Sarah Bedford is a political and investigative reporter for the Washington Examiner. She is also a Tony Blankley fellow at the Steamboat Institute. Previously, she was a White House reporter for CNN. She was a Robert Novak journalism fellow at the Fund for American Studies and is a graduate of the National Journalism Center fellowship program.
The 2023 elections may not have the fireworks of 2024, but there is still plenty up for grabs. In this"off-year," most of which takes place on Nov. 7, Virginia will be keenly watched, particularly by followers of Gov. Glenn Youngkin, and whether he can springboard Republican success into national aspirations. Meanwhile, the governor's mansion is up for grabs in Kentucky and Mississippi.
“The stakes couldn’t be higher for him,” Bob Holsworth, a veteran Virginia political analyst, told the Washington Examiner. “If he wins, it catapults him further onto the national stage. If the Democrats win in flipping the House and keeping the Senate, it will basically say that his election was a one-off because of the frustration that people felt about Covid.”
Abortion, crime, and education have factored heavily into campaign messaging this year, with Youngkin spearheading a push for a 15-week abortion ban he has said Republicans will pass if they win control of the state Senate and keep the House of Delegates.Former President Donald Trump’s unpopularity in Virginia helped drive Democrats to heights that could prove difficult to sustain without him on the ballot this year.
“I think Virginia really looked bluer than it may actually be” during Trump’s presidency, said J. Miles Coleman, associate editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “It seemed like every other sentence, he’d mention Trump, and that didn’t really work out very well,” Coleman said of McAuliffe.
“That’s a little bit of a challenge that no one has spoken about, but the fact that Biden is unpopular in Virginia can tamp down Democratic enthusiasm and turnout, and that may be as much of a challenge as Youngkin’s money,” Holsworth added. Youngkin hopes to replicate some of the success of his 2021 playbook, which some Republicans have called “the Virginia model,” for General Assembly races this year. That has some GOP activists and donors whispering about a late entry into the 2024 presidential race.
A strong Republican performance on Nov. 7 may not come soon enough to help Youngkin break into the presidential primary, however. A political action committee supporting the presidential campaign of Sen. Tim Scott canceled its planned ad spending for the fall amid the realization that the dynamics of the 2024 race remain “stuck,” according to a memo prepared by the PAC.
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