Again in 2021, Republican Glenn Youngkin sailed to victory within the Virginia gubernatorial largely by enjoying into the fears of outraged conservative dad and mom. He had leaned into the so-called “parental rights” motion, a backlash in opposition to every thing right-wing dad and mom had been denouncing for the reason that pandemic shut down colleges: transgender college students enjoying sports activities, books concerning the LGBTQ+ neighborhood and variety packages. And it labored — he gained handily.
Within the aftermath, the Republican Social gathering took the technique as gospel. Throughout the nation, lawmakers and candidates have leaned hard right into a full-fledged assault on culture war issues. This yr’s statewide elections in Virginia aren’t any exception, with candidates for governor and different workplaces banking on what appears a confirmed technique.
However 4 years later, that very same playbook doesn’t seem like swaying Virginia’s voters.
This yr, Virginians largely see anti-trans rhetoric as plain outdated alarmist pearl-clutching from the GOP. They’re more worried about issues like affordability and jobs — ones that the Trump administration is making worse.
“A number of the GOP campaigns are falling quick as a result of they’re specializing in fearmongering on trans college students when the economic system is completely prime of thoughts for voters on this state,” Jatia Wrighten, a political science professor at Virginia Commonwealth College who research voter turnout and native elections, instructed HuffPost.
“Republicans suppose that is going to hold all of them the best way,” Ben Tribbett, a Virginia-based Democratic strategist, instructed HuffPost. In spite of everything, President Donald Trump, who made tradition struggle points a pillar of his campaign, defeated Vice President Kamala Harris simply final yr. On the time, some critics blamed the loss on Harris’ supposed deal with “identification politics,” together with assist for trans individuals.
“I feel the post-2024 inner occasion blaming the election outcomes on trans individuals was bullshit,” Tribbett disagreed. “Kamala simply appeared extra socially out of contact, it wasn’t trans points that took her out.”
Now, the query of what candidates, and which points, are out of contact with voters is likely to be swinging from the wrong way.
In some key races, Republicans have been trailing within the polls for months. A George Mason University poll taken simply days earlier than the election reveals Democrat Abigail Spanberger up by 12 factors over Republican Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears within the governor’s race.
A part of the issue could also be that Earle-Sears is trying to go full Trump. One of many solely 5 major points highlighted on her campaign page is dedicated to opposing trans athletes. And Earle-Sears is running an anti-trans ad that’s nearly an actual duplicate of an advert the Trump marketing campaign ran in opposition to Harris final yr.
“Our LGBTQ neighbors have the identical authorized rights as anybody else,” Spanberger says within the advert. The spot additional criticizes Spanberger for supporting transgender rights, saying, “THAT’S INSANE.”
Then, it ends with “Spanberger is for they/them, not us,” the very same phrase Trump used to pillory Harris.
The irony, although, is that Spanberger’s marketing campaign hasn’t centered on the tradition wars in any respect: Her campaign page’s part about defending rights has one point out of the LGBTQ+ neighborhood. As an alternative, her major points are making Virginia reasonably priced and strengthening public colleges.
“Each nook of Virginia, the story is similar,” Spanberger says in one of her ads. “The fee for households in housing, in well being care, in power … day by day simply will get somewhat tougher. However I’ve rolled out plans and I’m able to get to work to decrease prices.”
Neither Spanberger’s nor Earle-Sears’ campaigns instantly responded to a request for remark.
Polling signifies that Virginia voters aren’t nervous about trans athletes, however quite the state of the economic system and threats to democracy. An October 2025 Emerson College poll discovered that when it got here to their alternative for governor, voters’ prime situation was the economic system, with 79% of respondents saying it was crucial situation. Training and well being care had been at 78% and 71% %, respectively, adopted by threats to democracy at 66%.
Solely 27% of these surveyed stated transgender points had been crucial.
Again in 2024, Trump’s marketing campaign paired his tradition struggle points with large image promises on the economic system — past pledges like stopping an immigration “invasion,” maintaining “males” out of ladies’s sports activities, and prohibiting so-called vital race idea in Ok-12 colleges; he additionally campaigned on financial points like ending inflation and returning manufacturing jobs to the U.S. Even then, Trump didn’t win Virginia in 2024 — the state swung to Harris by five points.
And a yr later, the Trump administration’s coverage strikes aren’t precisely convincing Virginia voters that Republicans have their greatest pursuits at coronary heart. Trump’s commerce wars have really precipitated the price of goods like coffee, toys and clothing to go up.
The entire anti-trans rhetoric can’t fill the hole. “[It] doesn’t reply actual questions on their day-to-day lives. These social points are simply not that essential to voters who can’t purchase groceries and might’t discover jobs,” Wrighten stated.
