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      Youngkin’s Victory in Virginia's Election Is a Warning for Democrats

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      In the first statewide elections since Donald Trump’s defeat, Republicans appear to have won the governor’s race in Virginia, as well as coming closer than expected in New Jersey. While this is surprising — Republicans had not won a statewide race in Virginia in 12 years — Virginia voters have swung against whichever party holds the White House in 10 of the last 11 gubernatorial races. Perhaps reinforcing this penchant for split governance, Democrats appear to have held the historic gains they made four years ago in the House of Delegates, despite running within district lines heavily gerrymandered toward Republican advantage.The clearest message for Democrats nationally is that the fear of Trump 2.0 is not enough to win elections. Congressional Democrats, especially those in tough races, should be sprinting to immediately pass the boldest possible version of President Biden’s Build Back Better agenda. Democrats need to look like the party that knows how to govern and produces results that benefit Americans of every race and region.I learned this lesson as part of the congressional class that lost the 2010 midterms. While some suggest my vote for the Affordable Care Act cost me my seat, I was sure that the real political cost was incurred by watering down the original proposal and taking far too long to pass it. Right now, the fight is not just immediately to pass Build Back Better but whether new benefits like child-care subsidies for the working and middle class kick in next year or down the road. Prescription drug reform should be strong enough that voters can see cheaper prices by next year’s election. Democrats need to run on results that families have felt.Democratic delegates ran ahead of the statewide ticket, protecting most of the gains made four years ago. As State Senator Jennifer McClellan noted: “Since taking the majority in 2019, Virginia Democrats have made generational progress on a wide range of issues voters care about. We’ve raised the minimum wage, expanded paid sick leave, passed a 100 percent clean energy law, expanded voting, civil, worker and reproductive rights, implemented criminal justice reform and taken major actions on gun safety and community college affordability.” Democratic incumbents running as “reformers with results” may be a winning formula. Voters are angry, exhausted after nearly two years of lockdowns, economic insecurity, and general disruptions of normal life. They are eager to blame whoever is in charge, which Republicans translated into enormous gains in the suburbs and sweeping wins in rural areas. Glenn Youngkin, like Mr. Trump in 2016, ran as an outsider ready to shake up the status quo. Historically, Democrats tend to win with younger “change” candidates, like John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. While Mr. Biden was seen as a break from that trend, he may have represented “change” in the immediate contrast to Trump in ways that have been harder to maintain as president.Anachronistic efforts to blame the left have fallen flat, given that neither Terry McAuliffe, Philip Murphy or Mr. Biden represent the most progressive wing of the party. The old center-left divide obscures new divides. The fault lines of American politics today are partisan, but the ideologies on either side are surprisingly fluid, as Mr. Trump proved. For the past two weeks, the Youngkin campaign flooded my digital feed with ads attacking Mr. McAuliffe for his corporate PAC donations from Dominion Energy. Banning corporate contributions was a major part of the reform platform that propelled Democratic delegates to office in 2017. This issue has grass-roots energy across the aisle. Anti-corruption advocates, namely Clean Virginia, have built broad political support while sometimes butting heads with leaders of both parties. This is a trend traditional pundits seem to miss — that winning issues are emerging less from the old bipartisan consensus than anti-establishment comparisons. This is true about antitrust enforcement and accountability for Big Tech, limiting presidential war powers, and eliminating dark money and corporate power in politics. Any course correction should focus on steering Democrats to prioritize benefits popular with moderates, like paid family leave and strong prescription drug reform, ahead of protecting corporate lobbyists.The issues gaining bipartisan support today are rarely emerge from established institutions. Republicans can win by running up numbers in vast expanses of low-population rural areas, and Democrats ignore those areas at their peril. The two groups in Virginia most likely to benefit from debt-free community college, for instance, are white rural families and recent immigrants or their children. We will not rebuild a common American dream when the establishment cares