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      Virginia’s Governor Race Holds Clues for Control of Congress in 2022

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      The tight governor’s race in Virginia is a proving ground for strategies that could help determine control of Congress next year.Terry McAuliffe, the Democrat running for governor of Virginia, distilled the election into a single sentence.“It all adds up to the same thing here: Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump,” he said the other day.Contests for governor in Virginia have long been a barometer of the national political mood a year into a new presidency. For Democrats, the stakes have never seemed higher: A defeat for Mr. McAuliffe, a popular former governor seeking his old job back, could deal a devastating blow to the party’s confidence heading into next year’s midterms and to its strategy of running against Mr. Trump even when he is not on the ballot.For Republicans the stakes are less fraught: Their nominee, Glenn Youngkin, a first-time candidate, could lose narrowly given Virginia’s increasingly blue tinge but still represent a proof of concept that a G.O.P. candidate can unite the party’s moderates and hard-liners without going all in on Trumpism.Whether it is Mr. McAuliffe hammering away at Mr. Trump’s attempts to subvert the 2020 election or Mr. Youngkin walking a Trump tightrope — nodding to the base on election fraud, while keeping the former president partly at arm’s length — Mr. Trump has been an unavoidable factor in the Virginia campaign.The unexpectedly close contest, which is effectively the opening act of the 2022 midterms, will also test the two parties’ appeal to the most crucial and coveted voters nationwide — those in populous and diverse suburbs, who are widely expected to decide the Virginia race as well as control of Congress next year.“I think every Democrat is following Virginia as a bellwether,” Gordon Hintz, the Democratic leader of Wisconsin’s State Assembly, said. “It definitely set the tone in 2017 for the 2018 cycle.”Beyond the broad-brush strategies, each candidate has landed on a favorite issue in the final two weeks before the Nov. 2 election, both of which are likely to feature prominently in races elsewhere. For Mr. McAuliffe, the issue is abortion rights, newly under threat in the Supreme Court. For Mr. Youngkin, the issue is parental control of schools, which could broaden his appeal to independents who abandoned the G.O.P. under Mr. Trump.Polls show a statistically tied race in Virginia, with worrying implications for President Biden, who easily won the state. Democrats say they are battling stiff but temporary headwinds: rising inflation, the lingering pandemic and an impression of Democratic incompetency in Washington, where the party has been in a stalemate over passing its big domestic priorities.“Youngkin, to his credit, has done a real good job of maintaining the loyalty of the Trump base while attempting to generate some suburban defections from the Democratic Party,’’ said Bob Holsworth, a longtime Virginia political analyst. “If a Republican can win in Virginia talking about critical race theory, about his pro-life beliefs — a state Biden carried by 10 points — it would be far more than a wake-up call for Democrats. It would be somebody playing reveille in their bedrooms with a trumpet.”Virginians, who vote for governor a year after presidential elections, have a long record of rebuking the party that holds the White House. Mr. McAuliffe’s win in 2013, a year after President Barack Obama was re-elected, was the sole exception in four decades. During the Trump years, the state swung even more toward Democrats in state and federal elections, driven by college-educated voters in the suburbs of Northern Virginia and Richmond who rejected the president’s divisive leadership.Terry McAuliffe is trying to link his opponent to Donald Trump as a way to motivate voters.Eze Amos for The New York TimesMr. Biden’s capture of 54 percent of suburban voters nationally last year was chiefly what put him in the White House. Suburbanites tipped battleground states including Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona. They also hold the key to the majority of competitive House races in 2022. Whether Democrats have earned suburbanites’ long-term allegiance or Mr. Biden merely “rented” them, as strategists like to put it, is a major question that the Virginia election could help clarify.Republicans think they already know the answer. “The closeness of this race suggests the suburban swing voter is moving back to Republicans fast,’’ said Dan Conston, president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC that focuses on House races. “That is a warning sign for the many incumbent Democrats in swing suburban districts.’’But Democrats believe that fear of Trumpism will keep the suburbs in their corner. Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, chairman of the Democrats’ 2022 congressional campaign arm, said recently he was advising members in competitive suburban seats to run against “Trump toxicity without Trump on the ballot.”“You’ve got to remind them the other side is for insurrection, when we’re trying to do infrastructure,” Mr. Maloney said, speaking to the liberal podcast “Pod Save America.” “They’re for fighting, when we’re trying to fix problems.’’From the beginning, Mr. McAuliffe’s playbook has been to fuse Mr. Youngkin with Mr. Trump in voters’ minds. A new TV ad this week tries to link Mr. Youngkin to the former president’s equivocation about the white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville in 2017.Mr. McAuliffe was handed fresh ammunition last week when Mr. Trump phoned in an endorsement of Mr. Youngkin to a rally that began by reciting the Pledge of Allegiance using a flag that organizers said had been carried on Jan. 6 in Washington. Mr. McAuliffe pounced, and Mr. Youngkin, who had not attended the rally, issued a statement calling the use of the flag “weird and wrong.”Glenn Youngkin, center, is focusing on parental control of schools, which could broaden his appeal to independents.Eze Amos for The New York TimesMr. Youngkin has tried to straddle the party’s divisions, appealing to Mr. Trump’s devotees as well as to moderate Republicans and independents. The enthusiasm edge that some polls show Virginia Republicans hold over Democrats suggests he has had some success in uniting the party.That’s not an easy feat. “Youngkin seems more adept at trying to avoid Trump,’’ said Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster who is working for several Senate candidates in competitive 2022 races. “The degree to which that is successful will be a strong signal to lots of races around the country.”Mr. Youngkin began the general election emphasizing the conventional Republican issues of taxes and job creation, but he is now aggressively leaning into conservative attacks on the way race is taught in schools and on giving parents more control.A yearlong uproar in Loudoun County, targeting school board members over policies about racial equity and transgender students, suggests that Mr. Youngkin may be able to harness an issue that not only turns out conservatives, but persuades some suburban moderates.Jon Seaton, a Republican strategist from Virginia, said the schools issue was breaking through to suburban parents. “In my little focus group on the sidelines of soccer games on weekends — I’m fairly certain they didn’t vote for Trump in 2020 — at least some are extremely frustrated by what’s going on in the public schools,’’ said Mr. Seaton, who consults for candidates around the country. “It’s certainly possible that education, for the first time in a very long time, becomes something that Republican candidates run on.’’Pressing the issue, Mr. Youngkin has spent more than $1 million on a TV ad that plucks a statement of Mr. McAuliffe’s from a debate slightly out of context, in which he said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”A Fox News poll of likely Virginia voters conducted last week showed a split decision on education. By a 23-point margin, parents among likely voters said they should have a say in what schools teach. However, when asked which candidate they backed, parents preferred Mr. McAuliffe 53 to 43 percent.For Mr. McAuliffe’s part, abortion is the issue he has leaned into in the race’s final stretch, spending heavily on a TV ad showing hidden-camera video of Mr. Youngkin acknowledging that he must publicly downplay his opposition to abortion to win independent voters, but promising to go “on offense” if elected.A second McAuliffe TV ad on abortion predicted that the Supreme Court would overturn Roe v. Wade and featured Mr. Youngkin saying he opposed adding a right to an abortion to Virginia’s constitution.Historically, a single-minded focus on abortion has driven mostly conservative voters. Now that abortion opponents appear on the brink of achieving what they have long sought, the power of the issue may shift toward Democrats. Its ability to motivate voters is receiving a trial run in Virginia. More

