majority general assembly to pass a bill enabling students to exempt themselves from class if they felt the material was sexually explicit. Governor McAuliffe vetoed what became known as “the Beloved bill”.“This Mom knows – she lived through it. It’s a powerful story,” tweeted Youngkin. Ms Murphy, the “Mom”, is in fact a longtime rightwing Republican activist. Her husband, Daniel Murphy, is a lawyer-lobbyist in Washington and a large contributor to Republican candidates and organizations. Their delicate son, Blake Murphy, who complained of “night terrors”, was a Trump White House aide and is now associate general counsel for the National Republican Congressional Committee, which sends out fundraising emails reading: “Alert. You’re a traitor. You abandoned Trump …”The offending novel is a fictional treatment of a true story with a Virginia background, a history that ought to be taught in Virginia schools along with the reading of Beloved. In 1850, Senator James M Mason, of Virginia, sponsored the Fugitive Slave Act. “The safety and integrity of the Southern States (to say nothing of their dignity and honor) are indissolubly bound up with domestic slavery,” he wrote. In 1856, Margaret Garner escaped from her Kentucky plantation into the free state of Ohio. She was the daughter of her owner and had been repeatedly raped by his brother, her uncle, and gave birth to four children. When she was cornered by slave hunters operating under the Fugitive Slave Act, she killed her two-year-old and attempted to kill her other children to spare them their fate. Garner was returned to slavery, where she died from typhus.In the aftermath of her capture, Senator Charles Sumner, the abolitionist from Massachusetts, denounced Mason on the floor of the Senate for his authorship of the bill, “a special act of inhumanity and tyranny”. He also cited the case of a “pious matron who teaches little children to relieve their bondage”, sentenced to “a dungeon”. He was referring to Margaret Douglass, a southern white woman who established a school for Black children in Norfolk, Virginia. She was arrested and sent to prison for a month “as an example”, according to the judge. When she was released, she wrote a book on the cause of Black education and the culture of southern rape. “How important, then,” she wrote, “for these Southern sultans, that the objects of their criminal passions should be kept in utter ignorance and degradation.”Virginia’s racial caste system existed for a century after the civil war. In 1956, after the supreme court’s decision in Brown v Brown of Education ruled that school segregation was unconstitutional, Virginia’s general assembly, with Confederate flags flying in the gallery, declared a policy of massive resistance that shut down all public schools for two years. The growth of all-white Christian academies and new patterns of segregation date from that period. Only in 1971 did Virginia revise its state constitution to include a strong provision for public education.Youngkin’s demonizing of Toni Morrison’s Beloved may seem unusual and even abstract, but it is the oldest tactic in the playbook. It was old when Lee Atwater, a political operative for Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush, explained, “You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’ – that hurts you, backfires. So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract.”Youngkin well understands the inflammatory atmosphere in Virginia in which he is dousing gasoline and lighting matches. The violence and murder at Charlottesville are still a burning issue. The trials of racist neo-Nazis have just begun there. Prominent Lost Cause statues of Robert E Lee have been removed within the past few months. Branding Beloved as sexually obscene was always an abstracted effort to avoid coming to terms with slavery, especially its sexual coercion. Parental control is Youngkin’s abstract slogan for his racial divisiveness. Beloved is his signifier to the Trump base that he is a safe member of the cult, no longer an untrustworthy corporate type.Youngkin’s reflexive dependence on the strategy reveals more than the harsh imperatives of being a candidate in the current Republican party. It places him, whether he knows or not, cares or not, objects or not, in a long tradition in the history of Virginia that the Commonwealth has spent decades seeking to overcome.
      Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth
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      Why a Changing Richmond and Its Suburbs Are Key to Virginia’s Vote

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      The region has been an engine of Democratic victories, but now the party is on defense as Republicans go after swing voters with worries about schools.RICHMOND — Schuyler VanValkenburg, a Democrat in the Virginia House of Delegates, drove the oak-shaded streets of his suburban district, pointing out landmarks that told the story of how he had won his seat after Republicans held it for decades.Over there was one of the county’s first mosques. There, the Hindu Center. The Final Gravity Brewing Company had opened near Love Shack, a breakfast spot offering Virginia ham and eggs on a croissant.The houses of worship for global immigrants and the cool watering holes for young transplants reflected sweeping demographic changes that have pushed politics in the Richmond suburbs, including Henrico County, to the left.“A new generation moved in,” said Mr. VanValkenburg, a high school government teacher first elected in 2017. “Henrico became browner. It became denser.”But now, he and his party are in races that are far tighter than most expected, including a deadlocked governor’s contest. And Democrats’ historic margins in Virginia in recent years are suddenly looking as though they may have been the result not of an inexorable demographic tide, but of a furious resistance to Donald J. Trump — one that exaggerated the true strength of the Democratic Party in a state that could be returning to its previous role as a battleground.Without Mr. Trump in office, Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic governor seeking a new term in that post, is fighting for his political life, four years after the current Democratic governor coasted to a 9-point win.Greater Richmond, including the capital city and its diversifying suburbs, is the second-fastest-growing region in the state and a key to the governor’s race, as well as to control of the Legislature.Demographic changes in Richmond are reflected in the many new houses of worship, like the Islamic Center of Richmond.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesA poll released Wednesday by Christopher Newport University suggested that Democrats were falling well short in the region. While it mirrored most other polls in showing the governor’s race deadlocked statewide, it said Glenn Youngkin, the Republican candidate, had pulled away from Mr. McAuliffe in the Richmond media market — an area extending beyond the city and its populous suburbs into rural counties.A Fox News poll on Thursday was even grimmer for Democrats: It showed Mr. Youngkin with an 8-point lead among likely voters statewide ahead of Tuesday’s election.