more about the price of the bill than the price Americans are paying to have a future. We do not need to win back all the old Johnny Cash Democrats, but authentic reformers with roots in these communities can level the score.The culture wars clearly profit Republicans at the polls and Facebook’s bottom line. By leaning into red-hot school board fights, Youngkin became the first major Republican candidate in years to rally the MAGA base while keeping Donald Trump out of state. The Democratic Party does not support defunding the police or teaching critical race theory in public schools, so it is not surprising they are losing a battle they have no desire to wage. They lack the ability to declare a unilateral détente in the culture wars, and fear of Trump’s shadow failed to scare suburban voters with the same intensity as the images Republicans conjured of public schools running out of control.Finally, Republicans can win fair elections. Their win in Virginia came despite Democrats passing the kind of voting rights reforms that have been stymied at the federal level. When Republicans focus more on winning over voters than making it harder to vote, they can win in areas thought to be blue. Voting reform was and should be a bipartisan issue. Early and easier voting helps historically marginalized communities. While this has been and remains primarily African-American voters, it also applies to rural voters working a double shift, younger families that may be moving frequently to find work, and seniors still navigating health threats. Let’s put the lies about rigged elections to rest, and see whose agenda most voters endorse. That may not bridge our partisan divides, but could get us back to agreeing on the right rules of the game in our shared democracy.Tom Perriello represented the Fifth Congressional District of Virginia in the House from 2009 to 2011, and ran for the Democratic nomination in the 2017 race for governor.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      What Youngkin's Win in the Virginia Governor Race Means for Democrats

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      Less than a year after taking power in Washington, the party faces a grim immediate future, struggling to energize voters without a presidential foil and losing messaging wars to Republicans.The menacing thunder couldn’t get much louder for Democrats.Few in the party had high hopes that their era of rule in Washington would last beyond the midterm elections next year. But the Republican resurgence on Tuesday in Virginia — a state that President Biden won by 10 percentage points last year — and surprising strength in solidly blue New Jersey offer a vivid warning of the storm clouds gathering as Democrats look warily to the horizon.For five years, the party rode record-breaking turnouts to victory, fueled by voters with a passion for ousting a president they viewed as incompetent, divisive or worse. Tuesday’s results showed the limitations of such resistance politics when the object of resistance is out of power, the failure of Democrats to fulfill many of their biggest campaign promises, and the still-simmering rage over a pandemic that transformed schools into some of the country’s most divisive political battlegrounds.The Republican Glenn Youngkin, a former private-equity executive, defeated the Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the race for Virginia’s governor.Melissa Lyttle for The New York TimesIn Virginia, the Democratic nominee for governor, Terry McAuliffe, was beaten with relative ease by Glenn Youngkin, a Republican private equity executive and political newcomer.In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, faced a stunningly close race after being expected to coast to victory. In Minneapolis, voters rejected a ballot measure pushed by progressives that would have replaced the Police Department with a public safety department.Perhaps most strikingly, the crushing setbacks for Democrats in heavily suburban Virginia and New Jersey hinted at a conservative-stoked backlash to the changing mores around race and identity championed by the party, as Republicans relentlessly sought to turn schools into the next front in the country’s culture wars.For Democrats, the results on the nation’s single biggest day of voting until the midterms next year raised alarms that the wave of anti-Trump energy that carried them into power has curdled into apathy in a base that is tired of protesting and is largely back at brunch. Or, in what would be even more politically perilous, that the party’s motivation has been replaced by a sense of dissatisfaction with the state of a country that has, despite all of Mr. Biden’s campaign promises, not yet returned to a pre-Covid sense of normalcy.Virginia Shifts Right in Race for GovernorThe Republican candidate for governor, Glenn Youngkin, received much stronger support in every corner of the state than President Trump did in 2020. Mr. Youngkin defeated former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the Democrat, according to The Associated Press. More