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      Virginia governor reveals his long Covid symptoms as he urges vaccinations

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      VirginiaVirginia governor reveals his long Covid symptoms as he urges vaccinationsRalph Northam had a mild case in September 2020 that left him with long-lasting effects, including loss of smell and taste Melody SchreiberTue 19 Oct 2021 07.00 EDTLast modified on Tue 19 Oct 2021 07.01 EDTMore than a year after testing positive for Covid-19, Virginia’s governor, Ralph Northam, is warning about the importance of vaccines and the long-lasting effects of Covid.After a mild case in September 2020 that felt like a sinus infection, Northam said in a video briefing that he was recovering quickly, and he waited for his sense of smell and taste to return. Instead, his symptoms gained force – when he drinks lemonade, it tastes like gasoline, and sometimes he smells smoke that isn’t there. Most of the time, though, he can’t smell or taste anything – including potential gas leaks when he restores vintage cars.These conditions are called parosmia, phantosmia and anosmia, and they are among the leading symptoms of Covid-19 – studies suggest that about half of Covid patients lose their senses of smell and taste. Most patients recover within a year, but those who don’t – like Northam – may never recover.Northam, a Democrat who is ineligible to run for re-election because the Virginia constitution prohibits incumbents from serving consecutive terms, is using the remaining three months of his term to renew calls for vaccination, with only 62% of Virginians fully vaccinated.He is especially urging younger people who may not think they’re at risk for the virus. Even mild and asymptomatic cases can lead to long-term symptoms like these. About half of Covid patients still have lingering symptoms, known as long Covid, six months after infection.“I’m 62, and I can deal with this,” Northam told the Virginian-Pilot. “But why take a chance, if you’re 15 or 20 years old or whatever age, of having symptoms that may affect you for the rest of your life?”Northam is currently the only governor-doctor in the US, and as a neurologist he is able to explain exactly how the virus affects his olfactory system and the neurons linking it to the brain.The damage occurs in the supporting cells, “which is kind of encouraging”, Northam said, “because most people think that, in time, they will actually regenerate and heal themselves, versus neurons that are a lot slower, and oftentimes don’t recover”.Northam is undergoing olfactory therapy, where he takes big whiffs of familiar scents – his morning coffee, peppermint gum, peanut butter – to try to connect his nose back to his brain.Vaccination can help prevent long Covid by preventing infection in the first place. Some patients also feel relief from long-term symptoms after becoming vaccinated.“I’ve had the virus and the vaccine – between the two, I’d take the vaccine any day,” Northam said in May. He’s continuing to speak about his long Covid symptoms in an aggressive push for vaccinations.Northam has announced vaccination-or-testing requirements for state workers in Virginia, and he also has urged business leaders to require Covid vaccines.“I would hope that you would step up as well and say the only way we’re going to move forward, the only way we’re going to keep our businesses alive and well, the only way we’re going to get our children back to school safely is to get people vaccinated,” he told business leaders in September.And it’s not just the risk of long-term effects from Covid. Vaccinations also help prevent severe illness and death.“You are absolutely hurting other people,” he told unvaccinated Virginians in a September briefing. “This all was avoidable.“Think about how you want your obituary to read, because you’re taking a foolish, dangerous chance and it affects many more people than just you.”TopicsVirginiaUS politicsCoronavirusnewsReuse this content More

