Subterms
Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe is running for his old job and faces four Democratic opponents for the nomination: Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, State Senator Jennifer McClellan, State Delegate Lee Carter and former State Delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy. Republicans have already selected their nominee, Glenn Youngkin, a former private-equity executive. More
Mr. McAuliffe, who previously served as governor, overcame four rivals, benefiting from the support of the party establishment. His victory set up a general election race against a wealthy Republican, Glenn Youngkin.MCLEAN, Va — Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe captured the Democratic nomination for his old job on Tuesday, easily dispatching four party rivals to set up an expensive general election that will test how liberal Virginia has become and present the first major referendum at the ballot box on the Democratic Party under President Biden.Mr. McAuliffe was winning more than 60 percent of the vote when The Associated Press declared him the winner less than an hour after the polls closed. Jennifer Carroll Foy, a former state lawmaker, was running a distant second with about 20 percent, followed by State Senator Jennifer McClellan, Lt. Gov Justin Fairfax and state Delegate Lee Carter.“We are a different state than we were eight years ago and we are not going back,” Mr. McAuliffe said after taking the stage alongside his successor, Gov. Ralph S. Northam, and other elected Democrats. Coming the year after the presidential election, and with few other significant contests on the ballot, Virginia’s governor’s races are always seen as a political temperature check on the party that just won the White House. And 2021 could prove particularly revealing here.Mr. McAuliffe will face the Republican Glenn Youngkin, a former private-equity executive and first-time candidate, in November.Positioning himself as a political outsider and having already spent $12 million of his own fortune, Mr. Youngkin is poised to make Virginia the most competitive election in the country this fall. He’s linking Mr. McAuliffe and Mr. Northam to argue that Virginia Democrats have taken a moderate state sharply to the left since gaining total control of the State Capitol.Recognizing the threat Mr. Youngkin poses, Mr. McAuliffe devoted a significant part of his victory speech to attacking his opponent, linking the financier to former President Donald J. Trump and outlining his conservative views on cultural issues.Warning Democrats not to be complacent, the former governor said “there are 75 millions reasons why Glenn Youngkin could win,” a reference to the amount of money the Republican could spend on the race. “Remember, folks, it could work.”In one promising sign for Democrats after what was a fairly sleepy primary, during which Mr. McAuliffe was never at serious risk, turnout Tuesday was robust. About 500,000 Virginians cast a ballot, a number far closer to the 2017 primary, when Democrats won the governorship, than in 2009, when they were routed. Virginia Republicans, however, are at a low ebb. Not only are they shut out of every statewide office, but, like in other Democratic-leaning states, they are also struggling with how to navigate the dominating presence of Mr. Trump, who remains beloved among party activists but is despised by the broader electorate.Further complicating matters for Republicans here, both Mr. Northam, who by state law cannot succeed himself, and Mr. Biden are popular with Virginia voters. The president carried the state by 10 points last year. And just two years after a blackface scandal that nearly drove him from office, Mr. Northam, who succeeded Mr. McAuliffe, was perhaps Mr. McAuliffe’s most important supporter in the primary, appearing with him in television commercials and on the campaign trail.Indeed, Tuesday’s results represented an emphatic vote of confidence among Democrats in their last two governors.Virginia’s governor’s races are always seen as a political temperature check on the party that just won the White House the year before.Alyssa Schukar for The New York TimesThe results also marked a moment of vindication for Mr. Northam, underscoring his political recovery in a party whose leaders, including Mr. McAuliffe, once called for his resignation. And the outcome was even sweeter for Mr. McAuliffe, who deferred his presidential ambitions to Mr. Biden, for now at least, to try to reclaim the governorship four years after leaving Richmond with some of his plans stymied by a statehouse then controlled by Republicans.The exuberant former fund-raiser and national party chair could barely conceal his glee before Tuesday, as he barnstormed Virginia in the days leading up to the primary by ignoring his Democratic opponents, lacerating Mr. Youngkin and going viral with dance moves that were more enthusiastic than artful.Mr. McAuliffe’s easy victory also highlighted the enduring strength of the Democrats’ moderate wing in a state that has turned a deeper shade of blue in the last decade. The former governor’s opponents, particularly Jennifer Carroll Foy and Lee Carter, ran to his left, arguing that a 64-year-old