“On the ground, it feels like our side has all the energy,” said Mark Early Jr., a Republican vying for a Democratic-held seat in the House of Delegates that straddles Richmond and suburban Chesterfield County.Mr. Early said a Youngkin television ad ripping Mr. McAuliffe for saying parents shouldn’t tell schools what to teach had poured “gasoline on the fire” of some voters’ frustrations over public schools, first kindled last year by Covid-related school closures that set back students’ learning. “I hear a lot of blowback from moms, especially working moms,” he said.Democrats accuse Mr. Youngkin of distortions and fear-mongering on schools, including calls for police officers in every school and a ban on critical race theory, which educators say plays no role in K-12 curriculums.Still, Mr. Youngkin’s forward-looking closing message, emphasizing “parents’ rights,” seemed considerably more resonant with voters than Mr. McAuliffe’s retrospective final appeal — reminding Virginians, whose swing counties are doing quite well economically, of all the jobs he created and the money he spent on education as governor from 2014 to 2018.“If Youngkin is able to turn it around here, I think it will be because of his education gambit,” said Richard Meagher, a politics professor at Randolph-Macon College near Richmond. “That’s the one issue where you can still win back those suburban voters who have turned into the Democratic column lately.”For Mr. McAuliffe to prevail in greater Richmond, Democrats need to drive up turnout in the city; maintain their gains of the past 15 years in Henrico County, north and east of the city; and not cede too much ground in Chesterfield County, which includes more conservative western suburbs.Mary Margaret Kastelberg told voters she wasn’t a Trump apologist as she canvassed in Henrico County.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesOn Thursday evening, Mary Margaret Kastelberg, a Republican challenging a Democratic delegate in a bellwether district in Henrico County, spent her 26th wedding anniversary knocking on the doors of residents her campaign had identified as swing voters.She wasn’t having much luck.Laura Kohlroser, still in hospital scrubs from her workday, said the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol had deeply soured her on Republicans. “The way the Republican Party stood behind Donald Trump, that to me was just deplorable,” she said.Walter Taylor said that he had been a “die-hard Republican” through 2016, voting that year for Mr. Trump, but that his shambolic presidency “turned me 180 degrees.” He was not convinced that Mr. Youngkin, a former financial executive, was really the hoops-shooting, fleece-vest-wearing regular guy he portrayed in TV ads.“He’s too close to Trump,’’ said Mr. Taylor, a retired insurance underwriter. But Ms. Kastelberg earned his vote, he told her.Walter Taylor, right, a Republican, is skeptical of Mr. Youngkin because “he’s too close to Trump.’’Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesEarlier on Thursday, Mr. McAuliffe had been in Richmond for a rally with leaders of the African American community, which makes up 40 percent of the population. Early voting in the city has been running behind early voting in the suburbs, an imperfect but useful gauge of enthusiasm.At a community center on the North Side, Frank Moseley, director of a nonpartisan group that informs voters of color about issues, said Democrats’ failure to deliver on big promises made to Black voters in 2020 — on gun violence, affordable housing and voting rights — had cooled some voters’ ardor. “We are probably one of the most letdown voting blocs,” he said. “That is one of the biggest detractors for individuals going out to vote.”Aja Moore acknowledged that voters under 30 are much less likely to vote this year.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesOne of the few younger people in the room, Aja Moore, 24, acknowledged what polls are showing: Voters under 30, a big part of the Biden coalition last year, are less likely to vote now.“They’re busy with their life,” said Ms. Moore, who works in government relations for a big law firm. “They’re not into it.’’In an interview, Amy Wentz, a member of a civil rights group, the Richmond Crusade for Voters, suggested another potential reason that some Black voters, especially women, may be in a funk: The party nominated a 64-year-old white man for governor after he defeated two Black female legislators in the primary.Ms. Wentz, who said she was a strong McAuliffe supporter, forwarded a Facebook post from a friend. “I know I am going to get fussed at, but I am not motivated to vote,” the woman wrote. “I really feel some type of way about Virginia not having a Black woman as our gubernatorial candidate.”Ms. Wentz said Mr. McAuliffe had done a good job reaching out to people of color, including in a Zoom meeting with her own organization. “I feel like we’re going to step up,” she said. “We’re not feeling it right now, but I feel like that by Tuesday, people are going to do the right thing. There’s too much at stake.”The 2020 census confirmed the demographic upheaval of the Richmond region. Within the city, which only last month removed the last Confederate statue — of Robert E. Lee — from historic Monument Avenue, the share of white residents rose over the past decade faster than any locality in the state. Gentrification has transformed industrial areas into neighborhoods of craft breweries and restaurants serving Alsatian cuisine.At the same time, the Black population swelled in the suburbs: by 25 percent in Chesterfield County, its largest growth among all racial groups. In Henrico County, the populations of Black, Asian and Hispanic residents all rose significantly.Politics in the Richmond suburbs have moved to the left because of gentrification and a population swell of Black, Asian and Latino residents.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesMr. VanValkenburg, the lawmaker and teacher, said that 15 years ago, his students were overwhelmingly white. Now, about 100 languages are spoken in the county.He rose to anger over Mr. Youngkin’s campaigning on issues involving education, including his stoking the cultural issue of critical race theory — a dog whistle to white voters that is not even taught in grade school — and accusing Democrats of wanting to keep parents out of classrooms.“Of course parents should have a say in education,” said Mr. VanValkenburg, who emails parents weekly updates on their children’s class work.Republicans, he complained, “keep trying to gin up issues that aren’t real as a way to scare people,” including appeals to conservatives who have led efforts to remove books with gay and racial themes from schools.If Mr. Youngkin is elected and fulfills his pledge to ban critical race theory his first day, Mr. VanValkenburg said, it would have no practical effect. “But what it would do is create a culture of fear,” he said, driving through his district on Wednesday.“Does somebody feel bad about their race if we teach about slavery?” he added.On Thursday, the local paper reported that a parent had complained at a school board meeting about a novel in school libraries about an interracial teenage romance. Mr. VanValkenburg’s Republican opponent was quoted expressing his disgust. The district removed eight copies of the book from its shelves. More

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      Glenn Youngkin Was a Traditional Republican. Then He Became a Culture Warrior.

