Despite being an off-year for federal elections, there are a few important state elections happening in 2021. Perhaps the most noteworthy, and most closely watched at the moment, is the race for Governor in Virginia. Democrats have put forth a retread in Terry McAuliffe, who previously served as governor in the state from 2013 to 2017. On the Republican side, businessman and newcomer Glenn Youngkin is carrying the torch for the GOP.
At the moment, the most recent polling shows the race as a dead heat, with candidates one point away in a statistical tie:
The latest Emerson College/Nexstar Media poll of the Virginia gubernatorial election shows a tightening in the race, with Democrat Terry McAuliffe slightly leading Republican Glenn Youngkin 49% to 48%. One percent of voters plan to vote for someone else, and 2% are still undecided. In September, an Emerson/Nexstar poll showed McAuliffe with a four-point lead over Youngkin (49% to 45%).
McAuliffe, as a former governor for the state, should be considered the favorite. Virginia law prohibits governors from serving consecutive terms, so McAuliffe is back after giving his Klan-robe-wearing pal Gov. Ralph Northam a shot in Richmond.
McAuliffe stumbled badly in a debate recently, blurting out his beliefs that parents should have no input on what their kids are taught in public schools. Glenn Youngkin immediately seized on the comments amid a year of heated debates over education in Virginia (and elsewhere) where outraged parents are feeling more and more dismissed by their elected school board members.
On a Zoom session with donors and strategists, McAuliffe let more truth slip concerning how badly President Biden is impacting his chances in the Old Dominion. McAuliffe, in another instance of saying the quiet part out loud, openly stated that Biden is unpopular in Virginia and is hurting his chances in November:
According to the same poll mentioned above finding the race a dead heat, Biden’s numbers in Virginia are now underwater meaning he’s hemorrhaging support in a state he carried by 10 points over Trump in 2020:
President Biden’s approval is underwater in the state he won by ten points in 2020, as he sits at 45% approval and 48% disapproval, with 8% neutral. When respondents were asked if Biden’s endorsement of McAuliffe made them more or less likely to support his candidacy, 22% said more likely, 39% said less likely, and 38% said it had no difference.
McAuliffe launched his campaign with Joe Biden back in the Spring. The two appeared at several campaign events together. Now it seems that McAuliffe wouldn’t want Biden to step foot in the state with just weeks to go until Election Day on November 2.
In essence, McAuliffe is simply admitting reality, and there’s no doubt his own internal poll numbers are telling him the same thing that Emerson’s numbers found. Virginians, like voters in many states, are not pleased with Biden’s leadership of the country since January and seem to be rejecting his agenda and renouncing their support.
Late in September, at the final Youngkin/McAuliffe debate, the former Democratic Governor outright stated that parents have no business being involved with what their children are being taught in the classroom. An unforced debate error for the ages:
McAuliffe is in the sticky predicament of trying to win Virginia as a candidate running on the same party as the one that took the White House the previous year, a difficult task. Up until 2013, when McAuliffe first won the governorship, Virginia has been a fairly solid predictor of watching the party that wins the White House end up losing the governor’s race the following year.
In this case, with Biden’s 2020 victory, McAuliffe already has an uphill battle in 2021 when Republicans are more enthused to come out and vote against the party in power. Virginia has been a blue-trending state since 2013 with two Democratic Senators and Democrats winning statewide for several cycles now.
At the moment, it looks like Virginia Republicans are in the best position they’ve been in since 2009 when Bob McDonnell trounced his Democratic opponent by over 17 points and the GOP won every statewide race that year, including Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General.
Beyond the current metrics, Terry McAuliffe is just a bad candidate. He’s a Clinton-era hack, former head of the Democratic National Committee, and he stands for practically nothing. His media advertising has been touting his ardent support for abortion, big surprise, and his latest round of smear attacks on Glenn Youngkin earned an abysmal Four Pinocchios from his friends at the Washington Post.
The situation for McAuliffe is getting so desperate that he is now attempting to link Glenn Youngkin to the country-turned-pop singer Taylor Swift, and not in a good way:
The Democrat, who is running for the seat again on Nov. 2, has a new five-figure ad buy that connects his opponent, Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, to Swift’s bitter battle to gain control over the master recordings of her first six albums, including Fearless, Red and 1989. Youngkin is the former co-CEO of the Carlyle Group, which financially backed the 2019 sale of Swift’s masters to Ithaca Holdings, an umbrella company owned at the time by music manager Scooter Braun. Swift’s masters have since been sold again.
Youngkin spokesperson Christian Martinez dismissed the attack as “pathetic.”
“Terry McAuliffe has reached the stage of desperation in his campaign where he’s rolling out the most baseless attacks to see what sticks,” Martinez said in a statement.
Pathetic is the proper term for McAuliffe. Trying to bring out young voters by tying Glenn Youngkin’s former investment company to a controversial music deal where Taylor Swift lost ownership of her master recordings is, well, a distraction at the least, and a desperate act from a candidate with nowhere else to go at best.
Is this what suburban parents in Virginia care about? Taylor Swift’s master recordings or the declining quality of their child’s education?
