A year after giving a firm victory to Joe Biden against Donald Trump in the (New York) presidential election, voters in Virginia on Tuesday withdrew his party’s candidate for state governor and chose a Republican candidate to replace him.
The verdict, which was deemed impossible a few weeks ago, will be like slapping Joe Biden in the face, dropping his predecessor by 10 points in Virginia, one of the states whose popularity has plummeted over the past few weeks. . And he will plunge his Congress allies into suspicion and panic.
Glenn Young, a 54-year-old businessman, defeated Terry McAliffe, a 64-year-old former governor of Virginia, using a tactic that would be followed by other Republican candidates before the election, which will take place in November 2022.
Proposing the image of a good father, he kept Donald Trump out of Virginia throughout his campaign and attracted both Republican base and moderate suburban voters.
He has been successful in advocating for parents in battles between some and public schools over a variety of issues, including the impact of racism, which is important in teaching elementary and middle students. Developed by legal scholars in the 1970s, this concept is used to study the legacy of white supremacy over American law and institutions.
Glenn Young has promised to ban this principle even if it is not taught in public schools. Therefore, his anti-democratic accusation is that he purged this theme at home in order to exploit the racial tension of the white electorate.
Big mistake
However, Terry McAuliffe, for the sake of the Republican nominee, helped make a big mistake on the issue of education during the last televised debate of the campaign. Refers to an attempt to prevent a mother from studying Dear, Tony Morrison’s novel about slavery, he said: “I don’t think parents should tell schools what to teach. The report was used by Glenn Young in a satisfactorily televised ad.
Voter concern about the economy and their exhaustion from the corona virus epidemic played in favor of the Republicans. Clearly, Terry McAuliffe has failed to convince voters that there is no real difference between his rival and Donald Trump. He will not fail to see in his defeat the effect of the inaction of Democrats in Congress on the economic reforms desired by Joe Biden. In recent weeks he has called for the House of Representatives to approve a $ 1.2 trillion bipartisan bill for infrastructure already approved by the Senate in vain.
His failure could have the effect of diverting moderate Democrats in Congress from Joe Biden’s ambitious reform – the $ 1.7 trillion social and environmental program.
The story keeps coming back
From a historical point of view, it is not entirely surprising that Glenn Young was chosen. In the previous 11 ballots for the governor of Virginia, the candidate representing the ruling party in the White House won 10 times.
So Joe Biden is facing the same fate that befell all American presidents after Jimmy Carter in 1977.
Both party strategists and commentators would like to see the victory of the Republican candidate as an omen for the midterm elections, especially with 435 seats and one-third of the seats in the Senate. They will specifically discuss what happened after the 2009 Republican Bob McDonnell election when Democrats controlled both the White House and Congress. This victory was affected by Barack Obama’s Democrats during the 2010 midterm elections. They lost 63 seats in the assembly – and a majority.
But Tuesday election night may differ from 2009 by at least one point. Twelve years ago, Republicans won not only the election for governor of Virginia, but also the election of governor of New Jersey. Chris Christie defeated the Democratic governor of the state, John Corsin. At the time of writing, however, Democrat Governor Bill Murphy was engaged in a close fight against Republican Jack Seattle.
