All eyes are on Virginia as Republican Glenn Youngkin takes the early edge over Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the race for governor.
Though it’s still too early to call, with 61% of precincts reporting, Youngkin leads his opponent by about 10%, 54.5% to 44.8%, or about 193,000 votes.
An early exit poll by NBC showed that 56% of voters disapprove of President Biden, who has campaigned for McAuliffe, and 43% approve. The NBC poll also showed that voters are most concerned with the economy, 33% ranking it as their top issue, and education, 24%.
If the margin of the final count is within 1%, a candidate can request a recount. If the margin is 0.5% or less, the state will pay for it.
Fairfax County, the state’s most populous, delayed its reporting of early ballots. The county had originally said it would have results for early vote ballots by 8 pm but now says it will be later.
McAuliffe’s campaign has said a portion of the Fairfax’s votes need to be rescanned and there is no timeline for that yet.
The suburban DC county typically serves as a boost for Democrats.
McAuliffe, 64, previously served as Virginia’s governor from 2014 to 2018. Due to the commonwealth’s unusual election laws, governors can only serve one consecutive term. He would become the first governor of Virginia in nearly half a century to be elected to two non-consecutive terms.
During his term as governor, he issued a record 120 vetoes, mostly concerning social issues like abortion and LGBTQ rights, and touted his record fighting against the GOP legislature on the campaign trail.
McAuliffe nationalized the race by invoking former President Trump’s name perhaps more than any other figure running for office.
Youngkin, 54, is a political newcomer and wealthy businessman who previously served as CEO of the Carlyle Group, a private equity firm. Though he won Trump’s endorsement, Youngkin has distanced himself from the former president, who faired poorly in Virginia in 2020.
Trump held an 11th-hour tele-rally for the Virginia race, but Youngkin said he did not participate.
Youngkin’s personal wealth launched him into the spotlight, as he provided $5.5 million to his own campaign. The Republican has sought to mobilize voters by tying the race to school choice and education issues, holding Parents Matter rallies where he hit out against teachings like critical race theory.
And in what could spell trouble for McAuliffe, over 80% of voters in an NBC exit poll said parents should have a say in what their children are taught in schools. Fifty-three percent said parents should have ‘a lot’ of say, 31% said ‘some.’
McAuliffe said during a debate in late September, ‘I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.’
Republican Glenn Youngkin (left) and Democrat Terry McAuliffe (right) continued to campaign on Tuesday after a full day of cross-state rallies on Monday. The two are only .9 percentage points apart going into the election on Tuesday – with Youngkin in the lead
Voters began lining up at polling places across Virginia on a rainy Tuesday morning to cast their ballot for governor in a heated contest coming down to a nine tenths-of-a-point.
In one county, turnout was so high that elections officials had to print off ballots and dole them out as voters waited at the polls.
Albemarle election officials said a majority of the county’s 30 precincts needed excess emergency ballots from the voter registration office, which began printing them off at lightning speed.
‘We just got a turnout far in excess of what we expected,’ registrar Jake Washburne said, according to the Daily Progress. He said the printer-paper ballots would have to be counted by hand.
McAuliffe is reportedly watching the election results at home with his family. ‘When the results of this election come in — win or lose — we can rest assured that we did everything we can to create the future that we want,’ he said in a note to supporters.
Joe Biden signaled on Tuesday that he believes Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe will be the next governor of Virginia in his nail-biting election with Republican Glenn Youngkin and insisted mounting problems and his poor performance in the polls will have nothing to do with the result.
‘We’re gonna win,’ Biden said in a hushed tone while grinning and leaning into the microphone on stage at the United Nations Climate Change conference in Glasgow, Scotland, while polls showed the race at a dead heat before state voting booths closed at 7pm.
‘I think we’re gonna win in Virginia,’ he continued. ‘The race, it’s very close. It’s about who shows up, who turns out.’
The president was responding to a question on if he feels McAuliffe losing in the state Biden won by 10 points in 2020 would be a rebuke on his presidency and spell disaster for Democrats going into the 2022 midterms.
‘Granted I did win by a large margin [in Virginia], but the point of the matter is I think that this is going to be – what we all knew from the beginning – it’s going to be a tight race. And it is tight.’
Biden then insisted that his successes or failures as president cannot be attributed to the outcome of local and congressional elections, even though they are being seen as an indicator of how his administration is performing.
