Robert Morris of Pennsylvania, the 'financier' of the Revolution, opened the proceedings with a nomination-Gen. Guards stood at the entrances to ensure that the curious were kept at a distance. May 25, 1787, freshly spread dirt covered the cobblestone street in front of the Pennsylvania State House, protecting the men inside from the sound of passing carriages and carts. Youngkin was exactly the kind of statewide candidate Virginia Republicans needed, and he delivered.He was unanimously elected president of the Philadelphia convention. It stands to reason heвЂ™d struggle more than a bit against a very well-funded Republican with no record in office to offend swing voters or energize Democrats.

But his opponent that year was Ken Cuccinelli, a notorious extremist whose campaign was also poorly funded. Only once since 1973 has a Virginia gubernatorial candidate belonging to the party of the president won. In the end, the close nature of the race shouldnвЂ™t have been a surprise. And that may have made a key difference in keeping Democratic turnout up. But while the Republican couldnвЂ™t fully deploy his partyвЂ™s leader, McAuliffe could and did benefit from personal campaigning by Biden, Kamala Harris, and Barack Obama. Youngkin tried to keep his distance from Trump (though he couldnвЂ™t prevent a rally honoring January 6 insurrectionists headlined by Steve Bannon, at which the former president called in to praise Youngkin), and there were some signs that COVID was fading as a voting issue for Virginians. McAuliffeвЂ™s own strategy sought to duplicate the very effective messaging of California governor Gavin Newsom, who turned a tense recall election into a rout by tying his opponents to Trump and to unpopular conservative positions on abortion and on COVID-19 masks and vaccines. McAuliffe played into YoungkinвЂ™s strategy by saying in one of the two candidate debates that parents shouldnвЂ™t be telling schools what to teach (a quote taken far out of context), which the Republican exploited by holding вЂњParents MatterвЂќ rallies. He also battened on a more general anxiety among parents about the impact on learning of the pandemic and school shutdowns. For all his temperamental centrism, however, he aggressively deployed two school-based national culture-war themes, attacking the alleged teaching of вЂњcritical race theoryвЂќ (a big cause among exurban conservatives in vote-rich Northern Virginia) and rules accommodating transgender students. As the general election developed, Youngkin continued taking a businessman-outsider stance while muting his earlier Trumpiness. Youngkin, the very wealthy CEO of the investment firm the Carlyle Group, won the GOP nomination in May by being just MAGA enough to win Trump voters while coming across as a traditional Republican favoring limited government and pro-business measures. The campaign that led to YoungkinвЂ™s win was long, expensive, and unpredictable, featuring two candidates with modestly net positive favorability ratings and plenty of money heading into the battle. Just broad strength- Nate Cohn November 3, 2021 There's no big demographic shift underlying this. It will take a while to sort through what happened and why, but this seems fair:Д«ig GOP gains, in other words, have materialized extremely evenly across the state. Turnout was actually strong across the state Youngkin won by improving significantly on TrumpвЂ™s vote in both GOP rural strongholds and in exurban swing areas where he was either less threatening or more attractive than the 45th president. McAuliffe lost, however, not due to the sort of collapse in Democratic turnout so many had feared as a product of an вЂњenthusiasm gapвЂќ fed by Democratic problems in Congress or disappointment in Biden. Youngkin overcame a solid McAuliffe lead in all the early polls and managed to keep Republicans enthusiastic without getting too cozy with Trump, who endorsed him but was only really visible in the campaign in McAuliffe ads that sought to tie the GOP candidate to the leader of his national party. After all, Joe Biden won Virginia by ten points exactly one year ago, and current Democratic governor Ralph Northam won by nearly nine points four years ago.

While YoungkinвЂ™s win may well be overinterpreted as a national bellwether, it was impressive. Republicans got their first big off-year victory since Donald TrumpвЂ™s 2020 defeat as private-equity guru Glenn Youngkin won the race for Virginia governor against the former governor and arch-Establishment Democrat Terry McAuliffe. Photo: Steve Helber/AP/Shutterstock/Steve Helber/AP/Shutterstock The next governor of Virginia, Republican Glenn Youngkin.

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