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      As he runs for governor of Virginia, Mr. Youngkin has built a coalition, as one prominent conservative described it, of Trump voters and angry parents.For months as he campaigned for governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin tried to sound a lot like the kind of Republican who dominated the party back in 2009 — the last time a Republican was elected to statewide office.He avoided discussion of divisive social issues in favor of praise of free markets and job creators, and conservative activists knew very little about him or what he believed as a result.“He was on nobody’s radar screen,” said John Fredericks, a radio host who was chairman of Donald J. Trump’s presidential campaigns in Virginia in 2016 and 2020.In the final days before the election on Tuesday, many Republicans say they still have no idea what Mr. Youngkin really believes. But they have cheered him on regardless, after he took a hard-right turn and began promoting the causes that are animating conservatives and supporters of the former president, from the debate over teaching the impact of racism to transgender rights in schools.To Mr. Youngkin’s critics, his culture warrior persona is cynical and disingenuous — just the kind of transactional decision that a career investment manager with a fortune estimated at close to $400 million would make to win.But to his Republican supporters, whether or not it’s an act isn’t really the point.As long as Mr. Youngkin is saying what they want to hear and signaling what they understand he cannot say out loud — running on the issue of “election integrity,” for instance, rather than wholeheartedly accepting Mr. Trump’s lies about election fraud in 2020 — many conservatives see his campaign as providing a template for how to delicately embrace Trumpism in blue states.“What he’s done is he’s danced on the edge of a knife for seven months,” said Mr. Fredericks, who initially backed a more overtly pro-Trump candidate before Mr. Youngkin won the Republican nomination. “But he’s built a coalition that is very formidable — Trump voters and angry parents.” He added, “I think Trump supporters understand there really is no time for internal squabbling or hurt feelings. They understand the stakes of this election are enormous.”Mr. Youngkin’s Republican detractors, however, see an opportunistic politician pandering to the party’s base.“Whether he believes in this Trump stuff or if he’s trafficking in it, I don’t know,” said David Ramadan, a former Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates who now teaches at George Mason University. “But if he doesn’t really believe this stuff and is just trafficking in it,” Mr. Ramadan added, “that’s worse than believing it.”The Youngkin campaign did not respond to an interview request.On paper at least, Mr. Youngkin, 54, is an odd fit for a party that has rejected the elitism he embodies. In fact, his life and career have had far more in common with Mitt Romney’s than Mr. Trump’s: a degree from Harvard Business School, a long and lucrative career in private equity, devout religious convictions and even a family love of horses. He owns a 31-acre horse farm in Fairfax County with his wife, Suzanne.Before he entered the governor’s race — his first try at elected office — Mr. Youngkin donated extensively to Republican candidates who were aligned with the party’s establishment wing: Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor; Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Senator Rob Portman of Ohio; and former Representative Paul Ryan, according to federal campaign finance records. He gave Mr. Romney’s campaign and its allied political groups $75,000 during the 2012 campaign, records show.Those affiliations and his lack of a reputation in Virginia Republican politics made many conservatives skeptical of Mr. Youngkin. His background did, too. He worked as a consultant for McKinsey & Company before joining the Carlyle Group, a Washington-based private equity firm with deep roots in the political establishment. He worked there for more than 25 years, climbing the ranks and eventually becoming a co-chief executive officer. He announced he was leaving the firm in the summer of 2020 and declared his candidacy for governor a few months later.As the country’s culture wars reached a boiling point earlier this year, angry parents in Loudoun County denounced school administrators for implementing a curriculum that they said taught white students they were racist. Mr. Youngkin seized on the issue, surprising conservatives who assumed he was more in the mold of Republicans who have fallen out of favor with the activist base.“Where you have to give Glenn Youngkin credit is he leaned into it,” said Terry Schilling, president of the Virginia-based American Principles Project, which has been running pro-Youngkin ads. “I didn’t see a willingness from him to take these issues on. I just assumed he was a Mitt Romney-type candidate.”One of the group’s ads centers on the sexual assault of a girl in a high school bathroom, a case that conservatives have used to criticize transgender bathroom laws, although it was not clear the attacker in that case was transgender. In a speech last week, Mr. Youngkin linked the case to the campaign themes he has aimed at anxious suburban parents.“What other tragedy awaits Virginia’s children?” he asked.Mr. Youngkin has also vowed that if elected, he would ban the teaching in public schools of critical race theory, an academic body of thought about the effects of systemic racism that has galvanized conservatives around the country. It is generally not introduced until college and is not part of classroom teaching in Virginia.At a parent-focused rally in Winchester, Va., supporters listened to Mr. Youngkin. Jason Andrew for The New York TimesSome Republicans have been surprised at the audience their messages have found in Virginia, a state that has steadily trended away from the party in the last decade. Polls have generally put the race in a dead heat between Mr. Youngkin and his Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe, a former governor and a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, but a Fox News survey released Thursday showed Mr. Youngkin pulling away from Mr. McAuliffe, with an eight-percentage-point lead among likely voters, exceeding the poll’s margin of sampling error.Mr. Youngkin began his campaign by selling himself as a political outsider and businessman who would bring competence and common sense to the governor’s mansion. “I was tired of watching what was happening with folks that have never really run anything,” he said in an interview with Fox Business in February. Early on, he nodded to the exaggerated claims by pro-Trump Republicans that fraud had tipped the 2020 election and established a task force to recruit citizens to help his campaign monitor balloting in Virginia.He made little secret of his desire to avoid getting dragged into debates over social issues and was secretly filmed by a liberal activist saying that he couldn’t talk about abortion because he would alienate independent voters. But when the debate over critical race theory started consuming conservative media, Mr. Youngkin wasn’t so taciturn.“Critical race theory has moved into our school system and we have to remove it,” he told Fox News in August.Increasingly, Mr. Schilling with the American Principles Project and other conservative activists see the Virginia race as a dress rehearsal for the 2022 midterm elections. Those races, they said, are likely to hinge on parents of schoolchildren who believe their public schools have become battlegrounds in the culture wars.“If Youngkin pulls this out, or even if he outperforms expectations, I think what you’re going to see in 2022 is a Tea Party-like movement centered on families and schools,” Mr. Schilling said.If Mr. Youngkin prevails, it will be in part thanks to Republicans who decided it did not matter what he believed.“I don’t know where his heart is,” Mr. Schilling added. “I’m not thinking a lot about it.” More

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      Will We See Red or Blue Mirages in Election Results on Tuesday?