wealthy white man with pro-business inclinations was out of step with the party. Three of Mr. McAuliffe’s primary rivals are Black: Ms. Carroll Foy, Jennifer McClellan, a state senator, and Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax.With Mr. Trump refusing to acknowledge defeat and the country only recently starting to fully emerge from the pandemic, though, the primary was obscured and Mr. McAuliffe’s rivals were starved of political oxygen. The once and potentially future governor also helped himself by claiming early and broad support from the state’s Democratic establishment, including a number of leaders in the Black community. And with all four of the other candidates remaining in the race to the end, none of them were able to coalesce what opposition there was to Mr. McAuliffe.His rivals hoped the contest would mirror the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, when former President Barack Obama emerged as the next-generation hope of the party and defeated the standard-bearer of the old guard, Hillary Clinton, whose campaign Mr. McAuliffe chaired. But this primary more closely approximated last year’s presidential primary, when a coalition of moderate whites and Black Democrats rallied to the moderate candidate they knew.“Terry is a little more experienced,” said John Eley III, a McAuliffe supporter and member of the Newport News School Board. “Coming out of the pandemic you really need someone with experience to take us forward and continue to move Virginia in the right direction.”Jennifer Carroll Foy, a member of the state’s House of Delegates, ran to the left of Mr. McAuliffe.Alyssa Schukar for The New York TimesThe question for Virginia voters this fall is whether they’ll favor a former governor with decades of high-level political experience — Mr. McAuliffe would be only the second person in state history to win nonconsecutive terms — or somebody who’s never before been on the ballot.A Hampton Roads native who, like Mr. McAuliffe, now lives in the affluent Washington suburbs, Mr. Youngkin is casting himself as somebody who will bring a businessman’s touch to state government. The former head of the global investment firm the Carlyle Group, Mr. Youngkin poses a challenge to Democrats because of both his willingness to spend his own cash on the race and his lack of a voting record that can be targeted.His hope is that, two years after Virginia Democrats won the state House and took full control of the State Capitol, voters will want to put a check on what is now the majority party here.“Terry McAuliffe and his sidekick, Ralph Northam, have been pursuing a politics of extremism and political division,” Mr. Youngkin said at a rally in Richmond last month. Mr. Youngkin, however, has accepted an endorsement from Mr. Trump, and Mr. McAuliffe has made clear he will try to tie his Republican rival to a former president whose incendiary style of politics is repellent in Virginia’s vote-rich suburbs.He also will have to dig deep into his donor list to keep pace with his self-financing opponent, something Virginia Democrats predicted he would do with relish. “Terry will raise whatever it takes, he’ll raise $70 to $100 million if he has to,” said Richard Saslaw, the State Senate Majority Leader. Beyond the governor’s race, Republicans have elevated a Black woman who served in the state House, Winsome Sears, as their nominee for lieutenant governor and a Cuban American state legislator, Jason Miyares, to run for attorney general.In another sign of Mr. Northam’s popularity with his party, Democrats nominated his preferred candidate, state Delegate Hala Ayala, for lieutenant governor. Democrats also renominated Attorney General Mark Herring to what would be his third term. More
Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe is seeking his old job, and Democrats will square off in races for lieutenant governor and attorney general.WASHINGTON — Virginia Democrats go to the polls on Tuesday to determine their candidates in races ranging from governor to the State House, but the onset of summer isn’t the only reason this year’s primary season has been sleepy.Taking place just months after a presidential election, nominating contests in Virginia often reflect the mood of the electorate. And if this year’s primary never seemed to get off the ground, it was in part because many voters are burned out on politics after four convulsive years of the Trump administration, a bitter 2020 campaign and a coronavirus pandemic that is only now receding.The most dedicated political aficionados have still followed the 2021 races in Virginia. However, former President Donald J. Trump’s ongoing refusal to acknowledge defeat, the storming of the Capitol and the subsequent impeachment inquiry diverted attention from state politics in a way that effectively delayed the start of the primary and starved former Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s opponents in the governor’s race of political oxygen.This was all manna from heaven for the once and potentially future governor, Mr. McAuliffe, who was succeeded by Gov. Ralph Northam in 2018 because Virginia is the last state in America to bar governors from serving for consecutive terms.Wielding perhaps the