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      Terry McAuliffe Concedes in Virginia Governor's Race

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      Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate for governor in Virginia, conceded on Wednesday morning to his Republican opponent, the businessman Glenn Youngkin, as the Republican Party claimed the state’s governorship for the first time in more than a decade.“While last night we came up short, I am proud that we spent this campaign fighting for the values we so deeply believe in,” Mr. McAuliffe said in a statement.He added, “While there will be setbacks along the way, I am confident that the long-term path of Virginia is toward inclusion, openness and tolerance for all.”With his victory, Mr. Youngkin, 54, presented his party with a formula for how to exploit President Biden’s vulnerabilities and evade the shadow of Donald J. Trump in Democratic-leaning states. A wealthy former private equity executive making his first run for office, he elevated education and taxes while projecting a suburban-dad demeanor to demonstrate he was different from Mr. Trump without saying so outright.With Mr. Trump out of office, Mr. McAuliffe struggled to generate enthusiasm among liberals at a moment when conservatives are energized in opposition to Mr. Biden.The Associated Press called the race for Mr. Youngkin shortly after 12:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, hours after the polls closed on Tuesday night.Mr. Youngkin’s surprise victory in Virginia represents the starkest warning yet that Democrats are in danger. It was likely to prompt additional congressional retirements, intensify the intraparty tug of war over Mr. Biden’s agenda and fuel fears that a midterm electoral wave and Mr. Trump’s return as a candidate are all but inevitable.“The MAGA movement is bigger and stronger than ever before,” Mr. Trump said in a statement Tuesday night. More

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      Catch up on Election Day results from around the United States.

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      The governor’s races in Virginia and New Jersey and the New York City mayoral election were among the highlights.After voters elected President Biden and pushed Republicans fully out of power in Washington, the party rebounded with a strong election night on Tuesday, highlighted by Glenn Youngkin’s victory in Virginia’s governor’s race.Here is a run-down of election results from some of the closely watched races around the country on Tuesday.Virginia governor’s raceBusinessman Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, defeated former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat who struggled to generate enthusiasm among liberals at a moment when conservatives are energized in opposition to Mr. Biden.The victory by Mr. Youngkin, a first-time candidate in one of only two gubernatorial races before next year’s midterm election, may provide his party with a formula for how to exploit President Biden’s vulnerabilities and evade the shadow of former President Donald J. Trump in Democratic-leaning states.New Jersey governor’s raceFormer Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, a moderate Republican, surprised many analysts with a strong showing in the race for governor in New Jersey against Gov. Philip D. Murphy, a Democrat seeking a second term who was ahead in most public polling before Tuesday’s contest.The race was too close to call early Wednesday.New York CityIn the city’s mayoral race, Eric Adams, a former police captain and Brooklyn borough president, easily dispatched his long shot Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, to become only the second Black person elected mayor in the city’s history.And Alvin Bragg was elected Manhattan district attorney. He will become the first Black person to lead the influential office, which handles tens of thousands of cases a year and is conducting a high-profile investigation into former President Donald J. Trump and his family business.Boston mayor’s raceMichelle Wu easily defeated City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George to become the first woman, first person of color and first person of Asian descent to be elected mayor in Boston. The city has been led by an unbroken string of Irish American or Italian American men since the 1930s.Minneapolis police ballot itemMinneapolis residents rejected an amendment that called for replacing the city’s long-troubled Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety, The Associated Press projected.The ballot item emerged from anger after a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd last year, galvanizing residents who saw the policing system as irredeemably broken. More

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      When Will We Know Election Results?

