RICHMOND — An extraordinary race for Virginia governor and control of the House of Delegates wrapped up Tuesday at 7 p.m. as polls closed around the state, with reports of long lines at some voting precincts throughout a chilly, rainy day.
2021 Election: Complete coverage and analysis ArrowRight
Republican Glenn Youngkin and Democrat Terry McAuliffe both expressed optimism as they cheered on voters in a close contest for governor that has drawn nationwide attention. Both major parties view the race as a tuneup for next year’s congressional elections, as well as a proxy battle over President Biden’s brief administration and a post-Trump identity test for Republicans.
Some areas began reporting results right away from early voting, but vote totals were expected to flow into the night. The potential for extremely close races, both statewide and in House districts, raised the prospect that some outcomes might not be clear immediately.
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About 1.2 million Virginians cast their ballots in person or by mail between Sept. 17 and Oct. 30, only the second year the state has allowed no-excuses absentee voting for such an extended period.
The governor’s race has smashed records for fundraising in Virginia, with the two candidates raising roughly $115 million combined, according to the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project. It pitted a veteran politician in McAuliffe, who served as governor from 2014 to 2018, against a newcomer in Youngkin, who retired last year as co-CEO of the Carlyle Group private equity firm.
While Republicans haven’t won statewide in Virginia since 2009, the state also has a record of electing a governor from the opposite party of whoever is in the White House — broken only once in the past 40 years, by McAuliffe in 2013.
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A third candidate, Princess Blanding of the Liberation Party, was also running for governor with a campaign based on social justice issues and appeals to the far left.
McAuliffe, Youngkin make final pleas in Virginia’s race for governor
Also on the ballot were lieutenant governor and attorney general, along with all 100 seats in the House of Delegates. Democrats were defending a 55-45 majority in the House, with Republicans taking aim at about a dozen suburban and rural swing districts in hopes of retaking the balance of power.
Opinion polls have repeatedly suggested a tight race, but Youngkin seemed to gather momentum in the closing days of the campaign as he shifted his strategy to hammer on education.
That a Republican was performing so well in Virginia — a newly blue state that went for Biden last year by 10 points — has caused GOP leaders nationwide to suggest that Youngkin has charted a path worth imitating. He welcomed Trump’s endorsement and flirted with unfounded claims of voter fraud in the form of “election integrity,” but Youngkin never campaigned with Trump and presented himself as a likable suburban dad — sort of a business-tycoon-next-door type.
Youngkin also tapped into a national conservative movement of parental anger about public schools, from transgender bathroom policies to fears of objectionable reading material to the teaching of critical race theory.
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The biggest applause at any Youngkin rally usually came for his call to ban the teaching of critical race theory, an academic concept about racial history that is not actually on Virginia’s K-12 curriculum.
Signs of Election Day interest varied around the state, but many areas reported steady to heavy turnout. Voters described a wide range of factors that pulled them out to the polls, but returned again and again to themes of race, education and — for good or ill — former president Donald Trump, whose polarizing shadow has loomed over the election.
In early exit polling, about a third of voters said the economy was their top issue, followed closely by education, which was cited by about a quarter of voters.
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At Purcellville in western Loudoun County, the yard signs were almost evenly split between McAuliffe and Youngkin. Caley and Jeff Adams, 41 and 40, said they voted Democrat up and down the ballot for the sake of their four children, who are between the ages of 9 and 16, and partly out of concern about the coronavirus pandemic.
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“I don’t want Youngkin to win,” said Caley Adams. “His association to Trump, wanting to take the masks off kids in schools… There’s nothing good there.”
A former military family who moved to the area in 2019, the Adamses said they avoided talking politics with neighbors after seeing the angry school board debates that roiled Loudoun in recent months.
At the same precinct, Republican voter Kyrstina Agresta, 34, was also wary of having her political views known. She didn’t usually vote in the governor’s race, she said, but given “everything wrong with the country,” she figured her vote would matter.
Taxes in Virginia are “ridiculous” and inflation is “absurd,” Agresta said, and above all, she disagreed with how McAuliffe had tried to tie Trump to Youngkin as a campaign strategy.
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“It’s like, get off it, it’s over, someone else is in charge now,” said Agresta. Lowering her voice, she added that she didn’t even think the Trump connection was negative for Youngkin; she voted for Trump in 2020.
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“But you know,” she added, “I don’t want to say that too loud.”
Voters on both sides routinely cited the subject of critical race theory in interviews on Tuesday.
In Chesterfield County outside Richmond, Alex Prill, 61, said she voted a straight Republican ticket.
“I feel like they all stand conservative, and that’s where I’m leaning,” Prill said. She particularly liked the party’s stance on banning the teaching of critical race theory. “We have to teach history as it was, and not as what it’s become,” she said, adding that “I just really wish that the racial stuff would stop because I feel like it’s just polarizing everybody.”