two most powerful weapons in a statewide primary — name recognition and cash on hand — Mr. McAuliffe has staked out a wide lead in the polls against four Democrats who are comparatively little-known and lightly financed: Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, State Senator Jennifer McClellan, State Delegate Lee Carter and former State Delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy.But just because Mr. McAuliffe appears poised to claim the nomination on Tuesday for his old job does not mean the results won’t be revealing.Here’s what to watch for in the Democratic races. (Virginia Republicans nominated their ticket last month, with Glenn Youngkin, a self-funding former private equity executive, emerging as the party’s nominee for governor.)How many voters will turn out?In 2009, Virginia Democrats had a hotly contested primary for governor that included two candidates from the vote-rich Washington suburbs, but only 319,000 voters cast ballots. In 2017, more than 543,000 Virginians voted in the Democratic primary for governor.The ultimate difference in those two election cycles: Twelve years ago, in the aftermath of President Barack Obama’s election, Republicans would claim the governorship, while four years ago, Democrats rode a wave of anti-Trump energy to sweep all three state offices: governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.“We need not have Donald Trump in the White House for our people to get out and vote, because Trumpism is alive and well in the Virginia Republican Party,” said Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn of the State House, a Democrat who was elevated to her position when, in 2019, another anti-Trump wave swept her party to the majority.Republicans, and some Democrats, are not convinced, especially given the G.O.P.’s nomination of Mr. Youngkin, a Northern Virginia businessman with roots in Hampton Roads.Without the one-man Democratic turnout lever that was Mr. Trump still in the Oval Office, can the party still overwhelm Republicans in the suburbs, where Virginia elections are often decided?Overall turnout on Tuesday will offer some initial clues.Terry McAuliffe, a former governor, has staked out a wide lead in the polls against four Democrats who are comparatively little-known and lightly financed.Parker Michels-Boyce for The New York TimesCan Terry McAuliffe win a majority?Capturing a majority of the vote in a five-way race can be difficult. But Mr. McAuliffe has so dominated the primary that it’s possible he can crack 50 percent. While it’s admittedly an arbitrary figure, a majority would represent a strong vote of confidence in Mr. McAuliffe.He appears well positioned to reach that threshold. He has claimed endorsements from much of Virginia’s Democratic establishment, including Mr. Northam, who’s now highly popular among Democrats despite his infamous blackface scandal in 2019. And despite running against three Black candidates, Mr. McAuliffe has also received endorsements from many of the state’s prominent African-American leaders.He has run as the de facto incumbent, linking his governorship and that of Mr. Northam to trumpet the last eight years and the broader Democratic takeover of Virginia. Republicans have not won a statewide race since 2009 and are now in the minority of both chambers of the General Assembly.“We’re a new state today,” Mr. McAuliffe said last week during a stop at a pie shop in Arlington, recalling what he called the “anti-women, anti-gay, anti-environment, anti-immigrant, pro-gun” Republican legislature when he took office in 2014.The question is whether his popularity, and the credit he gets from Democrats for Virginia’s transformation, is enough to run away with a race against a field that includes younger, more diverse and more progressive opponents.Will there be a suburban surge?The Virginia suburbs outside Washington used to be strikingly different from the rest of the state. “Occupied territory” was the joke residents who lived south of the Rappahannock River would make about the more transient, less culturally Southern communities outside the nation’s capital.But now far more of Virginia resembles Northern Virginia. In their demographics and, increasingly, their politics, the population hubs of Richmond and Hampton Roads are closer to Arlington than Abingdon.This is all to say that Mr. McAuliffe’s performance and the overall turnout are worth watching most closely in the so-called urban crescent, stretching from Northern Virginia down Interstate 95 to Richmond and then east on I-64 to Hampton Roads.Are these Democrats a) enthusiastic to vote and b) eager to support an older, more moderate contender? They were in the 2017 primary, when Mr. Northam fended off a challenge from his left by former Representative Tom Perriello, but Tuesday will tell us more about the state of the party in the precincts that have turned Virginia blue.Primaries for the nomination for lieutenant governor and other state offices are also on the ballot on Tuesday.Parker Michels-Boyce for The New York TimesWhat about the down-ballot races?Races for governor always get the most attention in Virginia’s year-after-the-presidential-election contests because they can be a handy temperature check