Although there is a gubernatorial race in New Jersey, two congressional races in Ohio and several mayoral contests, the nation has turned its attention to Virginia as a loss for Democrat Terry McAuliffe would be catastrophic for the Party as Joe Biden’s approval dwindles ahead of the 2022 midterms.
A Republican win would cause a panic among the Democrats and could sway voters across the country in what is a bellwether election for an administration mired by mounting problems, including inflation and supply chain issues.
‘I’ve not seen any evidence that whether or not I am doing well or poorly, whether or not I’ve got my agenda passed or not is going to have any real impact on winning or losing,’ Biden said.
The career politician added that even if his Build Back Better agenda were passed in time for elections, that it wouldn’t be able to be attributed to Democrats winning at a higher rate.
Biden added: ‘The off-year is always unpredictable especially when we don’t have a general election going at the same time.’
‘I think we’re gonna win in Virginia. The race, it’s very close. It’s about who shows up, who turns out,’ Biden said of the gubernatorial race in Virginia, previewing that Democrat Terry McAuliffe will come out victorious
‘Go vote, Virginia and New Jersey!’ President Biden tweeted on Tuesday morning.
Biden said while overseas in Scotland for COP26 conference that he thinks the more people who turn out to vote in Virginia, the better chances are for Democrats to win and for McAuliffe to be the next governor.
Youngkin’s camp thinks that the GOP candidate can come out victorious in Virginia if he improves in some areas of the state where former President Donald Trump suffered to garner voters in the 2020 election.
Specifically, Youngkin wants to top Trump’s numbers by 5 per cent in Loudoun County, Fairfax County, Virginia Beach and Richmond.
If he does that, he is predicting he will have the votes state-wide needed to win the governorship.
All three counties are largely urban or suburban and were dominated by Biden – except for Virginia Beach where Biden only beat Trump by 5.4 per cent. Youngkin has tried to earn voters in these increasingly bye areas distancing himself from Trump’s political style, which puts them off.
Virginia has become a battleground area where Republicans feel they can gain more political control after Biden won the state by 10.1 percentage points in the 2020 presidential election.
In Monday’s polling average from FiveThirtyEight, McAuliffe and Youngkin remain just under 1 percentage point apart, with the GOP candidate pulling ahead in the days leading up to the election.
While 47.9 per cent of voters say they will cast their ballot for Youngkin, another 47 per cent say they will vote for McAuliffe. Back in August there was a near 7 per cent split in favor of McAuliffe.
One of the areas most vital to the election is Loudoun County, which Biden won by 25 percentage points in 2020. The wealthy area, while veering more blue recently, could easily turn red as Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin promises to give parents more control over their childrens’ education.
Loudoun is the richest county in the U.S., with an average household income of $142,299.
‘It’s no longer Republicans against Democrats,’ Youngkin told Fox News on Tuesday morning. ‘It’s parents from all political perspectives, from all walks of life coming together and standing up for their children.’
‘Virginia and New Jersey Democrats—it’s Election Day! You must turn out and vote for @TerryMcAuliffe, @PhilMurphyNJ, and Democrats down the ballot,’ Vice President Kamala Harrris tweeted on Tuesday.
Youngkin’s rally crowds the day before the election significantly out-showed those who came out for Democrat Terry McAuliffe, who is a former governor of the Old Dominion State.
Virginians headed to their polling places to cast their vote in the state’s gubernatorial election on a rainy Tuesday. Adrienne Schweer votes with children Georgia and Sully in tow at Chesterbrook Elementary School in McLean, Virginia
Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin picked up a basketball to shoot some hoops outside a voting location at Rocky Run Middle School in Chantilly, Virginia on Tuesday
Heating up: The GOP candidate removed his jacket to continue shooting hoops as drizzles cleared and the day warmed up
McAuliffe, a former governor of Virginia, waves his arms in the air as he rallies with supporters at a canvass kickoff event in Falls Church, Virginia on Tuesday
Youngkin greets a voter outside Rocky Run Middle School on Election Day in Chantilly, Virginia
McAuliffe tried desperately to tie Youngkin’s campaign to rump in an effort to make the candidate seem more far-right and deter independent voters from turning out for him.
‘Guess how Glenn Youngkin is finishing his campaign?’ McAuliffe said at his final Monday night campaign rally outside a brewery in Fairfax. ‘He is doing an event with Donald Trump here in Virginia.’