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      As Trump Thunders About Last Election, Republicans Worry About the Next One

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      Donald Trump is the Republicans’ greatest asset in mobilizing voters. But some fret that his obsession with false claims about the 2020 election could cost the G.O.P. in 2022.Republicans believe they have a good shot at taking Congress next year. But there’s a catch.The G.O.P.’s ambitions of ending unified Democratic control in Washington in 2022 are colliding with a considerable force that has the ability to sway tens of millions of votes: former President Donald J. Trump’s increasingly vocal demands that members of his party remain in a permanent state of obedience, endorsing his false claims of a stolen election or risking his wrath.In a series of public appearances and statements over the last week, Mr. Trump has signaled not only that he plans to work against Republicans he deems disloyal, but also that his meritless claims that widespread voter fraud cost him the White House in 2020 will be his litmus test, going so far as to threaten that his voters will sit out future elections.“If we don’t solve the Presidential Election Fraud of 2020,” Mr. Trump said in a statement last week, “Republicans will not be voting in ’22 or ’24. It’s the single most important thing for Republicans to do.”The former president’s fixation on disproved conspiracy theories is frustrating to many in his party who see it as needlessly divisive at a time when Republicans feel they are poised to take back the House of Representatives and perhaps the Senate in the 2022 midterm elections. They worry he could cost Republicans otherwise winnable seats in Congress and complicate the party’s more immediate goal of winning the governor’s race in Virginia next month.The concern over Mr. Trump’s attempts to make all federal elections a referendum on him points to the larger debate among Republicans over what his role should be, as someone who remains singularly popular with the party’s base but is also a liability with swing voters and a motivator for Democrats to turn out.Some rising stars in the Republican Party — like Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, who ousted Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming from a House leadership post in a bitter intraparty fight over the Jan. 6 riots and Mr. Trump’s attempts to downplay them — have been clear: They want Mr. Trump to play a role in the 2022 midterms. Ms. Stefanik called him “an asset to Republicans on the ballot” at a fund-raiser last week.And top party strategists said they expected the former president to remain front and center in the Republicans’ campaign to retake control of the House. “He’s the leader of the party,” said Corry Bliss, a consultant to Republicans on congressional races. “The more energized and engaged he is, the better we’ll do.”But party officials believe Mr. Trump’s threat about his supporters staying home en masse is real. And the potency of his false claims about 2020 caught even some of his staunchest allies in the party off guard.The stakes are amplified by Mr. Trump’s increasingly pointed hints that he plans to be the party’s nominee in 2024.Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has been an outspoken supporter of Mr. Trump and the claims of voting irregularities during the 2020 election.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesRepresentative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has supported exhaustive audits of the 2020 results to look for evidence of voting irregularities that repeated reviews have failed to produce. Still, she has told colleagues that she was surprised by a recent survey of Republican voters in her district, according to one person who spoke with her about it.The internal survey found that 5 percent of Republican voters said they would sit out the 2022 election if the state of Georgia did not conduct a forensic audit of the 2020 election — a demand that some of Mr. Trump’s hard-core supporters have made. Another 4 percent said they would consider sitting out the election absent an audit.The possibility that nearly 10 percent of Republicans could sit out any election — even one in a solidly red district like the one held by Ms. Taylor Greene — was something Republican strategists said they found alarming.Since Mr. Trump left office, polls have repeatedly shown that large majorities of Republican voters want him to run in 2024. And roughly 40 percent of Republicans say they consider themselves to be primarily his supporters rather than supporters of the party — about the same share who said so last November, according to the political research firm Echelon Insights.Many Republicans don’t seem to want to hear anything critical about him. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center, for instance, highlighted the lack of an appetite for much dissent. Nearly two-thirds of Republicans, Pew found, said their party should not be accepting of elected officials who criticize Mr. Trump.Mr. Trump’s recent interference in the Virginia contest — where polls show the Republican candidate, Glenn Youngkin, narrowly trailing his Democratic rival, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe — worried advisers to Mr. Youngkin’s campaign. They watched as their carefully scripted plan to keep the race focused on their candidate and on claims that Democrats have veered too far left became engulfed by news coverage of the former president praising Mr. Youngkin at a political rally last week.Mr. Trump remains overwhelmingly popular within the Republican party.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesSome Republicans said they feared they were watching a preview of the awkward and unpleasant dilemma their candidates would face for the foreseeable future, as Mr. Trump remains the most popular figure in their party, determining what candidates say and how voters think.“Here is where Trump is so destructive,” said Barbara Comstock, a former Republican member of Congress who lost her seat in suburban Virginia in 2018. That year, voters in swing districts across the country turned against centrist incumbents like her in a repudiation of Mr. Trump.Trump’s Bid to Subvert the ElectionCard 1 of 6A monthslong campaign. More