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Robert Monahan, 55, said he voted for Republicans across the board this year, as he walked out of Harper Park Middle School in Leesburg at 9 a.m., because he believes Youngkin would do more to help the middle class. He listed eliminating the grocery tax as an example, and added that he thinks the government should keep critical race theory out of schools and allow parents to have more choice in the curriculum.
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”The Democratic Party is catering to the very extreme wing of their party and not trying to be centrist,” Monahan said. “I think that party has gone so far as to delve into censorship, and I’d rather not live in a society that censors people’s free thoughts and ideas.”
But just as many voters said they were motivated by opposition to Youngkin’s position on teaching racial history.
In Arlington, middle school art teacher Emily Shepardson, 58, said she condemned what she called “racist attacks by Youngkin” after voting for the Democratic ticket.
The focus on critical race theory is nonsensical, she said, as the topic “isn’t even a state mandate.” She recalled a point made by a co-worker in response to some parents’ attempts to ban critical race theory: “I’m sorry, but we just call that history.”
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Cluny Brown, a 57-year-old history teacher voting in Henrico County outside Richmond, said had shown up early Tuesday “out of fear of losing our democracy.” Brown said she was appalled by Youngkin’s emphasis on critical race theory, which she called “nonsense.”
“Teaching that racism is systemic in this nation is truth, not fabrication,” she said. “There’s evidence behind it, and I’m trying to teach evidence-based thinking, and Republicans are just pushing nonsense down everybody’s throats.”
McAuliffe spent the closing weeks of the campaign accusing Youngkin of exploiting racial tension, and brought in a slew of high-powered surrogates to help appeal to Black voters — including former president Barack Obama, Vice President Harris and voting rights activist Stacey Abrams.
Are Virginia’s Black voters energized or tired? McAuliffe brings in the big guns to motivate a crucial Democratic constituency
At the Titustown Recreation Center in Norfolk, Carolyn Harris, 59, who runs a nursing aide company, said fairness was the main issue driving her vote for McAuliffe. She liked that he restored voting privileges for felons. “Everybody should be given a second chance,” he said.
Improving education and closing the wage gap, particularly the minimum wage, were the other issues that swayed her.
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The pandemic also weighed heavily on her. Her business is down $1,600 a month, she said. And her husband lost his job as a hydraulic technician after he spent a month in the hospital with covid-19. She wants politicians to promote masking, vaccine promotion, and hand washing. Youngkin has been outspoken about being against vaccine and mask mandates, though he encouraged people to get the shot if they choose.
At George Carver Elementary School in Henrico, Madds May, a 23-year-old analytical chemist and Starbucks manager, voted for McAuliffe. While he thinks Blanding’s platform is more in line with the issues he personally cares about, May said he thought McAuliffe’s chance of winning was in question — and he prioritized keeping Virginia blue.
“I care about keeping abortion relatively accessible, keeping trans and LGBTQ rights in the 21st century, homelessness and housing, and generally preventing us from turning into Texas,” May said. “I voted for Terry just because of the statistics.”
A guide to the Virginia elections: The races, the candidates and where they stand on the issues
From a distance, the odds seemed stacked in Democrats’ favor this year. McAuliffe was a popular governor when he left office in 2018, like all governors prohibited by the state’s constitution from seeking a second consecutive term. His lieutenant governor, Ralph Northam (D), won the top job in a landslide and, working with a new majority in the General Assembly, has presided over sweeping changes that generally seem popular, from legalizing marijuana to abolishing the death penalty and expanding access to the vote.
Compared to other states, Virginia is doing well in its coronavirus response, with a vaccination rate above the national average and an unemployment rate below it. As the only former Confederate state to reject Trump in 2016, Virginia seemed to have turned solidly blue. Biden won last year by 10 points.
But Youngkin had more working in his favor than it might have seemed.
Before recent Democratic gains, Virginia went from blue to red and back again
This year, the bad news for Democrats began over the summer and never relented. Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan damaged his popularity, and the stalemate with a Democratic Congress over infrastructure and other spending bills has dug the public opinion hole ever deeper. Polls showed that Biden’s unpopularity in Virginia was a drag on McAuliffe.
On Tuesday, early exit polls suggested that more voters cast their ballot to oppose Biden than to support him.
Evelyn Griswold cast a ballot for Youngkin in deep-blue Alexandria, praising his support for cutting grocery taxes, promoting charter schools and protecting the state’s “right to work” laws that allows employees to avoid paying dues to unions.
But Griswold, a fundraiser for nonprofits who is in her mid-50s, said she was surprised Youngkin was running such a competitive race given that Biden won Virginia so handily.
The close competition, she said, might mean that not everybody is as excited about the direction the country is moving toward under the Biden administration.
Jim Morrison, Henry Rogers, Zinya Salfiti, Nick Shereikis, Rayna Song, Rebecca Tan and Skye Witley contributed to this report.