on the electorate. Backlashes are often first detected here. In fact, until Mr. McAuliffe’s 2013 victory, Virginia had a decades-long streak of electing a governor of the opposite party from the occupant of the White House.But the other two races for statewide office, lieutenant governor and attorney general, are also worth keeping tabs on.The primary for the state’s No. 2 job is sprawling, with six candidates running. Three state lawmakers — Sam Rasoul, Hala Ayala and Mark Levine — have the most money. Ms. Ayala enjoys the support of Mr. Northam, and Mr. Rasoul would be the first Muslim elected to statewide office in Virginia.While the job brings few official duties beyond breaking ties in the State Senate, it’s coveted by up-and-coming politicians because, given Virginia’s one-and-done rule for governors, it can be a quick steppingstone to the top job. Former Govs. Charles S. Robb, L. Douglas Wilder and Tim Kaine, as well as Mr. Northam, followed that route.Attorney general can also be a launching pad for governor — the joke being that A.G. stands for Almost Governor — and that’s what many believed Attorney General Mark Herring, a Democrat, would be running for this year. But with Mr. McAuliffe seeking the governorship, Mr. Herring, who had his own blackface scandal in 2019, decided to seek what would be a third term.He drew a challenge from a young, Black state lawmaker, Jay Jones, who picked up the support of Mr. Northam. Mr. Herring, though, has outraised Mr. Jones and has benefited from stronger name recognition. In a primary season that was slow to start and never seemed to fully flower, that could prove enough. More
The supreme court of Virginia will this week hear arguments in legal challenges to Governor Ralph Northam’s plan to take down a 131-year-old statue of Confederate Gen Robert E Lee, a move met with widespread praise from activists who had long seen it as a symbol of white supremacy.A year after Northam’s announcement, the enormous bronze equestrian statue still towers over a traffic circle on Monument Avenue in downtown Richmond, kept in place by two lawsuits.Among the central issues to be decided by the court whether the Commonwealth of Virginia is bound by a decision made by state officials more than 130 years ago, or can it undo that decision because the public’s attitude toward Confederate symbols has changed?Attorneys for the plaintiffs will argue that the governor does not have the authority to remove the statue, while attorney general Mark Herring will ask the court to uphold a lower court’s rulings.Northam’s decision to take down the statue was announced 10 days after George Floyd was murdered under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, during nightly protests over police brutality and racism around the country, including Richmond.Separate lawsuits were filed by residents who own property near the statue and a descendant of signatories to a 1890 deed that transferred the statue, pedestal and land they sit on to the state.In the latter lawsuit, William Gregory argues that the state agreed to “faithfully guard” and “affectionately protect” the statue.In the other suit, five property owners, including lead plaintiff Helen Marie Taylor, say an 1889 joint resolution of the Virginia general assembly accepting the statue and agreeing to maintain it is binding. They say Northam’s order to remove the statue exceeded the governor’s authority.During a trial in October, the state argued that it cannot be forced to maintain a statue that no longer reflects its values. Richmond circuit court Judge W Reilly Marchant agreed, finding that enforcing the 19th-century deed would violate “current public policy”.The judge cited two budget bills approved by the general assembly last year that repealed the 1889 act authorizing the then-governor to accept the gift of the monument and directed the Department of General Services to remove the 13-ton sculpture. The plaintiffs argue that the budget bills were unconstitutional.“What the residents are asserting is that the state cannot arbitrarily take away their property rights, or remove a historic landmark, in violation of the Constitution of Virginia. If the Governor finds this assertion staggering, it can only be because he has an unlimited vision of governmental power. The state must comply with its contractual obligations, just like private citizens,“ attorney Patrick McSweeney argues in a legal brief filed with the supreme court.The city of Richmond, which was the capital of the Confederacy for most of the civil war, has removed more than a dozen other pieces of Confederate statuary since Floyd’s death, which prompted the removal of monuments around the country.Herring argues that leaving the massive monument to Lee in place will continue to cause pain to many people who see it as a symbol of oppression.“This monument to Virginia’s racist history has held a place of honor in Richmond for too long. The Lee statue does not represent the ideals Virginians live by today and the inclusive community that we strive to be and it is time to bring it down,” Herring said.Gregory’s attorney, Joseph Blackburn, argues that removal of the statue would cause irreparable harm.“For 130 years, his family has taken pride in the Lee Monument and his family role in the placement of the Monument on land originally belonging to his family and given to the Commonwealth in consideration for the Commonwealth’s guarantee that it would perpetually care for and protect the Monument,” Blackburn wrote in a brief.It is unclear how long the supreme court will take to issue its decision. The court generally averages about six to nine weeks to issue rulings after oral arguments, but there are wide variations among cases.The statue is now covered with graffiti. More