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      Obama and Trump wade into key battle over Virginia’s governor seat

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      VirginiaObama and Trump wade into key battle over Virginia’s governor seat The race is unpredictable and tight, with former governor Terry McAuliffe up against Republican challenger Glenn Youngkin Edward HelmoreSat 16 Oct 2021 15.41 EDTLast modified on Sat 16 Oct 2021 15.43 EDTJoe Biden faces a key test of public standing in a tight and closely watched campaign for governor in Virginia next month. So important has the fight now become in being seen as a bellwether for the 2022 midterm elections, that two ex-presidents are weighing in on the battle.For Biden and the Democrats winning Virginia would hold out the prospect of keeping a grip on congress next year and avoiding being seen as a lame duck administration. For Republicans, a win could pre-sage a major comeback in 2022 and a return to electoral strength of a party still dominated by Donald Trump.The stakes are so high that both Trump and Barack Obama are intervening in the race.Why Virginia holds the key to the 2022 US midterms: Politics Weekly Extra podcastRead moreLast week, Trump called in to a gathering of Virginia supporters, urging them to vote for the Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin, and calling him “a great gentleman”. Meanwhile, Obama will later this month arrive in the state to boost turnout among Black voters. “The stakes could not be greater,” Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe said, as he announced Obama’s campaign support on MSNBC last week.The proxies in the contest, McAuliffe, a former governor running for the job he held from 2014-18, and first-time Republican challenger Youngkin, are currently polling relatively closely at 48.5% and 46.4%, according FiveThirtyEight – making the race unpredictable and tight.The men are running to replace the state’s Democratic governor Ralph Northam who has been in the party’s political doghouse since 2019 when it was revealed his 1984 medical school yearbook page contained a photo of one person dressed as a member of the KKK and another in blackface impersonating an African American.The Virginia race comes against a backdrop of bad news for Biden, who has seen his popularity fall in the aftermath of the botched Afghanistan withdrawal and legislative gridlock on the main plans of his domestic agenda and growing uncertainty of post-pandemic economic recovery. His approval rating has sunk from 55% in March to about 44% now.But so, too, does the contest present a test for Trump, who lost Virginia by 10% in 2020, but is increasingly seen to be gauging his hold on the Republican party and its voters ahead of the midterms, which could then swing his decision to run for re-election in 2024.Nor is Trump’s intervention in the race a win-win for Youngkin. The two men are not likely to campaign in person as Youngkin must simultaneously appeal to pro-Trump rural voters, but not telegraph any association so blatantly that he turns off moderate Republican voters in Virginia’s Washington-centric northern suburbs where elections in the state are often decided.Bob Holsworth, a longtime political analyst in the state, told the Washington Post that if Trump were to hold a rally in the state, it would be a “disaster” for Youngkin. “The more he shows up and he more he participates, the worse off it is for Youngkin,” he added.But Trump countered that political wisdom with some of his own: “The only guys that win are the guys that embrace the Maga movement,” Trump said in an interview with conservative talkshow host John Fredericks. Instead of overtly embracing Trump, Youngkin has campaigned with Texas senator Ted Cruz and with former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley. But he steered clear of an event hosted by Trump strategist Steve Bannon who may face contempt charges on Tuesday for refusing to cooperate with an investigation into the 6 January Capitol riot. Youngkin was also careful to criticize the Bannon event’s use of a flag that had reportedly been flown at the 6 January insurrection.Youngkin’s hands-off, hands-on approach is also designed to not raise the hackles of relatively unengaged democratic support for McAuliffe, who has his own endorsement issues to deal with. For his part, Virginia’s former governor comes with the baggage of close ties to the Clintons, whose popularity among independents and left-wing Democrats is far from assured. Last month, Hillary Clinton, whose first, failed presidential nomination campaign was co-chaired by McAuliffe sent out a fundraising email. That was followed by a fundraising event hosted by Bill Clinton.But other Democratic heavy-weights are traveling to Virginia to soothe Democratic anxiety and try to propel McAuliffe’s campaign toward the decisive victory they need. Georgia Democratic star Stacey Abrams and Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and first lady Jill Biden are also expected in the state’s northern suburbs, while House speaker Nancy Pelosi plans a fundraiser.But Biden himself has and will likely remain absent from Virginia. Mirroring Youngkin’s relationship to Trump, McAuliffe and his aides have expressed fears over associating with Biden. McAuliffe recently described the president as “unpopular” in Virginia.McAuliffe has also indicated that legislative impasse in Washington is damaging to Democrats in the country at large. “Democrats have got to quit talking, and they’ve got to get something done,” McAuliffe told The Washington Post. “You got elected to get things done. We have the House, Senate and White House.”Hanging over Democratic heads are the memories of losing the midterm elections in 2010, a crushing defeat for Obama that was predicted when Democrats lost a Senate seat in Massachusetts while trying to push through a controversial healthcare reform bill. TopicsVirginiaUS politicsJoe BidenRepublicansDemocratsBarack ObamaDonald TrumpnewsReuse this content More

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      Glenn Youngkin Talks About Virginia. His Base Talks About Donald Trump.