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      Mail-in ballots skewed early returns in some states in 2020. Will the trend repeat itself on Tuesday?Sign up here to get On Politics in your inbox on Tuesdays and Thursdays.Virginia was not close last November. Joseph R. Biden Jr. won there by 10 percentage points, roughly the same margin by which then-President Donald J. Trump won Alaska.But for hours after the polls closed in Virginia, partial returns showed Biden trailing, at times by substantial margins — around 18 points, for instance, as of 9 p.m. Eastern time.Part of that was geography; the rural, conservative counties of southwestern Virginia tend to start reporting election results before the more populous Democratic strongholds of Northern Virginia. But it was also a product of something new: a so-called red mirage. Because so many Democrats voted by mail in response to the pandemic and mail-in ballots took longer to process, the early returns were so skewed that even an easy win didn’t look like it for hours. And narrow wins? Well, just look at Georgia or Pennsylvania, which weren’t called for Biden for days.Other states started processing mail-in ballots first, creating blue mirages. Around the same time that Trump appeared to be running away with Virginia, Biden appeared narrowly ahead in Ohio, where he actually lost by eight percentage points.Now, the question is whether the mirages were one more weird 2020 thing, or whether they are now a long-term feature of U.S. politics.More specifically: Should we expect to see mirages in the important elections happening around the country next Tuesday? Like the Virginia governor’s race between the Democrat Terry McAuliffe and the Republican Glenn Youngkin? Or the race for a seat on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court?On the one hand, the state of the world, and of U.S. politics, is not what it was last fall. The coronavirus case rate is decreasing, about two-thirds of Americans have received at least one dose of a vaccine, and there are fewer restrictions on daily activities. And while Trump’s lies about fraud in last year’s election have infused nearly every corner of the Republican Party, his broadsides against early and mail voting are no longer in the headlines every day.Christina Freundlich, a spokeswoman for McAuliffe, said the campaign’s data showed that many Democrats who voted by mail last year were returning to in-person voting on Election Day this year. Conversely, my colleague Nick Corasaniti reports that some Republicans are realizing that maligning early and mail voting could hurt them, and are encouraging their supporters to consider those methods. Together, these trends could narrow the partisan gap between early and Election Day ballots.But narrowing is not eliminating.Consider California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom soundly defeated a Republican recall effort last month. With two-thirds of ballots counted, he was about five percentage points ahead of where he ended up with all ballots counted. While the shift was irrelevant in a race Newsom won by a huge margin, it was more than large enough to have created a false impression if the race had been competitive.McAuliffe’s campaign expects early returns in Virginia to be skewed toward Youngkin. That is likely to be the case regardless of who ultimately wins..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}If the 2020 election is a guide, partial results in Pennsylvania — where voters will decide an expensive and contentious race for a state Supreme Court seat that is currently held by a Republican — could be similarly misleading.It’s harder to predict whether we’ll see mirages elsewhere, much less their color, because many states have revised their election procedures since November.In New Jersey, home to a governor’s race that is expected to be less competitive than Virginia’s (Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, has a strong polling lead over his Republican opponent, Jack Ciattarelli), the early presidential returns were pretty similar to the final results. But that may be because New Jersey ran last year’s election almost entirely by mail, and it’s hard to have a mirage when almost everyone votes by the same method. The state is not doing that this time around.Other notable races next week are for the mayors of Atlanta (Georgia had a red mirage last year), Boston (Massachusetts had no major mirage), Buffalo and New York City (New York State had no major mirage), Detroit (Michigan had a red mirage), Minneapolis (Minnesota had no major mirage) and Seattle (Washington conducts all-mail elections, so no mirage).But if we can’t predict where the mirages will be, we can say this: They will not in any way be evidence of foul play, as Trump so vociferously and falsely claimed after his loss. They’re just the way our elections work now. There is nothing nefarious about election administration procedures varying from state to state, or certain ballots being easier and faster to count than others.So don’t celebrate — or panic — based on what you see at 9 p.m. You might just be in that alternate universe where Trump won Virginia and Biden won Ohio.Change into comfy pajamas and check back in the morning.nine days of ideas to remake our futureAs world leaders gather in Glasgow for consequential climate change negotiations, join us at The New York Times Climate Hub to explore answers to one of the most urgent questions of our time: How do we adapt and thrive on a changing planet? Glasgow, Scotland, Nov. 3-11; in person and online. Get tickets at nytclimatehub.com.On Politics is also available as a newsletter. Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Why the Virginia Election Is Freaking Democrats Out