But Youngkin did not do an event with Trump, instead holding his own rally 30 miles away from McAuliffe at the Loudoun County Fairgrounds with a crowd many times the size of his Democratic challenger.
In fact, Youngkin did not mention Trump once during his Monday night rally, but was careful not to alienate his potential voters who also support the former president.
Trump did not travel to Virginia nor campaign with Youngkin in the race. He did, however, hold a brief long distance tele-rally making the case for the GOP candidate on Monday evening and sent several statements endorsing him.
When asked about McAuliffe linking Youngkin’s campaign to Trump, the Republican launched into a defense of the group effort mentality his Party took to get voters to turn out for this election.
‘Listen, it was great that the president took time out of his busy schedule to hold a tele-town hall last night,’ Youngkin told Fox News on Tuesday morning.
In his final pitch ahead of Election Day, Youngkin promised Virginians in Loudoun County that he would ban critical race theory teachings in schools and give parents more power over their children’s education.
Youngkin took the stage Monday night in the battleground county, which has been the state’s epicenter of anger regarding school curricula and policies – in particular, the teaching of critical race theory and rules regarding transgender students.
‘We decide that we’re going to take the power of our children’s education,’ he told the crowd of rally-goers.
‘This is a defining moment to the future of our commonwealth. A defining moment where we can stand up and say no to this progressive liberal agenda taking over.’
Tensions are rising over trans issues in the area after the Loudoun County School Board voted Wednesday evening to allow transgender students access to school facilities and groups that match their gender identities, including on sports teams.
As the issue has become central to the election, DailyMail.com revealed on Tuesday that the mother of a boy who dressed in a skirt and raped a female classmate in the girl’s bathroom and sexually assaulted another girl months later does not actually identify as female.
Voters check in at the Fairfax County Government Center on Tuesday to cast their ballots in the heated gubernatorial race
Virginia residents stand a socially-distanced line on Tuesday inside a voting location in Chantilly, Virginia, where Youngkin showed up top shoot some hoops and meet with voters
Voters check in at a polling place in a rainy Fairfax, Virginia on Tuesday
The race has become hotly contested as Democrats try to keep their seat and Republicans see it as an opportunity to gain some political ground in the Old Dominion State. Election Day is happening in several states, but the nation has turned its attention to Virginia
The mother defender her son, saying he did not dress in a disguise to get in the women’s restroom and was just a hormonal, heterosexual teen who had consensual sex with the girl twice before the alleged rape.
‘He’s a 15-year-old boy that wanted to have sex in the bathroom, with somebody that was willing,’ she said . ‘And they’re twisting this just enough to make it a political hot button issue.’
The story exploded when Scott Smith, the father of the rape victim, was dragged out of a school board meeting with a bloodied mouth on June 22 after listening to school officials deny that a girl had been sexually assaulted in the bathroom after his daughter had reported the rape.
The case became the searing tip of a raging debate in Loudoun County over transgender students’ rights and parents’ freedom of speech.
While Youngkin held his rallies Monday and focused on education issues, including the issue of trans students, McAuliffe held his own rally Monday evening where he criticized his Republican contender for his unsolicited endorsement from Trump.
‘Guess how Glenn Youngkin is finishing his campaign? He is doing an event with Donald Trump here in Virginia. I’m here with you and they’ve got Trump over there,’ he said.
‘Donald Trump wants to win here tomorrow night so he can next day announce for president of the United States of America. Well, we’re going to put an end to Donald Trump’s future plans right here in Virginia. I’ve beaten Trump twice in Virginia, tomorrow we go 3 and 0.’
Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin promised Virginians that he would ban critical race theory teachings in at schools and that parents would have power over their children’s educations. Here the candidate shoots some hoops at a Rocky Run Middle School on November 02, 2021 in Chantilly, Virginia, which doubles as a polling place
McAuliffe (pictured at a Monday night rally holding a glass of hard cider) has denied the existence of critical race theory in the state’s education system and argued that he doesn’t ‘think parents should be telling schools what they should teach’
Youngkin held his rally in the battleground area of Loudoun County where residents have protested against the teaching of critical race theory and rules regarding transgender students
EXCLUSIVE: It was the woke cover-up that electrified the Virginia governor’s race, now on election day the mother of skirt-wearing teen who raped a female classmate in girls’ bathroom says he is a troubled boy who identifies as male and just wanted sex
The mother of the 15-year-old boy who dressed in a skirt and raped a female classmate in the girl’s bathroom and was then charged with sexually assaulting another girl months later says her son doesn’t identify as a female, and it wasn’t just some disguise to slip into the girl’s bathroom.