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      Republicans in Virginia are saying what their nominee for governor will not: The governor’s race is a proxy for Mr. Trump’s grievances.GLEN ALLEN, Va. — The event was billed as a rally for Virginia conservatives ahead of next month’s election for governor. But it was mostly about Donald J. Trump.Each speaker, addressing the crowd of hundreds just outside the state capital of Richmond, declared the former president the rightful winner of the last presidential election and the assumed winner of the next one. The audience raved when Mr. Trump gave a short address over the phone.But it was the speaker after Mr. Trump who made the pivot from national to local. Amanda Chase, a state senator from Amelia County who has called herself “Trump in heels,” explicitly tied the former president to Glenn Youngkin, the state’s Republican nominee for governor. Supporting one required supporting the other, she said.“People know I’m not politically correct and I’ll say exactly what I’m thinking,” Ms. Chase said. “And if I’m telling you I’m supporting Glenn Youngkin, then you better be supporting Glenn Youngkin, because he’s the real deal.”Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate and a former governor, has sought to tie Mr. Youngkin to the former president, while the Republican candidate has largely tried to keep some distance from Mr. Trump, to avoid alienating the all-important suburban, moderate voters who could decide the race’s outcome. But at the grass-roots level, the messages from Virginia Democrats and Republicans are less distinct.Democrats argue that losing the statewide election on Nov. 2 would be a bad omen for them in the 2022 midterms, and Republicans agree. And while Democrats paint Mr. Youngkin as an acolyte of Mr. Trump who would help pave the way for the former president’s return in 2024, Republicans at the “Take Back Virginia” rally on Wednesday explicitly said the same thing. They were willing to make clear what Mr. Youngkin has carefully avoided.John Fredericks, a conservative radio host who organized the event and calls himself the “Godzilla of truth,” said the Virginia race was the first step in clawing back the political power that Trump voters believe was stolen from them last year. He was one of several speakers who encouraged the audience to become election workers.“Let’s win on Nov. 2 and send a message to America that we have had enough,” Mr. Fredericks told the crowd. “You are the motor. You are the engine. You are the deplorables that, if we turn out on Nov. 2 and vote early and be a poll watcher, you can change the course of history in America.”Lawn signs supporting Glenn Youngkin were available for people to take home, even though he did not attend the event.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesThe disconnect between the political messages of Mr. Youngkin and his base speaks to the careful line that Republicans have been forced to walk. Although the former president’s approval ratings with moderates and independents remain underwater, which helped President Biden win Virginia by 10 points last year, Mr. Trump is still the most potent driver of enthusiasm and energy among the party’s most loyal voters. In an off-year election where turnout is expected to be significantly decreased from presidential levels, courting that energy is paramount for Virginia Republicans.Mr. Youngkin did not attend the event in Glen Allen, but Ms. Chase spoke with the authority of a campaign surrogate, saying, “I work very closely with the Youngkin campaign.” Mr. Trump, in his telephone address, said, “I hope Glenn gets in there and straightens out Virginia.” At the cash bar, where patrons ordered wine and cocktails over discussions of election integrity, a collection of red signs supporting the Youngkin campaign were available to take home.But Mr. Youngkin came under fire after the Wednesday rally. At issue was a moment early in the event when a speaker had led the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance using a flag that activists claimed was brought to the Capitol during the riot on Jan. 6. Mr. McAuliffe attacked Mr. Youngkin over the use of that flag in the pledge, and Mr. Youngkin distanced himself from the event.“I wasn’t involved and so I don’t know,” Mr. Youngkin told reporters, referring to the episode. “But if that is the case, then we shouldn’t pledge allegiance to that flag. And, oh, by the way, I’ve been so clear, there is no place for violence — none, none — in America today.”Trump supporters backing Mr. Youngkin have not been too troubled by such disavowals.Last month, Mr. Youngkin said he would have voted to certify the 2020 election results, after previously refusing to answer the question. Mr. Youngkin’s campaign said at the time that he “has repeatedly said that Joe Biden was legitimately elected and that there was no significant fraud in Virginia’s 2020 election.”Speakers at the rally connected Mr. Youngkin to Mr. Trump, who is still the most potent driver of enthusiasm and energy in the Republican Party.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesThere has been no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, and multiple state agencies and legislatures have repeatedly disproved Mr. Trump’s claims of a rigged election. However, at the event, attendees said in interviews that they believed Mr. Youngkin stood with them in their efforts to overturn the election and to oppose the Democratic agenda.James Thornton, 47, said he did not follow politics before Mr. Trump’s election and now attends school board meetings to protest the way he said race is taught in schools. And Roxanne Joseph-Barber, 55, was passing out petitions for a forensic audit of Virginia’s 2020 presidential election results.Asked what was the most important thing she wanted campaigns to know about voters like her, Ms. Joseph-Barber paused to collect herself.“The election wasn’t honest, and we know that,” she said. “So why wouldn’t we be mad? Of course we’re mad.”Ms. Chase, who ran for governor against Mr. Youngkin before becoming a vocal supporter of his campaign, made clear in her speech that she did not trust the 2020 election results — and also implied that Mr. Youngkin agreed with her.She boasted about traveling to Arizona, South Dakota and Texas to meet with other state legislators who were interested in finding evidence that the election was stolen. And she said that even though Mr. Youngkin dismissed Mr. Trump’s claims of fraud during his debates with Mr. McAuliffe, voters should still trust that he is on their side.“I know what’s going on, and the Youngkin campaign knows what’s going on,” Ms. Chase told the crowd. In the debates, she added, Mr. Youngkin could not give “the Democrats ammo to use against us, to get the independents to go with Terry McAuliffe.”Peter Peterson, a veteran in his 60s, said that while he planned to vote for Mr. Youngkin in opposition to the Democratic agenda, he had noticed Mr. Youngkin’s hesitancy on what Mr. Peterson called his most important issue: election fraud.“Everyone treats the voting stuff as if it’s a third rail,” Mr. Peterson said. “No one wants to come out and say the vote was stolen.”Mr. Peterson, who traveled about 100 miles from Virginia Beach for the rally, said he preferred a blunt-force political instrument such as Mr. Trump to candidates who deliver polished speeches. At the Glen Allen rally, polish was in short supply.Speakers seemed to one-up each other in expressing their loyalty to Mr. Trump: Some called for the arrest of Mr. Biden. Others compared vaccine mandates to conditions in Nazi Germany or invoked violent periods in American history, including the Civil War and the American Revolution, to describe the stakes of upcoming elections.Jan Morgan, a right-wing commentator and long-shot Senate candidate in Arkansas who spoke at the event, said conservatives should see themselves much like latter-day revolutionary soldiers.“As far as I can tell,” she said, “you still got your shoes. You’ve got your clothes, and I know you’ve got guns.”The crowd cheered in response. More