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      With just under a week to go, the governor’s race in Virginia has gotten tighter than Spanx on a hippo, prompting much agita in Democratic circles. When the Democrats won full control of the statehouse in 2019, for the first time in over 20 years, many political watchers declared the swing state’s blue shift complete. But a recent poll from Monmouth University has the party’s nominee, the former governor Terry McAuliffe, tied with Glenn Youngkin, a former private equity exec who has flirted with the election-fraud lies that are now dogma in Donald Trump’s G.O.P.Virginia has a pesky habit of picking governors from the party that doesn’t hold the White House. To raise the stakes: This election is seen as a harbinger of next year’s midterms. Mobilizing base voters is considered the key to victory.None of which is great news for the Democratic Party, which is confronting multiple warning signs that its voters are not all that fired up about the Virginia race — or about politics in general.The Monmouth poll found Virginia Republicans more motivated and more enthusiastic than Democrats about this election, a gap that has widened in recent months.Terry McAuliffeDrew Angerer/Getty ImagesCompounding concerns are findings from a series of focus groups conducted this year by the Democratic firm Lake Research Partners, targeting Democrats considered less likely to turn out at the polls. It found a couple of reasons that some Virginia women are uninspired by the political scene. Among Black women, there is frustration that Democrats won’t deliver for them, and so it doesn’t much matter which party’s candidates win, explains Joshua Ulibarri, who heads the firm’s Virginia research. Among younger women, especially Latinas and white women, there is a sense that the Trump danger has passed and that they can let their guard down. “They think we have slayed the giant,” says Mr. Ulibarri. “They think Republicans are more sane and centered now.”Oof. Who’s going to break it to them?The challenge extends beyond Virginia. Almost half of women in four crucial swing states — Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — are paying less attention to politics since Mr. Trump left office, according to a May survey by American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic super PAC. This includes 46 percent of Biden voters — particularly those who are younger, are college educated or are urban dwellers. Focus groups that the firm conducted in August yielded similar findings.When it comes to 2022, younger voters are feeling particularly uninspired, according to a September survey by Lake Research and Emerson College Polling on behalf of All In Together, an advocacy group that encourages women’s involvement in politics. Only 35 percent of voters 18 to 29 years old said they were very motivated to vote next year, and just 28 percent said they were certain to vote. “This engagement gap could be a major concern for Democrats,” the group noted, pointing to research from Tufts University showing the importance of young voters to Joe Biden’s candidacy in multiple swing states last year.This kind of deflation was perhaps inevitable. The Trump years were the political equivalent of being tweaked out on meth 24/7. All those scandals. All those protests. So many constitutional crises. Two impeachments. It was enough to exhaust any normal person.Mr. Biden built his brand on the promise to dial back the crazy and start the healing. Non-MAGA voters liked him in part because they longed for a president — and a political scene — they could forget about for weeks on end. Having weathered the storm, everyone deserves a break.But if Democrats lose their sense of urgency when it comes to voting, the party is in serious trouble. Republicans are working hard to keep their voters outraged and thus primed to turn out. They are seeking to capitalize on a difference in motivation between the parties that Mr. Trump neatly exploited in his rise to power.As is often noted, the essence of the modern Republican Party has been boiled down to: Own the libs. The impulse on the other side is not parallel. Democrats try to mobilize their voters with promises to enact popular policies — paid family leave, expanded Medicare coverage, cheaper prescription drugs, universal pre-K and so on. Democratic voters were desperate to send Mr. Trump packing. But beyond that, what many, many blue-staters want isn’t to own red-state America so much as to return to ignoring it altogether.Conservatives see the culture and economy evolving in key ways, leaving them behind. Ignoring the shift isn’t an option for them. Mr. Trump electrified much of red-state America by promising to beat back the changes — and, better still, bring to heel the condescending urban elites driving them. The lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen further fuels conservatives’ existing sense that progressives are destroying their world.Outrage and fear are powerful motivators — ones at which Mr. Trump and his breed of Republicans excel. So while the non-MAGA electorate may be rightly exhausted, Democrats should beware of letting their voters get comfy or complacent just because Mr. Trump is currently cooling his heels in Florida. That is exactly what his Republican Party is counting on in Virginia — and everywhere else.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      In Virginia, Early Voting Has an Impact. And a Long Run.

