Virginia Upset Brewing? McAuliffe Missteps Give Youngkin an Opening in Election Day’s Marquee Race

All eyes are on Virginia this election day as a last-minute surge in the polls for Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin has his party hoping for an upset — and his rival scrambling to avoid one. 

For months, polls showed Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate and former governor of Virginia from 2014 to 2018, in the lead. When early voting began on September 17, Terry McAuliffe was up five points in the RealClearPolitics average.

Then, on September 28, McAuliffe infamously said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” and his fall from grace began. 

Individual polls began moving in Youngkin’s favor almost immediately, and the Republican took the lead in the RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight averages late last week.

Education has emerged as a main focus of the gubernatorial race, with parents in Virginia having coalesced to push back against school boards that have implemented various controversial COVID-19 policies, transgender policies, and the teaching of racialized curricula in public schools. While Youngkin has vowed to ban the teaching of critical race theory in Virginia schools on his first day in office, his Democratic opponent has denied CRT is taught in Virginia schools, defining the concept down to its postgraduate form and refusing to acknowledge its adaptation for younger children.