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      Virginia Governor's Race: McAuliffe Faces Democratic Apathy

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      Though the state is getting bluer, voters’ exhaustion is imperiling the former governor’s comeback attempt against his Republican rival, Glenn Youngkin.RICHMOND, Va. — Terry McAuliffe doesn’t do subtext well.So when Mr. McAuliffe appeared on “Morning Joe” on MSNBC this week, it wasn’t long before the Democrat let slip the biggest challenge he’s facing next month in his bid to reclaim Virginia’s governorship. “People got to understand, Joe, this is about turnout,” he told the show’s co-host, Joe Scarborough.Mr. McAuliffe could be forgiven for effectively reading his stage directions out loud. While he is running against a self-funding, and hazily defined, Republican, polls and interviews show that Mr. McAuliffe is confronting an equally daunting obstacle: Democratic apathy.With former President Donald Trump out of office, congressional Democrats in a bitter standoff and Virginia Democrats having claimed every political prize, Mr. McAuliffe is straining to motivate the liberal voters in his increasingly blue state.At the moment — one that is being watched closely by both parties for clues about the elections next year — he is bumping up against a fatigued electorate.Virginia has elections every year, because its state campaigns are in odd-numbered years while its federal elections are, as everywhere, in even years. But voters here are drained from the Trump administration’s round-the-clock drama, which they felt more acutely because of their proximity to Washington, where the local news is also national news.Then there is the 19-month fog of Covid-19, which has not only disrupted jobs, schools and daily life but also diverted attention from state politics — which had already been dimmed by the decline of local news outlets and eclipsed by national political news.“A lot of folks are dealing with so many other things, I’m not sure that the broader community knows this is taking place, or that it’s rising to the level of importance,” said Sean Miller, who runs the Boys & Girls Club in a largely Black part of Richmond and who gave Mr. McAuliffe a tour of his center this week.Mr. McAuliffe’s former education secretary, Anne Holton — the daughter of one former governor and the wife of another — was more succinct.“People are a little exhausted,” Ms. Holton said after a round-table discussion about education in Alexandria. Still, she predicted “very high turnout.”Mr. McAuliffe, in his well-caffeinated way, is doing all he can to sound the alarm.He is stepping up his appearances on national cable news programs and summoning the biggest names in his party to cross the Potomac. Former President Barack Obama is coming to Virginia later this month, President Biden is expected soon after, and a parade of other surrogates, including Vice President Kamala Harris, are also on the way.The once and potentially future governor, who by state law could not run for re-election after his term ended in 2018, is also trying to rouse complacent Democrats by amping up his rhetoric against his Republican rival, Glenn Youngkin.Just as Gov. Gavin Newsom of California did before his larger-than-expected recall victory last month, Mr. McAuliffe is calling Democrats to the barricades by warning that Mr. Youngkin would build a liberal house of horrors in Virginia: Texas’ abortion laws, Florida’s Covid policies and, most ominous of all, Mr. Trump’s rebirth.“We cannot let Trump off the mat — his comeback is not starting in Virginia,” Mr. McAuliffe told reporters outside Fairfax County’s main early-voting site on Wednesday. Then he paused for just a moment before adding, “Only if Democrats get out and vote.”Democratic leadership in the state has loosened voting access so any resident can vote in person or by mail from Sept. 17 to Oct. 30.Win Mcnamee/Getty ImagesA pro-business Democrat with an unparalleled donor network, Mr. McAuliffe was seen by state Democrats as their safest choice. But with his decades of political experience as a fund-raiser and party leader, he’s not exactly a fresh face who will rally a new generation of voters to the polls.In recent weeks, he has made no effort to hide his frustration that his party’s warring factions in Congress have held up a bipartisan infrastructure bill. And his aides fear that without some good news from Washington, the race could slip away.While Mr. Biden carried the state by 10 points last year, public and private polling indicates the president’s approval rating has fallen to or below 50 percent in Virginia. Those same surveys suggest that Mr. McAuliffe and Mr. Youngkin are locked in a close race but that more of Mr. Youngkin’s voters are enthusiastic about voting compared with Mr. McAuliffe’s voters.Tellingly, though, the greater the turnout projections, the wider Mr. McAuliffe’s lead grows in the polls.That’s because of Virginia’s significant transformation from a Republican redoubt and hotbed of social rest to a multiracial archipelago of cities and suburbs that are as progressive as the rest of the country’s metropolitan areas. However, if voters in these population hubs, which are filled with immigrants and transplants, do not show up to the polls, Virginia may return a Republican