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      The pandemic has helped convert more and more voters into early voters, as hundreds of thousands of Virginians have made clear in recent weeks.In the tight race for governor of Virginia, Election Day has morphed into Election Month.By the time voters cast their ballots on Election Day next Tuesday, hundreds of thousands of other voters will have already done so in person and by mail during a month and a half of early voting. The state’s six-week early voting period, one of the longest in the country, began on Sept. 17 and ends on Saturday.More than 724,965 ballots had been cast in person and by mail as of Monday, more than triple the early turnout four years ago, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan group that tracks voting data.The surge in early voting signals that the sea change in voting habits in 2020 may forever alter elections around the country.The coronavirus pandemic has helped convert more and more voters into early voters — in the 2020 presidential election, the early vote made up 63 percent of the electorate, up from 36 percent in 2016. Even as conservatives have attacked the legitimacy of voting by mail with false claims of widespread fraud, the popularity of early voting in Virginia by both Democrats and Republicans has been shaping the dynamics of the race and may play a role in delaying the final results if the election is extraordinarily close.Before 2020 in Virginia, early voting lasted for seven days and required an excuse from voters. Last year, the State Legislature extended early voting to up to 45 days and expanded access to all voters by removing the excuse requirement, a response, in part, to the pandemic.“We used to shove four million voters through the doors in 13 hours,” said Christopher E. Piper, the commissioner of the Virginia Department of Elections. “Now we can do that over the course of 45 days.”The shift in voting habits creates a host of new electoral difficulties.With more voters casting ballots by mail, postal system delays are threatening to disenfranchise thousands of voters. With hundreds of thousands of votes cast, but no party registration data in Virginia, both candidates are pushing internal campaign projections to claim momentum.And if the race is extremely close, final results might not be known for days, akin to the 2020 presidential election.Virginia requires that counties begin processing ballots this week by opening the envelopes, checking for eligibility and scanning them. But the state also accepts ballots that were postmarked by Election Day but not received by officials until the following Friday (18 other states and the District of Columbia have similar provisions). In 2020, 10,901 ballots were received and counted after Election Day in Virginia.If the race between Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate, and Glenn Youngkin, the Republican candidate, is extremely close, those late-arriving ballots, coupled with an expected increase in provisional ballots, could be pivotal. A winner may not be projected for up to a week.“I think that’s the future of everybody’s elections the more we go to voting by mail as an option for voters,” said Scott O. Konopasek, the director of elections for Fairfax County, the largest county in Virginia. “If there’s any close races, we’re not going to know until after the Friday after the election.”While the surge in early voting has exceeded the early turnout in 2016, the numbers this year have failed to keep up with 2020, in part because the Virginia election is an off-year race. Still, based on current early voting trends, overall turnout could top out around 2.6 million, roughly on par with the 2017 elections, according to Michael McDonald, a professor of politics at the University of Florida who studies voting.So far, early vote totals in Virginia reflect more of a shift in behavior than a rise in turnout, as 90 percent of early voters in Virginia this year also voted early in the 2020 election, according to TargetSmart, a Democratic political data firm..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“Some people weren’t aware that they could vote by absentee ballot or vote early in 2020, because that was the first election that this law was changed, and now they just like doing it,” Mr. McDonald said.Partisan models show Democrats continuing to outpace Republicans at a significant clip for early voting. But one of the voting blocs that has been a concern for the McAuliffe campaign has been the youth vote.Voters between the ages of 18 and 29 made up less than 6 percent of the early vote according to TargetSmart. In past elections young voters were roughly 10 percent of the early vote. Currently, more than half of early voters have been over the age of 64, TargetSmart found. The only age bloc former President Donald J. Trump carried in the state during the 2020 election was those over 64.Young voters between the ages of 18 and 29 make up less than 6 percent of the early vote in Virginia this year, according to one Democratic political data firm.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesDemocrats have also had to contend with some election administration issues during the early vote. Last week, the Democratic Party of Virginia sued the Postal Service for what it claimed was an unusually slow processing of more than 25,000 mail ballots across three key counties: Albemarle, James City and Portsmouth.The lawsuit asks a federal court to force the Postal Service to process all the remaining ballots in those counties in 24 hours.But amid those challenges, the McAuliffe campaign has been claiming momentum, heightened by a significant uptick in voting last week in key Northern Virginia suburbs. Deeply blue Fairfax nearly tripled turnout after more voting locations were opened across the county.“This year we expect to have the highest voter turnout ever seen in a nonpresidential year in Virginia,” said Christina Freundlich, a spokeswoman for the McAuliffe campaign. “We have seen a meaningful jump in the daily early vote totals from the past week, with over 250,000 ballots cast since last Monday, concentrated in high-density Democratic areas in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads.”The new laws that opened access to early voting, approved by a Democratic-controlled State Legislature and a Democratic governor in both 2020 and 2021, were criticized by some Republicans as attempting to write partisan advantage into the election code. Early voting by mail has been a constant target of Mr. Trump.But Mr. Youngkin has aggressively embraced early voting and vote by mail, often holding rallies near early-voting sites, encouraging attendees to vote afterward. His campaign runs text messaging programs geared toward early voting, and door-to-door knockers help chase down mail ballots.“Republicans don’t normally vote early, so we’re trying to set a new culture,” said Jeff Roe, a senior adviser to the Youngkin campaign who also advised the presidential campaigns of Mr. Trump in 2020 and Senator Ted Cruz in 2016.Mr. Youngkin’s campaign says its focus on early voting is aiding his chances. While the data from both campaigns show Democrats with a lead in early-voting numbers, the Youngkin team claims it is outpacing Mr. Trump’s 2020 performance in Democratic counties, including Chesterfield and Henrico near Richmond and Virginia Beach in the east.“We are on track to be in a good spot starting Election Day,” said Kristin Davison, a senior strategist for the Youngkin campaign.Lisa Lerer More