Speaking exclusively with DailyMail.com, the mother, who asked not to be identified for the sake of her underage son, defended his actions as that of a heterosexual, hormonal teen who, in the case of the rape, had consensual sex with the girl twice before.
‘He’s a 15-year-old boy that wanted to have sex in the bathroom, with somebody that was willing,’ she declared, sitting in an empty kitchen in her townhouse in Loudoun County, Virginia. ‘And they’re twisting this just enough to make it a political hot button issue.’
The story exploded when Scott Smith, the father of the rape victim, was dragged out of a school board meeting with a bloodied mouth on June 22 after listening to school officials deny that a girl had been sexually assaulted in the bathroom after his daughter had reported the rape.
The case became the searing tip of a raging debate in Loudoun County over transgender students’ rights and parents’ freedom of speech.
The parents of a teen girl who alleges she was raped by a 15-year-old boy in a dress victim’s parents were ridiculed by the left after her father Scott Smith (left) was pictured being dragged out of a school board meeting on June 22
Scott Smith, the victim’s father, was pictured with a bloody mouth, being dragged out of a school board meeting on June 22 – a month after the attack – after listening to school officials say no one had been sexually assaulted in the bathrooms when that’s what his daughter had reported the previous month
The school board has been routinely accused of pushing an ultra-liberal agenda on kids and parents and silencing those who disagree with them.
The scandal even entered Virginia’s race for governor, giving life to the campaign of Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin who accused the Loudon school board of a coverup while warning, ‘What tragedy next awaits our children?’
Despite his androgynous style and declaration that he’s ‘pansexual,’ the boy’s mother insisted he isn’t the gender fluid boogeyman in a culture war about transgender policies.
‘He would wear a skirt one day and then the next day, he would wear jeans and a t-shirt, a Polo or hoodie,’ she explained. ‘He was trying to find himself and that involved all kinds of styles. I believe he was doing it because it gave him attention he desperately needed and sought.’
At the same time, she concedes her son is deeply troubled, acknowledging his extensive history of misbehavior that included sending nude photos of himself to a girl in fifth grade.
She reached her own breaking point with the him in early October when he phoned her from the juvenile detention center following his second arrest.
‘He asked me how I was doing, and I said, ”I’m broken, I’m shattered, you shattered me,” the mom recalled. ”Do you have any idea what you’ve done to me, what you’ve done to your family?
‘And his response was, ”No, what did I do?” she said.
She had been his primary point of contact, with his dad living in New Jersey.
‘At that point, I was like, ‘You know what? I love you, I always will, I will do everything I can to always be there for you in any capacity possible,’ she said. ‘But I told him – ‘You need to call your father for now on. Do not call me. I need to heal, and I need you to figure this out for yourself.’
That was Sunday, October 10. She did show up for his juvenile court appearance last Monday. She sat in the gallery while fuming at the boy’s father who defied her wishes by showing up with his wife.
‘He’d asked about bringing his wife and I said ”she’s the reason you have been absent in (our son’s) life. I hate her, I don’t want her in the courthouse,” she recalled telling him. ‘I’m in the mix every day dealing with three probation officers, detectives, the Commonwealth and I don’t know how many lawyers, and you’re in your own little safety bubble in New Jersey.’
‘And he didn’t listen to me,’ the mother told DailyMail.com, shaking her head and adding, ‘They even brought a friend.’
On October 25, the teen was found guilty for the May 28 sexual assault at Stone Bridge High School. The judge ‘substantiated’ charges of forcible sodomy and forcible fellatio, the juvenile equivalent of a conviction.
Youngkin, who did not mention the former president during his Monday night rally, remained focused on the issues that polls show to be of high importance amongst Virginia’s voters.
‘We have to have a moment where the power shifts away from the marble halls of Richmond to the kitchen tables,’ Youngkin told his supporters.
‘What can happen tomorrow can be a statement, a statement that can be heard across this country because America needs us to vote tomorrow as well.’
He continued: ‘America’s watching. Why? Because all across this country families are having the same discussions that you all have.
‘I get notes all day long, ‘Glenn stand up for our kids too. Stand up for the rights of our children because we can’t vote this year.’
