Democrats shudder as McAuliffe appears headed for defeat in Virginia in key race for Biden

Race will have national implications despite Republican Youngkin’s focus on local issues

The Virginia governor’s race concluded on Tuesday with Republican Glenn Youngkin on track to win a resounding victory that sent a chill through Democrats in Washington.

Before the results were even called by the major networks, Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill were already gaming out what the results would mean for 2022.

Terry McAuliffe, the state’s former governor, was down by roughly 115,000 votes as of 10.15 p.m. local time around when he took the stage at a watch party in Tyson’s Corner attended by hundreds in the meeting area of the McClean Hilton.

“We’re going to continue to count the votes,” he told cheering supporters, noting that roughly 18 per cent of the vote remained uncounted.

The mood was dour in the McAuliffe watch party before the candidate spoke, with small crowds of staffers and donors huddled in small conversations, many watching vote totals come in on their phones or the several TVs set up around the room. Others mingled over drinks at several open bars.

Republican gubernatorial candidate, Glen Youngkin, right, hugs Virginia Republican party chairman, Rich Anderson, as he arrives for an event in Richmond, Va., Tuesday, May 11, 2021. (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

At one point, a scattered chorus of boos broke out among the guests when a batch of votes took Mr Youngkin’s lead temporarily to more than 200,000 and triggered a victory prediction in his favour by Dave Wasserman, an election analyst at the well-respected Cook Political Report. News networks and the Associated Press have not yet projected a winner in the race, calling it too close to call but leaning Republican.

Progressives, who saw the party’s nominee bulldoze his competition in the statewide primary, took to Twitter as Mr McAuliffe’s vote deficit appeared to be insurmountable to predict angry reactions from centrists eager to escape blame for their candidate’s loss.

Indeed, an editor with Politico’s congressional bureau tweeted before the race was finalised that members of Congress were already "blaming progressives for the ‘debacle’ in Virginia" in private messages.

Republicans, meanwhile, celebrated the news as a sign of President Joe Biden’s weakening national standing and as positive tidings for their hopes of retaking the House and Senate in the 2022 midterms.

Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy predicted as much as a 50-seat pickup by his caucus next year should the Virginia results be able to be extrapolated nationwide at a private fundraiser Tuesday evening, according to The Intercept’s Ryan Grim.

Former President Donald Trump issued a statement blaming Mr McAuliffe’s apparent loss on his decision to center his campaign around anti-Trump sentiment and efforts to link the Republican nominee to the former president.

“It is looking like Terry McAuliffe’s campaign against a certain person named ‘Trump’ has very much helped Glenn Youngkin. All McAuliffe did was talk Trump, Trump, Trump and he lost!” said Mr Trump.

Another top Republican (and highly likely contender for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination), former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, also congratulated Mr Youngkin.

“Governor-elect @GlennYoungkin delivered a major win for Republicans and for Virginians. Looking forward to working with him to champion American values,” tweeted Mr Pompeo, seemingly indicating that his future remained in politics.

The Virginia race saw a focus on local issues in the final days of the race, which clearly aided Mr Youngkin, who declined to appear alongside Mr Trump or other nationally prominent Republicans and instead hammered Mr McAuliffe and other Virginia Democrats on issues such as education, Covid-19 protocols for business, and taxes. One of the candidate’s ads featured his plan to raise teacher pay, an issue also mentioned as a goal on Mr McAuliffe’s website.

The Republican candidate did just enough, however, to tie himself to the ongoing culture war and backlash over the teaching of materials supposedly linked to so-called “critical race theory” ideas in schools so that Fox News and other conservative outlets could frame the race for the Republican base as the first major fight against Democrats on that issue which has brought furious protests to school boards around the nation.

In one ad, he highlighted the efforts of a supporter to remove a book dealing with the issue of slavery and race from Virginia schools; the book in question was Toni Morrison’s critically acclaimed novel Beloved. Democrats seized on that issue as well, but were unable to energise their base in the same way around the issue despite framing it as a “racist dog whistle” and effort by conservatives to fight against honest education surrounding racism in America.

Regardless of what the final margin of Tuesday’s election ends up being, the pressure is likely to ramp up considerably on Capitol Hill among both moderates and progressives for the party to pass more meaningful legislation and take actions that can dominate the conversation and quell the comeback GOP before midterm elections next year.

The party is hoping to pass Mr Biden’s two-pronged infrastructure and social safety net reforms bill later this week, which they hope will show the party taking widely-supported actions on issues related to healthcare, climate change and others before voters head to the polls.