In some situations, dad and mom have merely wisened up. “A number of voters are sick of listening to about it,” Rasha Saad, one of many founders of Loudoun4All, a Loudoun County-based group that advocates for equal public colleges, instructed HuffPost. “They’re identical to, ‘What you’re saying is occurring is just not occurring.’”
Think about the lawyer normal race, the place incumbent Republican Jason Miyares, after trailing for months, is now leading the race in opposition to former state lawmaker Jay Jones, who has been mired in scandal.
Miyares has claimed that specializing in transgender children is what the voters need.
“This has been an enormous situation in Virginia,” he told CNN earlier this month. “It’s completely one thing I hear about on the marketing campaign path, from voters and college students and people who come up and speak to me and people who cease me.”
Earlier this yr, after a transgender scholar was accused of filming within the boys locker room at a Loudoun County highschool, Miyares targeted the varsity district, alleging, with none proof, that the cisgender college students had been punished for saying they felt “uncomfortable” with a trans classmate sharing the locker room. As a result of everyone concerned is a minor, the varsity district didn’t launch particulars into the disciplinary actions it took however denied that anybody was punished for his or her viewpoints.
Miyares then opened an investigation into the varsity system, an echo of the Trump administration’s investigations into colleges with transgender scholar athletes for alleged violations of federal civil rights regulation.
The Miyares marketing campaign didn’t reply to a request for remark.
And imitating Trump could be political poison in a state that has been hit exhausting by his administration.
First, the cuts to the federal workforce administered by DOGE earlier this yr had been a harsh blow to Virginia, which has 140,000 civil servants. Then, there’s the truth that Trump has been at struggle with schools and universities, and the state has a number of prestigious establishments now forced to deal with funding cuts. This not solely can have an effect on jobs, it additionally impacts the move of scholars who might change their minds about attending a Virginia faculty.
Trump’s approval rating in Virginia sits at 40%.
“I’m seeing voters who had been apathetic final yr, however are popping out this yr as a result of we want our state protections in place,” Saad stated about voters who sat out the 2024 election. “We want our state protections in place, we have to codify abortion rights and voting rights so the federal authorities can’t screw round.”
Virginia’s Republicans don’t seem like distancing themselves from the more and more unpopular Trump insurance policies. The Youngkin administration, which incorporates each Earle-Sears and Miyares, shrugged off the issues about federal cuts a number of months in the past, once they had been first occurring beneath DOGE.
“The waste, fraud and abuse is beautiful and surprising, and everyone sees it,” Youngkin said about DOGE cuts in February. “There are inefficiencies within the federal authorities, and the Trump administration is doing precisely what they stated they had been going to do and promised Individuals they might do.”
And now the federal government shutdown, which voters are blaming Republicans and Trump for, is inflicting even additional ache for Virginia’s federal workforce. Early knowledge reveals that approximately 900 of those workers have filed unemployment claims because the shutdown drags on.
Even an October shock within the type of a textual content message scandal has solely helped Republicans to an extent.
Earlier this month, the Nationwide Overview reported on violent text messages Jones had despatched shortly after leaving the Virginia Home of Delegates in 2022. Within the messages, he fantasized about having the choice to kill Adolf Hitler, Pol Pot, or the state’s Republican Speaker of the Home Todd Gilbert — and selecting Gilbert. The scandal gave Miyares’ marketing campaign a brand new edge, as Jones’ support dropped. Nevertheless, many citizens didn’t swing their assist to Miyares, leaving the 2 candidates essentially tied.
Democrats like Spanberger had been fast to sentence the violent rhetoric, and Jones himself apologized for the messages — however Republicans, together with Miyares, had been calling for him to step apart.
Some liberals instantly known as out the hypocrisy. “There’s no method [Republicans] can take the ethical excessive floor once they have Donald Trump sitting within the Oval Workplace,” Lamont Bagby, the chairman of the Democratic Social gathering of Virginia, told The Washington Post.
“I feel we’re in an period the place lots of people really feel that the Republican rhetoric has been related,” Tribbett stated. “Democrats don’t wish to eat their very own when Republicans have the identical kind of habits.”
Trump has a protracted historical past of violent rhetoric, usually referring to his political opponents as scum and demanding retribution in opposition to those that criticize him. The White Home has used its official social media accounts to advertise violent imagery and has shrugged off violence in opposition to Democrats and immigrants.
Virginia, with its off-year election, is usually seen as a bellwether. And if the state’s GOP suffers defeat, it may spell large bother for the Trump administration and Republicans’ possibilities within the midterm elections.
“[Spanberger] goes to win in a landslide,” Tribbett stated. “I feel lots of people are going to be Virginia as a referendum on the administration.”