Youngkin took the stage Monday night in Loudoun County, which has been the state’s epicenter of anger regarding school curricula and policies. He told rally-goers: ‘We decide that we’re going to take the power of our children’s education. This is a defining moment to the future of our commonwealth’
Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin, left, is pictured with his family: son Grant, wife Suzanne, and daughter Anna, at a campaign rally in Loudoun County
He promised that the state’s schools would not be faucets for political agendas.
‘What we won’t do is teach our children to view everything through a lens of race where we divide them into buckets and one group is an oppressor and the other is a victim and we pit them against each other and we steal their dreams,’ Youngkin said.
Youngkin also argued that Tuesday’s election was the ‘moment for Virginians to push back on this left, liberal, progressive agenda,’ citing alleged McAuliffe agenda items that would put increase taxes and put the government between schools and families.
McAuliffe – who has repeatedly accused his opponent of using Virginia’s children ‘as pawns’ in his campaign – has denied the existence of critical race theory in the state’s education system and argued that he doesn’t ‘think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.’
McAuliffe and Youngkin have less than a 1 percent polling gap from each other as Tuesday’s Virginia gubernatorial race comes down to the wire
McAuliffe, pictured at his campaign rally in Fairfax on Monday, criticized Youngkin for his unsolicited endorsement from former president Donald Trump. ‘Guess how Glenn Youngkin is finishing his campaign? He is doing an event with Donald Trump here in Virginia. I’m here with you and they’ve got Trump over there’
However, at a campaign rally Sunday, the Democrat did address the hotbed topic of education, alleging that there were too many white educators in the state.
‘We’ve got to diversify our teacher base here in Virginia. Fifty percent of students at Virginia schools — K-12 — 50 percent are students of color, and yet 80 percent of the teachers are white,’ he said.
McAuliffe promised to diversify the state’s teacher base and become the first state to pay college tuition and housing for minority educators.
‘We all know what we have to do in a school to make everybody feel comfortable in school,’ he argued.
‘So, here’s what I’m going to do. We’ll be the first state in America — if you’ll teach for five years here in Virginia in a high-demand area, whether that be geographic or course work, we will pay room, board, tuition, at any college, any university, any HBCU [historically black colleges and universities] here in the commonwealth of Virginia.’
McAuliffe and Youngkin have less than a 1 percent polling gap from each other as Tuesday’s Virginia gubernatorial race comes down to the wire.
Youngkin pulled ahead of his Democratic challenger and former Virginia governor on Saturday in a FiveThirtyEight polling average.
On October 28, the two were tied at 47 percent, then on October 29, Youngkin pulled ahead of McAuliffe in a 47.5 to 46.9 percent split.
On Sunday, Youngkin raised to 47.6 percent to McAuliffe’s 47 percent.
According to the latest Fox News poll, conducted by Democratic pollster Chris Anderson and Republican Daron Shaw, the majority of Virginians polled also indicated that they trusted Youngkin over McAuliffe when it comes to addressing educational issues.
‘It’s scary to see things so close,’ Brooke Hall-Ewell, a 50-year-old nurse who attended McAuliffe’s Monday event, told the Associated Press. ‘We’ve got to keep Virginia blue.’
According to the latest Fox News poll, the majority of Virginians polled also indicated that they trusted Youngkin over McAuliffe when it comes to addressing educational issues
Youngkin pulled ahead of his Democratic challenger and former Virginia governor on Saturday in a FiveThirtyEight polling average
On October 28, the two were tied at 47 percent, then on October 29, Youngkin pulled ahead of McAuliffe in a 47.5 to 46.9 percent split. On Sunday, Youngkin raised to 47.6 percent to McAuliffe’s 47 percent
However, Youngkin supporters argued that it was time for change.
‘He’s a straight shooter,’ Dan Maloy, a 53-year-old small business owner, said Monday.
‘He cares about the issues that we care about. You know, it’s food on the table. What’s the cost of groceries? What’s the cost of gas? What do we need to do to move Virginia forward?’
If Youngkin win’s election, he would be the first Republican to be elected as Virginia’s governor in more than a decade.
Meanwhile, Democrats are fearful of losing their stronghold in Virginia.
A loss in the Virginia governor’s race, long considered a bellwether for midterm elections, would trigger all-out panic among Democrats far beyond Virginia.
The party is already wary about their chances in elections that will decide control of the House and Senate and statehouses next year.
Source: dailymail