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      in US Politics

      Biden condemns ‘acolyte of Trump’ in crucial Virginia governor’s race

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      Joe BidenBiden condemns ‘acolyte of Trump’ in crucial Virginia governor’s raceAt rally for Democrat Terry McAuliffe, president paints tight election as referendum on his own tenure David Smith in Arlington, Virginia@smithinamericaTue 26 Oct 2021 22.28 EDTLast modified on Tue 26 Oct 2021 23.13 EDTJoe Biden has framed a nail-bitingly close race for governor of Virginia as a referendum on his young presidency and an opportunity to rebuke his predecessor, Donald Trump.Seemingly liberated from the formal trappings of office by a return to the campaign trail, Biden used a rally in Arlington, Virginia, to launch an unusually scathing and sustained attack on the former president.Why Virginia holds the key to the 2022 US midterms: Politics Weekly Extra podcastRead moreBiden had made the short journey from Washington to speak in support of the Democrat Terry McAuliffe, who faces a tight election against the Republican Glenn Youngkin next week.“Just remember this: I ran against Donald Trump,” he told an estimated 2,500 people gathered in a park on a chilly Tuesday night. “And Terry is running against an acolyte of Donald Trump.”The election in Virginia is seen as the most important of the year, offering a window on to public sentiment about Biden’s first nine months in office and a preview of what to expect in next year’s midterm elections for Congress.McAuliffe, a former governor seeking to return to the post, is a career politician and establishment Democrat long associated with Bill and Hillary Clinton. Youngkin, by contrast, is a business executive who has never held elected office.Polls once gave McAuliffe a clear lead in a state where no Republican has won statewide office since 2009, and where Biden beat Trump by 10 percentage points last year. But Youngkin has been closing the gap, hammering away at “culture war” issues in schools as part of a bid to peel off suburban votes.Biden, speaking at a McAuliffe rally for the second time, was greeted by enthusiastic cheers but also heckled by climate activists during his remarks. He said: “It’s not a Trump rally. We let ’em holler.”He went on to confirm that the state-level race has taken on a national significance. Biden ran through McAuliffe’s accomplishments as governor, for example on gun safety, and his own presidential record on issues such as the coronavirus pandemic.He also noted how Youngkin has been walking a fine line between accepting Trump’s endorsement and barely mentioning him in speeches, a sign that the former president is toxic to most Virginians.Youngkin had begun his campaign calling for “election integrity” to ally himself with Trump’s “big lie”, the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen, Biden said. “It was price he had to pay for the nomination and he paid it. But now he doesn’t want to talk about Trump any more. Well, I do.”The president elicited laughter from the crowd by saying: “Talk about an oxymoron: Donald Trump and election integrity?! I can’t believe he put the words Trump and integrity in the same sentence.”Biden lambasted Trump for his “offensive words” following the deaths of Colin Powell, the former secretary of state, and Senator John McCain. “That’s who Donald Trump is,” he said. He also pointed to the examples of Florida and Texas, where Republican leaders have shifted right, and urged Virginians to avoid a similar fate. “The Republican party nationally is for nothing. Not a joke. Nothing.”But Biden’s sinking approval rating in recent weeks makes it unclear how much of a boost he can offer McAuliffe, who also enlisted Barack Obama last weekend to help him fight apathy and election weariness among Democratic voters. A loss by McAuliffe on 2 November would cause deep anxiety among Democrats and spell trouble for Biden’s presidency.In the final days of the campaign, both candidates are focused on turning out their base supporters, with Republicans pressing culture war issues, prompting a debate over banning books in high school classrooms. On Monday the Youngkin campaign released an ad featuring a mother who once sought to have the novel Beloved by Toni Morrison banned from classrooms. The mother’s advocacy led to state legislation, vetoed by Governor McAuliffe in 2016 and 2017, that would have let parents opt out of their children studying classroom materials with sexually explicit content.Democrats attacked Youngkin’s ad and accused him of trying to “silence” Black authors. McAuliffe’s campaign highlighted the controversy during his rally by passing out copies of Beloved to reporters.Biden said: “He’s gone from banning a woman’s right to choose to banning books written by a Pulitzer prize and Nobel prize-winning author, Toni Morrison.”McAuliffe said that Youngkin “is ending his campaign the way he started it: with divisive dog whistles”. He added: “He wants to bring his personal culture wars into our classrooms. Folks, we will not allow Glenn Youngkin to bring his hate, his chaos, into our Virginia schools.”TopicsJoe BidenVirginiaUS politicsDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Why McAuliffe Isn’t Mentioning Biden in Virginia Governor Race

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      Terry McAuliffe attacks Trump, but avoids talking about his Democratic ally in the White House — pointing up a vulnerability for the party next Tuesday, and beyond.RESTON, Va. — In Terry McAuliffe’s tough fight for a new term as Virginia’s governor, he has been striving to frame the election as a referendum on a president.Just not the one who is currently sitting in the Oval Office.For weeks, Mr. McAuliffe has made little mention of President Biden, instead using his campaign rallies, media interviews and millions of dollars in campaign advertising to make the race all about former President Donald J. Trump.In a way, Mr. Biden’s scheduled campaign stop with Mr. McAuliffe Tuesday evening, as part of a last-week effort to energize Democratic voters, highlights just how little he has been present in the race at all.The delicate distance Mr. McAuliffe has put between his campaign and the president, his friend of four decades — whom Mr. McAuliffe helped carry Virginia by 10 points just a year ago — underscores a difficult reality for Democrats looking anxiously ahead to the midterm elections next year. With his moderate, art-of-the-possible politics, Mr. Biden fails to rouse anywhere near the same passions as Mr. Trump, who spurred Democrats to the polls in record numbers throughout his four years in office. Nor has Mr. Biden’s administration given Mr. McAuliffe much to advertise, after months of Democratic infighting on Capitol Hill over the president’s dwindling domestic ambitions.Rather, in an off-year election with outsize national importance, Mr. Biden has loomed as the unnamed president just offstage: largely ignored in favor of his predecessor, though his own performance is a major factor in the closeness of the race and could play a big role in its outcome.Democrats reject the idea that the race is a referendum on Mr. Biden’s presidency, but there is widespread acquiescence to the idea that the party’s fortunes are yoked to his standing — a shift in strategy from the 2010 and 2014 midterms, when a number of Democratic candidates for competitive seats distanced themselves from former President Barack Obama. This, in turn, has sent waves of anxiety through Democratic circles, as lawmakers prepare for what are expected to be difficult congressional campaigns in 2022.