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      Expect it to be a late night in Virginia. And possibly a long week.In 2020, President Biden won the state by 10 percentage points, and the race wasn’t called until well after midnight. No one expects the margin of victory for either Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate, or Glenn Youngkin, the Republican candidate, to reach double digits, meaning a large percentage of the vote total will likely need to be counted before it is clear who won.If the margin is fewer than 10,000 votes, Virginians may have to wait a few days. The state requires that all mail ballots postmarked by Election Day be counted if they are received by the following Friday at noon. In 2020, the count included 10,901 ballots that fell in that post-Election Day window.And as voters navigate the relatively new early voting process, both campaigns expect an uptick in provisional ballots, which also can take days to be counted.The state has made some improvements since the 2020 election.Counties are now required to prepare their early absentee ballots for processing, meaning the ballots can be opened, checked for eligibility and scanned up to a week before Election Day. That is likely to help alleviate the type of bottlenecks in tabulating absentee votes that delayed the 2020 vote count.So while it may take time for results to be counted, Virginia is not expected to repeat what happened in Pennsylvania in 2020, when election officials were restricted by law from getting a head start on processing early votes, leading to a delay in counting.New YorkIn New York City, voters will likely not have to wait long at all. Eric Adams, the Democratic candidate, is the overwhelming favorite in the race to succeed Mayor Bill de Blasio, and the election is expected to be called early in the night.But for City Council seats and other closer races, the results could take some time. The New York City Board of Elections has not had a recent history of timely results or orderly counting. It took weeks for the agency to release certified election results in nearly all the races after the primary in June.New JerseyNew Jersey expanded early voting this year and can expect an election night as swift as the one in New York. Gov. Philip D. Murphy, a Democrat, has been maintaining a double-digit lead in his re-election bid for most of the year. Though that lead has waned slightly, there has not been any major swings to indicate a shift in support.The state has also seen steady early voting, with nearly 500,000 people voting by mail as of Thursday. All those votes can be prepared and ready for tabulation on Election Day.AtlantaIn Atlanta, the race to replace Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms — who decided not to seek re-election — is almost certainly headed to a runoff election. It may take late into the night to learn which candidates make it to the runoff.BostonThe race that will give Boston its first female mayor appears headed to an early night. Michelle Wu has maintained a large lead over her opponent, Annissa Essaibi George, with recent polling from Suffolk University showing Ms. Wu with a 32-point advantage. More

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      Election Day 2021: What to Watch in Tuesday’s Elections

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      Most of the political world’s attention on Tuesday will be focused on Virginia, where former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, is trying to return to his old office in a run against Glenn Youngkin, a wealthy Republican business executive. Polls show the race is a dead heat. And the themes of the contest — with Mr. McAuliffe trying relentlessly to tie Mr. Youngkin to former President Donald J. Trump, and Mr. Youngkin focusing on how racial inequality is taught in schools, among other cultural issues — have only amplified the election’s potential as a national bellwether. The results will be closely studied by both parties for clues about what to expect in the 2022 midterms.While the Virginia race is Tuesday’s marquee matchup, there are other notable elections taking place. Voters in many major American cities will choose their next mayor, and some will weigh in on hotly contested ballot measures, including on the issue of policing. There’s another governor’s race in New Jersey, too. Here is what to watch in some of the key contests that will provide the most detailed and textured look yet at where voters stand more than nine months into the Biden administration.Republicans are hoping Mr. Youngkin can prevail by cutting into Democratic margins in suburban Northern Virginia and turning out voters who remain motivated by Mr. Trump.Carlos Bernate for The New York TimesThe Virginia governor’s race is seen as a bellwetherDemocrats have won Virginia in every presidential contest since 2008. Last year, it wasn’t