Glenn Youngkin’s win in the Virginia Gubernatorial race on Nov. 3 came as a surprise to many Virginians and many Americans.  This could be a crystal ball for what could happen in the 2022 midterm elections.  It is pretty clear that for the 2022 midterms, the Democrats have a lot of work to do if they want to maintain both the Senate and House from Republicans, as it looks like Republicans have a good shot at claiming both next year.  Youngkin’s strategy was strong and bold because he had successfully found a way to win a democratic state.  Youngkin found a way to use the issue of critical race theory to rile up voters about education and it worked, even if critical race theory has been a controversial topic for over a year now.  The GOP strategy to win against Democrats in the midterms is to focus on the poor performance of both the Democrats and President Joe Biden’s poor approval rating and Biden’s failed policies such as rising prices because of inflation, higher gas prices and increased taxes.  The focus should not be on trying to appease Trump voters about the 2020 election being stolen, which it was not, rather they should try to appease them on education, crime, gun rights and border security. Republicans campaign slogans should go something like “elect me as a Republican if you want to see an end to Biden’s horrendous policies and his poor performance as a president.” If the Republicans spread lies about Jan. 6 and the lies about the 2020 election being stolen, then this could easily jeopardize their chances of winning the House and Senate.  

Many voters had suspected that Terry McAuliffe would lose as he had said many controversial things during his campaign about education and about Youngkin. McAuliffe was on record saying parents should not have a right to their children’s education.   This upset many Virginians voters, especially middle-class parents, who saw this insult.  They showed up in the polls for Youngkin and it hurt McAuliffe badly.  McAuliffe’s strategy was bold, but stupid and foolish.  McAuliffe, during the campaign, tried to tie Youngkin to Trump but it had failed badly because during his campaign Youngkin barely ever mentioned Trump’s name, except for his endorsement and appeasing his voters. McAuliffe was previously the governor of Virginia from 2014 to 2018 and so some had a feeling that the former governor would not have a second term as governor of Virginia. McAuliffe should have also known the only way for him to win was to talk about his policies and not tie Youngkin to Trump.  McAuliffe should also have thought ahead at least once that since Biden’s approval rating kept slipping, the only way for him to win over his supporters was to address Biden’s issues and come up with his own solution to the problem.  But unfortunately, we heard little of this from him.  That would have been a smart decision for him but McAuliffe had thought it would have been better to take the easy road and tie Youngkin to Trump and talk about how parents should not have any rights to their children’s education.  Every time McAuliffe had compared Glenn Youngkin to Donald Trump and had said bad things about parents getting involved in their children’s education the election had massively swayed in Youngkin’s favor.  

At the end of the day I am very excited and proud for Youngkin to begin his first term as Virginia’s new governor in January of 2022.  I think if Youngkin can stick to his goals then Virginia can drastically change its trajectory.  With Youngkin’s win the Republicans now have 27 elected governors compared to the Democrats’ 23.  Youngkin’s win in Virginia is a clear example of how Democrats are in a position to fail in 2022’s midterm elections if they cannot find a way to recover from their bad policies in the Biden administration and Biden’s disastrous approving ratings and issues that are currently happening in his administration.  

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