In his 30 years in the Senate, the former Navy secretary was a leading Republican voice on military policy. He was once married to Elizabeth Taylor.WASHINGTON — Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, the genteel former Navy secretary who shed the image of a dilettante to become a leading Republican voice on military policy during 30 years in the Senate, died on Tuesday night at his home in Alexandria, Va. He was 94. Susan Magill, his former chief of staff, said the cause was heart failure.For a time Mr. Warner may have been best known nationally as the dashing sixth husband of the actress Elizabeth Taylor. Her celebrity was a draw on the campaign trail during his difficult first race for the Senate in 1978, an election he won narrowly to start his political career. The couple divorced in 1982.Mr. Warner in 1981 with Elizabeth Taylor, his wife at the time. They divorced the following year. Richard Drew/Associated PressIn the latter stages of his congressional service, Mr. Warner was recognized as a protector of the Senate’s traditions and credited with trying to forge bipartisan consensus on knotty issues like the Iraq war, judicial nominations and the treatment of terror detainees.Though a popular figure in his state, Mr. Warner was often at odds with Virginia conservatives. He became the Republican nominee in his first campaign only after the man who had defeated him at a state party convention was killed in a plane crash.He angered the National Rifle Association with his backing of an assault weapons ban. He infuriated some state Republicans in 1994 when he refused to support Oliver L. North, the former White House aide at the center of the Iran-contra scandal during the Reagan administration, in Mr. North’s bid for the Senate. And he opposed Reagan’s ultimately unsuccessful Supreme Court nomination of Judge Robert H. Bork.In his retirement years, the rightward shift of the Republican Party further alienated Mr. Warner, prompting him to endorse select Democrats, including both his former Senate colleagues Hillary Clinton and Joseph R. Biden Jr. in their presidential runs against Donald J. Trump.But his support within the party mainstream during his Senate years, coupled with backing from independents who were attracted by his moderate views on social issues like abortion and gay rights, allowed him to fend off challenges from both the right and left. He won election to his fifth and final term in 2002 against only token opposition.Mr. Warner announced in August 2007 that he would not run in 2008, noting that he would be 88 if he finished his term and telling friends that he questioned whether he could continue to have the energy for the job. The peak of his power in the Senate began in 1999, when he became chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Though his chairmanship was interrupted briefly when Democrats took back control, he evolved into a Republican force on military issues, his credibility enhanced by his reputation for solid contacts in the Pentagon, his previous work there and his own service in both the Navy and Marines.Mr. Warner was ahead of others on the terrorism issue and created a subcommittee to focus on the threat. He was among Republicans who expressed reservations about the Iraq war, and he convened hearings on the abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad when many of his fellow Republicans were hoping that the issue would disappear.Mr. Warner also was skeptical about President George W. Bush’s 2007 troop buildup in Iraq. But he never broke with the administration to back a fixed deadline for troop withdrawals. That position frustrated Democrats, who had hoped that Mr. Warner would lend his influence to their opposition to the war, and they accused him of not following through on strong talk against the conflict.Joining with Senator John McCain, who had been a prisoner of war in Vietnam, Mr. Warner thwarted Bush administration efforts to reinterpret the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners in wartime, an approach that the senators said would open captured American military personnel to abuse.Mr. Warner was not averse to stepping into difficult political situations in the Senate. In 2002, he was among the first to come out against Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi, after Mr. Lott had made a racially charged comment; Mr. Warner’s stand contributed to Mr. Lott’s decision to step aside as majority leader. He was also a leading member of the so-called Gang of 14, a bipartisan group of senators who struck an independent agreement on judicial nominations in 2005 and averted a fight over the future of the Senate filibuster.A debonair