to the governor’s mansion for the first time since 2009.That was also the last time Virginians went to the polls in the first year under a new Democratic president, Mr. Obama, whose approval ratings, like Mr. Biden’s today, had sagged since he was sworn in. Turnout in Virginia collapsed to the lowest level for a governor’s race in four decades.Unlike today, though, the previous unpopular Republican president, George W. Bush, had moved happily into retirement and ceded the spotlight fully to his successor.The question now is if the accelerating demographic shift in Virginia — no Republican has won a statewide race since 2009 — and Mr. Trump’s continued presence on the political scene are enough to lift Democrats even in a less than favorable environment.There are signs that those two factors could prove sufficient for Mr. McAuliffe, so long as he can galvanize Democrats in the same fashion as Mr. Newsom did.While Virginia Democrats may in some ways be victims of their own success, having claimed every major office and taken control of the legislature, their dominance has also allowed them to loosen voting laws. While other Southern states have been tightening voting access, Virginia enacted expansive early voting this year. Residents can vote in person or by mail between Sept. 17 and Oct. 30.What’s more, Northern Virginia has become increasingly hostile to Republicans. Fairfax County, the state’s most populous, split about evenly between Mr. Bush and Al Gore in 2000. Last year, Mr. Trump won just 28 percent of the vote there.Mr. Youngkin, who, like Mr. McAuliffe, lives in Fairfax, is positioned to perform far better there. But the threat of Mr. Trump’s return to the White House has clearly alarmed voters in the affluent and well-educated county.In interviews outside Fairfax’s early-voting site, every McAuliffe voter cited Mr. Trump as a reason for supporting the Democrat. Transportation, education and taxes — longtime core issues of Virginia governor’s races — were scarcely mentioned.Paul Erickson, an architect from Vienna, Va., summoned a reporter back after revealing his concerns about Mr. Trump and said in an urgent tone that he had more to share.“What I didn’t say is, for the first time in my adult life I fear for our nation,” Mr. Erickson said. “We’re tearing ourselves apart from within.”Others were less expansive but equally to the point.“I don’t like Trump, and I believe Youngkin is equal to Trump,” said Carol Myers, a retiree who, with her husband, was voting before playing a round of golf at the Army Navy Country Club in Arlington.Democrats are portraying Glenn Youngkin as a Trump clone.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesMr. Youngkin’s aides are skeptical that their candidate, whom they’ve spent tens of millions of dollars painting as an inoffensive suburban dad, can be MAGA-fied.On Thursday, though, the Republican received a reminder that Mr. Trump and his supporters are determined to make him take sides between them and Virginia’s broader, anti-Trump electorate.Mr. Youngkin had so far avoided inviting Mr. Trump to the state — and avoided a Trumpian attack for the stiff arm. But the former president called into a Virginia political rally on Wednesday night and said, “I hope Glenn gets in there.” More problematic for Mr. Youngkin, event organizers pledged allegiance to a flag that had been present at the Jan. 6 rally after which supporters of Mr. Trump attacked the Capitol.By the end of the day Thursday, Mr. Youngkin — who had skipped the rally to deny Democrats an opening to link him to Mr. Trump — issued a statement calling the use of the flag “weird and wrong.”To Mr. McAuliffe it was something else: a political gift.Mr. McAuliffe has tried to lash Mr. Youngkin to Mr. Trump, noting that he had gladly accepted the former president’s endorsement, and derides him as “a Trump wannabe,.”If that Trumpification strategy works for Mr. McAuliffe, it will most likely be replicated by other Democrats running in blue and purple states next year.In Virginia, it’s easy to understand why Democrats have gone back to the same well: Mr. Trump was a one-man turnout machine for them. In 2019, when only state House and Senate races were on the ballot, turnout reached almost the same level as in 2013, when Mr. McAuliffe won the governorship. During the 2018 congressional midterms, when Virginia Democrats picked up two House seats, turnout was at nearly 60 percent. Four years earlier, in a pre-Trump midterm, turnout here was less than 42 percent.In Richmond’s Black community, Mr. Trump is still on the minds of some voters.“It’s crazy to think that a president that lost still has such a hold on a certain group of people,” said Herman Baskerville, who owns Big Herm’s restaurant in the city’s historic Jackson Ward.Standing outside his restaurant as dusk fell on quiet streets, however, Mr. Baskerville was more focused on the slowdown in foot traffic around Richmond during the coronavirus pandemic. Fewer people working in their offices has meant fewer customers.“Many of us feel like we’re near normal, but there are a lot of folks who are still suffering,” said Mayor Levar Stoney of Richmond. Then Mr. Stoney, a protégé of Mr. McAuliffe’s, got back on message.“My fear is, the policies you see in Florida and Texas, that could take Virginia backwards,” he said. More

