Youngkin won Virginia by recapturing suburbanites who detested Trump

Republican Glenn Youngkin’s victory in the Virginia gubernatorial race shows the advantages of a Reaganesque campaign, upbeat and welcoming, over the snarling sociopathy of former President Donald Trump.

Republicans should learn from Youngkin that they can win “swing” states only when they are competitive in suburbia and exurbia, and that to be competitive among the “soccer moms” of suburbia, they need to attract and unify , not divide and demonize.

Granted, this week’s election was determined by significant factors in addition to non-Trumpiness, most notably backlash against the leftist takeover of public schools and the Biden administration’s radical turn . Still, the numbers are striking: Trump was absolutely wiped out in suburban Virginia, while Youngkin performed respectably there.

As data site FiveThirtyEight notes , Youngkin beat Trump’s performance “in every locality in the state.” But he outperformed Trumpian “benchmarks” the most in big-city suburbs and within and around the smaller-but-significant cities. In the Northern Virginia suburbs and far exurbs of Washington, D.C., strongly Democratic-leaning counties Fairfax, Prince William, and Loudoun, as well as the city of Alexandria, together represent 25.47% of the state’s voters. Youngkin made up no ground in Prince William but beat the benchmarks in the other three places by 2.6%, 4.7%, and 2.5%, respectively… (Excerpts from the Washington Examiner)