Virginian, Mr. Warner was sometimes called the senator from central casting; his ramrod military posture, distinguished gray hair and occasionally overblown speaking style fit the Hollywood model.John William Warner III was born on Feb. 18, 1927, in Washington to John Jr. and Martha (Budd) Warner and attended schools in Washington and Virginia. He left high school at age 17 to join the Navy and serve in the final months of World War II. He graduated from Washington and Lee University in 1949 and enrolled at the University of Virginia Law School before leaving to join the Marines during the Korean War. He returned to law school to obtain his degree in 1953.Mr. Warner was afterward a law clerk with the United States Court of Appeals for District of Columbia Circuit and then an assistant U.S. attorney in the district from 1956 to 1960. After working in private law practice for most of the 1960s, he was appointed Navy under secretary by President Richard M. Nixon. He became secretary in 1972, serving for two years. In 1976, he was the federal coordinator of the national bicentennial celebration.Mr. Warner endured a reputation as something of a playboy after his first divorce from a member of the wealthy Mellon family, his marriage to Ms. Taylor and a public relationship with the newscaster Barbara Walters. But his long service in the Senate and a record marked by an independent streak ultimately overshadowed much of that image.He had three children from his first marriage, to Catherine Mellon. His survivors include his wife, Jeanne (Vander Myde) Warner. Complete information on survivors was not immediately available.Both of Virginia’s current Democratic senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, praised Mr. Warner on Wednesday as a friend, ally and informal adviser and described him as a model of what a politician should be. Mark Warner, who is no relation, had once tried to unseat him.“John Warner and I ran against each other back in 1996,” Mr. Warner said in a statement. “I’ve often said since that the right Warner won that race.” More
New York City has a very important mayoral election this year, which will very probably be decided in the June Democratic primary. Big debate coming up which voters will get to watch on … More
Glenn Youngkin, a first-time candidate with vast wealth, will deliver a pro-business message intended to win over suburban voters. Democrats plan to portray him as a Trump devotee.Republican voters’ choice for Virginia governor, a deep-pocketed first-time candidate who plans to run as a business-friendly political outsider, will offer a major test in the post-Trump era of the party’s ability to win back suburban voters who have fled over the past four years.Glenn Youngkin, who won the Republican nomination on Monday night, had walked a line between his party’s Trump-centric base and appeals to business interests in a crowded field, defeating two rivals who more aggressively courted supporters of former President Donald J. Trump.After years of Democratic advances in the state thanks to suburban voters who adamantly rejected anyone linked to the Trump G.O.P., Mr. Youngkin, 54, a former private equity executive, has warned that “we can kiss our business environment away” if Democrats retain power in Richmond.During the nominating fight, he criticized the current governor, Ralph Northam, and his predecessor, Terry McAuliffe, for creating business conditions that cause college-educated residents (read: suburbanites) to move away.But even as Mr. Youngkin tries to focus on kitchen-table issues, Democrats signaled on Tuesday they would aggressively seek to fuse the nominee to Mr. Trump, by reminding voters of hard-line positions he took in fending off six Republican rivals — including on voting rights, Medicaid expansion and culture-war topics like critical race theory.Mr. McAuliffe, the polling leader for the Democratic nomination, said in a statement on Tuesday that Mr. Youngkin “spent his campaign fawning all over Donald Trump,” adding that he would “make it harder to vote” and be “a rubber stamp for the N.R.A.’s dangerous agenda.”Mr. Trump stayed out of the G.O.P. race while the field jockeyed for position, with Mr. Youngkin ultimately emerging as the winner after roughly 30,000 voters cast ranked-choice ballots at 39 locations around the state on Saturday. But the former president jumped in on Tuesday with an endorsement of Mr. Youngkin, although it was primarily an attack on Mr. McAuliffe, a former fund-raiser for Bill and Hillary Clinton, who as a private citizen was in business with Chinese investors.