“I don’t know if it’s a referendum on Biden, exactly — it’s just a general feeling of not understanding why nothing can get done,” said John Morgan, a Florida trial lawyer and top donor to both Mr. Biden and Mr. McAuliffe. He said he largely blamed congressional Democrats for the tightening of the Virginia race.“The party is single-handedly torpedoing Terry McAuliffe,” Mr. Morgan said. “And I think that if Terry loses, Democrats just need to grab a hold of themselves, because the midterms are going to be a blood bath.”Virginia’s off-year elections do not always accurately foreshadow the midterm results: Mr. McAuliffe won in 2013, defying the state’s pattern of electing a governor from the party that does not hold the White House, yet Republicans won the midterms the following year. And many fatigued Democratic voters now simply want to tune out national politics altogether.But strategists in both parties say Mr. Biden’s early struggles and the lack of enthusiasm around his presidency could be a decisive factor.“The overriding factor in the environment is not Donald Trump, it’s Biden’s approval rating,” said Tucker Martin, a Republican strategist in Richmond who voted for Mr. Biden but plans to support Glenn Youngkin, a Republican and former private equity executive, over Mr. McAuliffe. “Both these candidates, they’re really captive to the national political environment. That’s the reality.”Advisers to Mr. McAuliffe note that his contest with Mr. Youngkin tightened at the end of the summer, just as Mr. Biden’s approval rating began to fall, as the president’s promise of a return to normalcy faltered in the face of the Delta variant, chaos on the southern border and the tumultuous withdrawal from Afghanistan.But they see hopeful signs in the fact that Mr. McAuliffe’s support remains higher than Mr. Biden’s approval rating, which hovers in the low to mid-40s — lower than that of any president than Mr. Trump at this early stage.Mr. Biden, left, campaigned for Mr. McAuliffe in the summer around the time that the race tightened and Mr. Biden’s approval ratings fell.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesMr. Biden’s declining approval ratings among core Democratic constituencies, including young, Latino and Black voters, could inhibit turnout efforts for Mr. McAuliffe, complicating his path to victory in a race that could hinge on which candidate best mobilizes his base..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media 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a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Swing voters in the suburbs have gotten over their early excitement about replacing Mr. Trump, said Christine Matthews, a Republican pollster who has run focus groups about the Virginia contest. While Mr. Biden’s victory at first inspired “ginormous relief,” she said, “Now, there’s a realization like, Oh, yeah, Biden’s not perfect, and things aren’t feeling enormously better.”Neither Mr. McAuliffe nor Mr. Youngkin has mentioned Mr. Biden in his ads, according to AdImpact, which tracks campaign commercials, underscoring how little he motivates voters in either party — a striking change after many years in which sitting presidents routinely played starring roles in advertisements by candidates in both parties.In the closing weeks of the race, Mr. McAuliffe, who served a term as governor from 2014 to 2018 but was barred from a second consecutive term by Virginia law, has tried to put some daylight between his campaign and Mr. Biden’s administration. Though he never directly criticizes the president, Mr. McAuliffe has repeatedly highlighted the political risk posed by congressional inaction on the president’s legislative agenda. In private conversations with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the White House, allies of Mr. McAuliffe say he has argued that the souring national environment is hurting his chances.“We are facing a lot of headwinds from Washington,” Mr. McAuliffe, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said during a virtual call with supporters this month. “As you know, the president is unpopular today, unfortunately, here in Virginia, so we have got to plow through.”Mr. McAuliffe downplayed the remark, saying he was referring to a general sense of frustration with inaction in Washington. But it was a sharp departure from earlier in the race when Mr. McAuliffe predicted his state would “take off like a booster rocket” if he was elected governor and could work with Mr. Biden.The tonal shift is particularly striking, given the long friendship between the two men and the similarities in their political brands as experienced party insiders with centrist leanings. Mr. McAuliffe declined to run for president in April 2019 after a three-hour dinner with Mr. Biden during which the future president laid out his path to victory — one based on the same kind of consensus-oriented platform that Mr. McAuliffe had envisioned for himself.“I love the guy,” Mr. McAuliffe said of Mr. Biden at the time. “I’m a big fan.”Mr. Biden’s promises to move past polarizing politics helped him win the White House, offering a refuge for voters tired of the turbulence of the Trump era. Now, however, at a moment when Democrats need to marshal their forces, the prospect of calm leadership and a diminished agenda may not be so enticing to his Democratic base.Wes Bellamy, a co-chair of Our Black Party, which promotes the political priorities of Black voters, said Mr. Biden was not inspiring the same sort of loyalty from Black voters that Mr. Obama did.“Black folks came out in droves for the Biden administration,” said Mr. Bellamy, a former Charlottesville city councilman who was named to a statewide education post during Mr. McAuliffe’s first term. “And there has been a lot of people who really feel the administration hasn’t delivered on many of the things they wish they did.”To animate Democrats, Mr. McAuliffe has spent millions tying Mr. Youngkin to Mr. Trump, portraying the former president as a grave and continuing threat to democracy and to Democratic values like abortion rights.But some party strategists say it is not enough for Democrats to campaign on what they can block; with control of Congress and the White House, they need to be able to run on what they have accomplished.“The lack of base intensity is based on Democrats not delivering, after people spent four years resisting Trump and getting Democratic majorities,” said Tom Perriello, a Virginia Democrat who lost his seat in Congress after supporting Mr. Obama’s health care law in 2010 and blamed congressional moderates for stalling passage of Mr. Biden’s legislative agenda.Yet some Democrats worry that any distinction between the president and the party’s dueling factions in Congress will be lost on voters.“In America we’ve loved to shoot the messenger, and the messenger is always the president,” said Mr. Morgan, the Democratic donor. “We can’t shoot Trump. He’s gone. So you can either blame Biden or God.” More