particularly close. Mr. Biden won by 10 percentage points.But Virginia also has a history of bucking the party of a new president — the state swung to the G.O.P. in 2009, during former President Barack Obama’s first year in office — and Republicans hope Mr. Youngkin has found a formula for success in the post-Trump era.To prevail, Mr. Youngkin needs to cut into the margins in suburban Northern Virginia, where voters have made the state increasingly Democratic, while also turning out a Republican base that remains motivated by Mr. Trump.His playbook has focused heavily on education, attacking Mr. McAuliffe for a debate remark that parents should not be directing what schools teach and capitalizing on a broader conservative movement against schools teaching about systemic racism. The result: Education has been the top issue in the race, according to an October Washington Post poll, giving Republicans the edge on a topic that has traditionally favored Democrats.Mr. McAuliffe has aggressively linked Mr. Youngkin to Mr. Trump, who endorsed the Republican but never traveled to Virginia to campaign for him. If Mr. Youngkin loses, it will showcase the G.O.P.’s ongoing challenge in being associated with Mr. Trump, even without Mr. Trump on the ballot. But if Mr. McAuliffe loses, it will intensify pressure on Democrats to develop a new, proactive message.Control of the Virginia House of Delegates is also up for grabs. For now, Democrats have an edge of 55-45 seats that they built during the Trump years.In the New Jersey governor’s race, the Democratic incumbent, Philip D. Murphy, is up for re-election. Polls have shown Mr. Murphy ahead, but Mr. Biden’s weakening job approval rating in the solidly Democratic state — which stood at 43 percent in a recent Monmouth poll — is a cause of concern. The results will be watched for evidence of how much of the erosion in Mr. Biden’s support has seeped down-ballot.India Walton, left, has the support of progressives like Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in her bid to be the next mayor of Buffalo, N.Y.Libby March for The New York TimesBig mayoralties: Boston, Buffalo, Atlanta and moreIt is not the biggest city with a mayor’s race on Tuesday, but the City Hall battle in Buffalo, N.Y., may be the most fascinating.India Walton, who would be the first socialist to lead a major American city in decades, defeated the incumbent Democratic mayor, Byron Brown, in the June primary. But Mr. Brown is now running a write-in campaign. .css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Ms. Walton has won the backing of progressives, such as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and some party leaders, like Senator Chuck Schumer, but other prominent Democrats have stayed neutral, most notably Gov. Kathy Hochul, a lifelong resident of the Buffalo region.Policing has been a major issue. Though Ms. Walton has distanced herself from wanting to reduce police funding, Mr. Brown attacked her on the issue in a television ad.In Boston, the runoff puts two City Council members, Michelle Wu and Annissa Essaibi George, against each other, with Ms. Wu running as the progressive. Ms. Wu, who is backed by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, finished in first place in the primary.In New York City, Eric Adams, the borough president of Brooklyn and a Democrat, is expected to win the mayor’s race and has already fashioned himself as a national figure. “I am the face of the new Democratic Party,” Mr. Adams declared after his June primary win.In Miami, Mayor Francis Suarez, a rare big-city Republican mayor, is heavily favored to win re-election and is lined up to become the president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, giving him a national platform.And in Atlanta, a crowded field of 14 candidates, including the City Council president, Felicia Moore, is expected to lead to a runoff as former Mayor Kasim Reed attempts to make a comeback.In Minneapolis, voters will decide whether to replace the Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety.Jenn Ackerman for The New York TimesThe future of policing is front and centerOne recurring theme in municipal races is policing, as communities grapple with the “defund the police” slogan that swept the country following the police killing of George Floyd last year. The debate is raging inside the Democratic Party over how much to overhaul law enforcement — and over how to talk about such an overhaul.Perhaps nowhere is the issue more central than in Minneapolis, the city where Mr. Floyd was killed, sparking civil unrest across the country. Voters there will decide on a measure to replace the troubled Minneapolis Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety.Mayor Jacob Frey, who is up for re-election, has opposed that measure and pushed for a more incremental approach. His challengers, among them Sheila Nezhad, want a more aggressive approach.Policing is a key issue not only in the Buffalo mayor’s race, but also in mayoral contests in Seattle, Atlanta and in Cleveland, where an amendment that would overhaul how the city’s police department operates is on the ballot as well.The mayor’s race in Cleveland puts Justin Bibb, a 34-year-old political newcomer, against Kevin Kelley, the City Council president. Mr. Bibb supports the police amendment and Mr. Kelley opposes it.Shontel Brown, a Democrat, is expected to win a special election for a House seat in Cleveland.Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesHouse races and Pennsylvania’s court battleThere are two special elections for House races in Ohio, with Shontel Brown, a Democratic Cuyahoga County Council member, expected to win a heavily Democratic seat in Cleveland. Mike Carey, a longtime Republican coal lobbyist, is favored in a district that sprawls across a dozen counties.Mr. Carey faces Allison Russo, a Democrat endorsed by Mr. Biden. Mr. Carey’s margin in a seat that Mr. Trump carried by more than 14 points last year will be another valuable indicator of the political environment.In Florida, a primary is being held for the seat of Representative Alcee Hastings, who died earlier this year. The winner will be favored in a January special election.The only statewide races happening in Pennsylvania on Tuesday are for the courts. The most closely watched contest is for the State Supreme Court, which features two appeals court judges, the Republican Kevin Brobson and the Democrat Maria McLaughlin. Democrats currently hold a 5-2 majority on the court and the seat being vacated was held by a Republican, so the result will not swing control.But millions of dollars in advertising are pouring into the state, a sign not just of the increasing politicization of judicial contests, but also of the state’s role as a top presidential battleground. More

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      In the Final Days Before Virginia Votes, Both Sides Claim Momentum

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      Glenn Youngkin and Terry McAuliffe crisscrossed Virginia on the last weekend of what has become an increasingly close race for governor.MANASSAS PARK, Va. — The high-stakes race for governor of Virginia entered its final stretch with Glenn Youngkin and Terry McAuliffe trading accusations of sowing division, as voters appeared closely divided over returning a Democrat to office or electing a Republican to lead their state for the first time in more than a decade.The size and atmosphere of dueling events during the last weekend of campaigning before Election Day on Tuesday reflected the trends in the most recent polls. Mr. Youngkin, the Republican candidate, greeted crowds of more than 1,000, while Mr. McAuliffe, the Democrat, hustled through sparsely attended events from morning to night.Mr. McAuliffe, who served one term as governor from 2014 to 2018, has displayed a rising sense of urgency lately, dispatching some of the Democratic Party’s biggest stars to campaign for him and push people to vote early. In 11 hours on Saturday, Mr. McAuliffe traveled more than 120 miles, making eight stops in six cities amid a whirlwind day of campaigning in which he urged supporters not to be complacent.“We are substantially leading on the early vote, but we cannot take our foot off the gas,” Mr. McAuliffe told a crowd on Saturday in Norfolk, where he met with labor leaders who were planning to spend the day knocking on doors.He and his allies took it as an encouraging sign that more than 1.1 million of Virginia’s 5.9 million registered voters had cast ballots as of Sunday morning, according to the Virginia Department of Elections.But the energy this weekend was more palpable among Mr. Youngkin and his supporters, who have heeded the Republican’s calls for a new direction in the state’s political leadership after more than a decade of Democratic governors. Mr. Youngkin has framed the election as an opportunity for Virginians to send a message to the nation that Democrats are out of step with the majority of Americans on a number of issues, from how racial inequality is taught in schools to coronavirus-related mandates.“The nation’s eyes are on Virginia,” Mr. Youngkin told an energetic crowd of several hundred people who came to see him on Saturday afternoon in Manassas Park, a city near the suburban Democratic stronghold of Fairfax County outside Washington. In his speeches, he often ascribes a larger significance to his campaign, saying, “This is no longer a campaign. It’s a movement.”Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate for governor, spoke to reporters on Saturday with Bruce Smith, a developer and former N.F.L. defensive end.Kristen Zeis for The New York TimesIt was clear in interviews with voters over the weekend that many Virginians view this election as something symbolically greater than a face-off between two candidates for governor. The contest has exposed the country’s persistent divisions over questions of race, class, privilege and the appropriate role of government, and become an outlet for Virginians to register their dissatisfaction with the political culture.