Republicans have a good model with winning out-year governors races in state like Virginia and New Jersey that hold their elections off the even numbered two year cycle. Bank on the energy of hungry Republicans partisans looking to win and election while presenting themselves to the electorate at large as a salt-of-the-earth problem-solver just looking to lend a hand. (Dems of course have their own version of this playbook.) But the situation in Virginia today shows how the Trump era may pose some problems for that model.
Glenn Youngkin is a former private equity CEO who played hard for Donald Trump’s endorsement to be the Republican nominee for Governor in Virginia. It worked. He got Trump’s endorsement and the nomination. But he’s generally eschewed the Republican label in the general election campaign and certainly not leaned into Trump and all that goes with him.
“Just say we won.”
While former President Trump was pushing lies about voter fraud for months leading up to the 2020 election, new reporting on what occurred on election night at the White House is a reminder of the extent to which Trump’s democracy dismantling was rooted in absolutely nothing. That night, Rudy Giuliani was leading the lie-flinging charge.
As noted, fired Social Security Commissioner Andrew Saul’s decision to show up for work on Monday as though nothing had happened was deprived of some drama and charge since he was logging on from the home office in his mansion in New York. He found his login credentials had been revoked. “I’m here to do the job, but I can’t do anything with the communications shut down.”
