Republicans Didn’t Win VA. But We Can

The Next Steps the GOP Must Take to Secure a Red Virginia

Let’s not get carried away over Virginia.

Republicans didn’t win. They proved they can win, but if they don’t capitalize on these gains, there’s no guarantee for 2024.

Culture war issues like Critical Race Theory won this election. The many conservative activists, too radical for establishment Republicans, have been sounding the alarm on critical race theory for years and their work has finally paid off — no thanks to National Review style Republicans.

However, many of the suburban moms that switched from Biden to Youngkin aren’t actually persuaded by CRT but rather were persuaded by McAuliffe. McAuliffe said that parents “should not have a say” in their children’s education, and the drunk wine moms woke up from their stupor long enough to get to the voting booth. If McAuliffe would’ve kept his mouth shut, or even didn’t double down on that position, who knows if Youngkin would still have won.

It seems obvious we needed both. We needed CRT to energize the base and needed McAuliffe’s to persuade the independents.

Youngkin also benefited greatly from the race hoax that the Lincoln Project staged (and which, by the way, probably did originate with the McAuliffe campaign. The Lincoln project only took the fall). Once you get caught crying wolf, people don’t tend to listen to you, and this by itself could have tipped the scales.

Republicans, thanks to Trump, have made gains with the Hispanic community and black community and maintained those gains by focusing on economic issues like vaccine mandates and government lockdowns, policies unpopular with both groups. Youngkin created a big tent movement that would not have been possible if Biden simply followed the science and opened the country. These are enormous factors that probably won’t exist in 2024, but were essential to Youngkin’s victory

Point is, I have seen a lot of wild speculating from elated Republicans saying that the midterms will be a bloodbath, and Republicans will win 40 states in 2024 if there’s a 15 point spread. And if things keep going the way they are, those people could be right.

But things probably won’t keep going the way they are. Are Democrats really dumb enough to double down on critical race theory? Will the economy still be in free-fall in three years? Will Biden even be President still? Are we still going to be dealing with vaccine mandates, mask mandates, and lockdowns? Probably not.

And that means the Youngkin miracle isn’t necessarily going to work in three years. So how do we keep Virginia red?

The secret sauce seems to be in building alternative means of information and debunking legacy media so that they cannot control the narrative anymore. Legacy media often buries the most damning evidence for their favorite candidate, as they did with Hunter Biden, and in a national election will do the same. Citizen journalists held legacy immediate power to account in Virginia, but doing so at a national level election will be much harder — at this point, impossible.

Conservatives will also need to take the culture war tact. They will need to pick some other aspect of wokism that is insane and widely unpopular, then highlight it just like they did with CRT. Picking the right culture war issue will be key

Finally, Republicans need to be more than an opposition party. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend“ philosophy won’t cut it, you actually have to give them something to vote for just like Trump did in 2016. You will need to come out hard on illegal immigration, hard on rule of law and national security, hard on big corporations and big tech, hard against woke generals and commanders, purge the government of the crazies in favor of the normies, and provide Americans with a true way to better their lives.

So, celebrate the win in Virginia. Pop the cork and give yourselves a back pat, especially you activists and journalists on the ground who mobilized voters and spread the word about critical race theory, and debunked in real-time media narratives. But then roll up your sleeves.

Because there’s a lot more work to do.