“Virginia doesn’t need the Clintons or the Communist Chinese running the state,” Mr. Trump said, “so say no to Terry McAuliffe, and yes to Patriot Glenn Youngkin!”But Mr. Youngkin might consider such effusions unwelcome in a state Mr. Trump lost by 10 percentage points in November. Mr. Youngkin, 54, was raised in Virginia Beach and has lived in Northern Virginia for 25 years. He defeated two rivals who appealed more directly to the Trump-centric base: Pete Snyder, a technology entrepreneur, and State Senator Amanda Chase, a hard-right supporter of the former president who was censured in a bipartisan vote of the state’s General Assembly for referring to the rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6 as “patriots.”Mr. Youngkin’s appeal to Republicans was at least twofold: He is a political blank slate, with no record in elected office for Democrats to attack. And his private wealth — reportedly more than $200 million after he retired as co-chief executive of the Carlyle Group — will allow him to compete financially against Mr. McAuliffe, a prolific fund-raiser.Mr. McAuliffe raised $36 million for his 2013 election campaign and more than $9.9 million during the past two years, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. Mr. Youngkin has already spent $5.5 million of his own money since entering the race in late January.Republicans have not won a statewide election since 2009, and Democratic dominance of the once-purple state accelerated under Mr. Trump, with Democrats taking control of both houses of the General Assembly in 2020 for the first time in a generation.They used their dominance of state government to pass sweeping progressive priorities like more restrictive gun laws and a ban on capital punishment.But the trend is not irreversible, as some election analysts see it. In the pre-Trump era, Mr. McAuliffe won his first governor’s race in 2013 by just 2.5 percentage points against a hard-right conservative, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II. Rural regions of southern and southwest Virginia have grown redder even as the populous northern and central suburbs are bluer. There is a theoretical path to statewide Republican victory for a candidate who rouses rural Trump voters, appeals to suburban independents and benefits from lower overall Democratic turnout without Mr. Trump as a motivator.And Mr. Youngkin has signaled that he would run against the very legislation Democrats have passed, accusing his opponents of pushing Virginia far to the left of most voters’ preferences.Mr. McAuliffe may be the clear polling leader for the Democrats, but he is conspicuous as the lone white candidate in a field with three Black contenders, in a party whose base is heavily African-American.In four years in office, Mr. McAuliffe governed as a pro-business Democrat, and he began his campaign for a second term in December on a pro-education note, pledging to raise teacher pay and offer universal pre-K. (Virginia governors cannot serve two consecutive terms.)Though Mr. Youngkin is not as unrelenting a supporter of Mr. Trump as some of his Republican opponents, he declined the chance at a recent candidates’ forum to distance himself from Mr. Trump’s lies about a rigged 2020 election. Asked about “voter integrity,” he launched into a five-point plan to “restore our trust in our election process.”During the nominating race, he also pledged to restore a state voter identification law and to replace the entire state board of education. He also said he would create the “1776 Project,” an apparent reference to a curriculum of patriotic education proposed by a commission established under Mr. Trump that has been derided by mainstream historians.Last month, Mr. Youngkin said it was “a sad thing” that Virginia had expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, though he acknowledged the clock couldn’t be turned back.As Mr. Youngkin likely spends generously on TV ads to forge a more soft-focus identity as a pro-business outsider, Democrats are sure to try to keep his earlier positions in front of voters.“Make no state mistake about it, we are going to point out every step of the way the right-wing extremism of Glenn Youngkin,” Susan Swecker, chair of the Virginia Democrats, said on Tuesday. More
Mr. Youngkin, a wealthy newcomer to politics who walked a line between the Trump base of the G.O.P. and business interests, will look to test Democrats’ strength in the blue-leaning state in November.Glenn Youngkin, a wealthy first-time candidate who walked a line between his party’s Trump-centric base and appeals to business interests, declared victory in the Republican nominating contest for governor of Virginia on Monday. He heads into a general election in one of only two states choosing their governors in 2021, in the latest running of an off-year race often viewed as a referendum on the party holding the White House.The Republican Party of Virginia had yet to announce a winner, but Mr. Youngkin’s last remaining rival, Pete Snyder, conceded the race. “I send my heartfelt congratulations,” Mr. Snyder wrote on Twitter. “He + the ticket have my 100% support.”The results were being tabulated by Republican officials two days after roughly 30,000 voters cast ranked-choice ballots at 39 locations around the state. Mr. Snyder conceded after more than 12 hours of vote counting, in which five candidates were knocked from contention, one by one, and their supporters’ next-choice votes were allocated to others still in the running. In the sixth round of counting, Mr. Youngkin passed the required 50 percent threshold.