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      Why Virginia holds the key to the 2022 US midterms: Politics Weekly Extra podcast

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      This week Jonathan Freedland speaks to Jessica Taylor, of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. The pair discuss what the off-year gubernatorial elections coming up in a few weeks might tell us about Democrat and Republican chances in next year’s midterm elections

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know

      Archive: ABC News, Fox Business, NBC Washington, CNN Send your questions and feedback to podcasts@theguardian.com. Help support the Guardian by going to gu.com/supportpodcasts. More

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      In Virginia Governor's Race, National Issues Dominate Ad Wars

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      In a governor’s race deemed a bellwether for the 2022 midterms, the battle between Terry McAuliffe and Glenn Youngkin has ignited over national cultural issues.Sign up here to get On Politics in your inbox on Tuesdays and Thursdays.Four of the five most expensive ads for the McAuliffe campaign have been negative, with a particular focus on abortion.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesIt’s a long-held mantra in elections: All politics are local. But the ad wars in the race for Virginia governor indicate that national is the new normal.In a contest deemed a bellwether for the 2022 midterms, the battle between Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat and the state’s former governor, and Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, has ignited more over the cultural issues currently inflaming national politics than traditional tension points like state and local taxes.Atop the list of the most aired ads in the race are attacks about abortion (though there’s no current law or challenge to abortion rights in Virginia) and schools (amid the national debates on curriculum, critical race theory and mask mandates).In an expensive race with in-person campaigning still limited by the pandemic, the national issues being debated over the airwaves have set the tone. The two candidates have combined to spend more than $36 million on broadcast television ads at just over $18 million each, according to AdImpact, an ad tracking firm. Outside groups and super PACs have largely stayed on the sidelines.More than 60 percent of the spending has been on ads that have at least some negative comparisons or attacks, according to AdImpact.Four of the five most expensive ads for the McAuliffe campaign have been negative, with a particular focus on abortion, an issue that rocketed to the forefront of national politics after Texas passed a new law that bans almost all abortions.The campaign has put the most money behind a 60-second ad that seizes on a hidden-camera video recorded by a liberal activist that showed Youngkin openly worrying about losing “independent votes” over the issue, but promising to go “on offense” to restrict access to abortion if Republicans also take the statehouse. The McAuliffe campaign portrayed Youngkin as beholden to the conservative fringe of the Republican Party.“Glenn Youngkin has been caught,” a female narrative voice whispers as news reports of the video fill the screen. “Caught on video admitting his far-right agenda.”In another ad, the McAuliffe campaign highlights a doctor who claims that Youngkin’s support of abortion limits would “harm my patients” and that he is inserting politics into science and medicine, an echo of the common critiques of the anti-vaccine and anti-mask movements.Other national dividing lines, such as voting rights, police reform and public health, play central roles in the McAuliffe campaign’s effort to paint Youngkin with the patina of a Trump Republican; more than 75 percent of McAuliffe’s ads include an attack on or contrast drawn with his opponent.For the Youngkin campaign, one ad is dominating the rotation: a clip from a debate in September where McAuliffe stated, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” The comment followed an argument between the two candidates over a veto McAuliffe signed as governor in 2017 of legislation that had allowed parents to opt out of allowing their children to study material deemed sexually explicit.Schools have quickly climbed to the forefront of national political scraps, with right-wing media seizing on a crusade against school mask mandates and critical race theory, and major conservative pundits pushing for Republicans to focus on school board races. Though McAuliffe’s quote did not originate in the current tussle over schools, it quickly resonated. The Youngkin campaign put more than $1 million behind the ad.Youngkin has a more balanced mix of positive and negative advertising, including a lot of biographical ads, highlighting his past as a college basketball player and businessman, and presenting him as an outsider to Virginia politics who can get things done.But the disparity in the ratio of positive to negative ads doesn’t necessarily reflect one candidate on the upswing or another on the defensive. Youngkin, who spent most of his career in business, has to keep introducing himself to voters while simultaneously trying to define McAuliffe through negative ads.McAuliffe, a former governor who left office in 2018 polling safely above water, is a known quantity in the state, which prohibits governors from serving two consecutive terms. With little need for biographical ads, McAuliffe’s campaign has gone more aggressively on the offensive, including with some more out-of-the-box national attack ads about the rights to Taylor Swift’s music.In a small digital ad effort, the McAuliffe campaign bought ads on Instagram, Facebook and Google that highlighted Swift’s claim that the Carlyle Group, which Youngkin used to lead as a co-chief executive, helped finance a sale of the rights to her music.One ad closes with a nod to Swift’s lyrics: “’Cause Glenn, now we got bad blood.”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