“I’m a Hillary-Biden voter,” said Glenn Miller, a lawyer from McLean, as he walked into a Youngkin rally in southern Fairfax County on Saturday night that drew more than 1,000 people. He explained his tipping point: Working from home and hearing his teenage daughter’s teacher make a comment during a virtual lesson about white men as modern-day slaveholders.“There are a lot of people like me who are annoyed,” he said, adding that he was able to vote for Mr. Youngkin because he did not associate him as a Trump Republican. “My problem with Trump was I thought he was embarrassing. I just don’t think Youngkin is going to embarrass me or the state.”The McAuliffe campaign has tried to portray Mr. Youngkin as a Trump acolyte, accusing him of exaggerating fears that children are being divided by race by teachers who are encouraging them to see white people as inherently bad.“He’s got parents fighting parents and parents fighting teachers,” Mr. McAuliffe said over the weekend. “He’s turned our school boards into war zones. It’s all about this critical race theory, which is not taught in Virginia. This is all he talks about. It has never been taught in Virginia. Let’s call it what it is: It’s a racist dog whistle. He’s run a racist campaign from start to finish.”Some Democratic voters said they appreciated the link Mr. McAuliffe was making between former President Donald J. Trump and Mr. Youngkin, who opposes abortion, same-sex marriage and mandates for the coronavirus vaccine.“I see a lot of issues with what’s going on in the national Republican Party,” said Jerry Dalesandro, 59, a retiree from Virginia Beach. “I’m a Biden fan, an Obama fan, but also more just a not-a-Trump fan.”Mr. Youngkin has tried to strike a balance between keeping Mr. Trump close but not too close. The former president recently announced he would speak at a telephone town-hall-style event for Mr. Youngkin on Monday. But the Republican candidate said he would not be participating.For Mr. McAuliffe, the visit to Norfolk was one of several stops he made in southeastern Virginia, where he drew small to modest crowds of 30 to 100 people. The largest crowd on Saturday was at a Black church in Portsmouth, where Mr. McAuliffe was joined by Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the civil rights leader.Supporters of Mr. Youngkin rallied at an event in Springfield, Va., on Saturday.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesPresident Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama have all visited Virginia as part of the McAuliffe campaign’s push to boost turnout, especially among core Democratic constituencies such as Black voters. But generating enthusiasm has been difficult at times, which was evident on Saturday at a McAuliffe event in Chesapeake. When Mr. McAuliffe went to speak, the crowd yelled “Terry, Terry, Terry” only after a campaign staffer started the chant to ramp up the energy in the room.On the minds of many Democrats was the unpleasant memory of what happened in 2016, when they believed Hillary Clinton was all but certain to win the White House. “You need to remember back how you felt in November of 2016, when we woke up and we realized who was going to be our next president,” Gov. Ralph Northam, who is prohibited from running again because of term limits, told a crowd in Virginia Beach on Saturday. “We do not want to wake up on November the 3rd of this year and have that same feeling.”At the Youngkin events, it was unclear how many people were voters like Mr. Miller, the former Biden supporter now voting for the Republican. Many said they were committed Republicans, and the crowds were more diverse than Republican events typically are.In the Washington suburb of Chantilly, John and Linda Torres of Herndon stood in a parking lot as the crowd of several hundred returned to their cars after a Youngkin rally. Ms. Torres held a Youngkin yard sign and a handful of stickers that read “Latinos for Youngkin.”The couple said they both voted for Mr. Trump, but also for Mr. Obama. They said they disliked Mr. McAuliffe’s stance on vaccine mandates as well as his insistence that Mr. Youngkin was making a problem where one doesn’t exist by criticizing how race is taught in some schools. “I know some people say, ‘Oh, it’s all made up.’ But it’s real,” said Mr. Torres, 41, a veteran.Ms. Torres, 43, a nurse, said she and her husband have considered pulling their two children out of public school and putting them into a Christian one. And that same impulse applied to her views on the state’s political leadership.“We just want it to change,” Ms. Torres said. More