“Virginians have made it clear that they are ready for a political outsider with proven business experience to bring real change in Richmond,” he said on Twitter. The unusual nominating process came after an internal party squabble in which Republicans rejected holding a primary, which would have drawn a larger and more diverse group of voters. Former Republican officials from an era before the party fell hard from power in Virginia criticized the nominating process as likely to increase the G.O.P.’s marginalization.But neither of the two candidates who most closely aligned themselves with former President Donald J. Trump — who did not endorse anyone — prevailed, raising Republican hopes for the November election.Mr. Youngkin, who is likely to run as an outsider businessman, fueled by a large fortune from private equity, will face the winner of the Democratic primary next month. In that race, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe has held a significant lead in fund-raising as well as in recent polls over four rivals.Mr. Youngkin said at a recent G.O.P. candidates’ forum that “the last eight years have been crushing” for Virginians, and he warned that if Mr. McAuliffe were given another term, Democrats would end the state’s right-to-work law that prohibits compulsory union membership. If that happens, “we can kiss our business environment away,” he said.Mr. McAuliffe governed as a pro-business Democrat in his four years in office, and he began his campaign for a second term in December on a pro-education note, pledging to raise teacher pay and offer universal pre-K. (Virginia governors cannot serve two consecutive terms.) Mr. Youngkin said last month it was “a sad thing” that Medicaid was expanded in Virginia under the Affordable Care Act, one of the signature achievements of the current Democratic governor, Ralph Northam. He acknowledged the clock couldn’t be turned back.In a statement, Mr. McAuliffe compared Mr. Youngkin to other Republicans who “fawn all over Donald Trump” and “fully embrace his extreme, right-wing agenda,” adding, “Now, Glenn Youngkin has paid enough to purchase the Republican gubernatorial nomination so he can run Donald Trump’s dangerous playbook here in Virginia.”Republicans have not won a statewide election in Virginia since 2009, a reflection of the state’s changing demographics as well as the party’s tendency in recent years to nominate candidates who fanned divisive social issues, rather than appealed to suburban voters on kitchen-table priorities.The thumping that Mr. Northam administered to his Republican rival in 2017 was both a rejection of Mr. Trump and a catalyst in further pushing Virginia, a once-purple state, out of the Republican orbit. Mr. Trump lost Virginia by 10 percentage points in November.Still, Republicans believe they have a better chance of winning statewide this year than at any time in the last decade, after Democrats, who took full control in Richmond in 2020, passed sweeping liberal legislation on gun restrictions, raising the minimum wage and other issues.Mr. Youngkin, 54, was raised in Virginia Beach and has lived in Northern Virginia for 25 years. Besides defeating Mr. Snyder, a technology entrepreneur, he also outlasted State Senator Amanda Chase, who was censured in a bipartisan vote of the state’s General Assembly for calling the rioters at the Capitol on Jan. 6 “patriots.” Supporters of Ms. Chase accused Snyder partisans in the state party of rejecting a primary and engineering Saturday’s “disassembled convention” to hurt her chances. Ms. Chase had said that if he became the nominee, she would run as an independent. There is no indication she intends to do that with Mr. Youngkin heading the party’s ticket, which will also include nominees for lieutenant governor and attorney general.Many G.O.P. insiders heaved a sigh of relief that the nomination for governor was not won by Ms. Chase, believing that her general-election candidacy would have been likely to go down in flames given how deeply unpopular Mr. Trump is in Virginia.Mr. Youngkin’s appeal to Republicans was at least twofold: He is a political blank slate, with no record in elected office for Democrats to attack. And his private wealth — reportedly more than $200 million after he retired as co-chief executive of the Carlyle Group — will allow him to compete financially against Mr. McAuliffe, a prolific fund-raiser. Mr. McAuliffe raised $36 million for his 2013 election and over $9.9 million during the past two years, according to the Virginia Access Project. Mr. Youngkin has already spent $5.5 million of his own money since entering the race in late January.At the recent candidates’ forum, Mr. Youngkin aligned himself with Mr. Trump’s lies about a rigged 2020 election, declaring “voter integrity” a top issue and referring to Dominion voting machines — the subject of conspiracy theories on the far right — as “the most important issue” of the campaign.He pledged to restore a state voter identification law, to replace the entire state board of education and to institute the “1776 Project,” a curriculum of “patriotic education” proposed by a commission established under Mr. Trump that has been derided by mainstream historians.Although Mr. Youngkin is expected to pivot to reach independent voters, Democrats are sure to remind them in the fall of his most Trumpy declarations from the nominating race, and that he campaigned this month with one of his endorsers, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, a bête noire of the left. More
