Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin won the Virginia gubernatorial election over Democrat Terry McAuliffe, the US media reported after more than 95 percent of the data had been processed early Wednesday, after the conservative candidate gained an unassailable lead.
In his victory speech, the 54-year-old Youngkin emphasized that he will help economic growth by creating new jobs, reduce the tax on fuel, and in order to increase the safety of communities, he will put a lot of emphasis on funding law enforcement agencies. "Virginia will no longer be a community of low expectations, we will be a community of high expectations," he said. We will restore order in schools and not leave parents alone, Youngkin added.
Among the main topics of the tough and expensive campaign were the future of human rights related to abortion and the debate in public schools about whether it is possible to hold LGBTQ sensitization sessions for minors without the parents' knowledge and consent.
Youngkin opposes the latter and has the support of many protesting parents, while McAuliffe has stated that if elected, he would support sensitization without parental knowledge and consent. The Breitbart news portal found out: McAuliffe's child attends a private school where such classes are not held.
The state of Virginia has previously produced eight presidents of the United States, from George Washington to Woodrow Wilson, more than any other US state. With one exception, every gubernatorial election in the state in the last 40 years has elected a candidate from the opposite party to the current occupant of the White House.
"Terry McAuliffe's campaign against a certain person named Trump appears to have greatly helped Glenn Youngkin," former US President Donald Trump said in a statement Tuesday night. “I didn't even have to campaign for Youngkin because McAuliffe did it for me. Thank you to the MAGA (Make America Great Again) voters for doing great!” Trump added, referring to the political slogan he used during the 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns.
According to the analysis of the AP news agency, one year after Joe Biden won the state of Virginia by 10 percentage points in the 2020 US presidential election, the current result can be interpreted as a kind of judgment regarding Biden's presidency. The defeat in Virginia could cause alarm within the party ahead of next year's midterm elections, when control of the US Congress is at stake, they said.
A governor was also elected in the state of New Jersey on Tuesday, where the competition is much tighter than expected when more than 80 percent of the data has been processed. While analysts clearly expected the Democratic incumbent Philip Murphy to win, Republican Jack Ciattarelli is currently in the lead.
In New York, Democrat Eric Adams was elected as the city's 110th mayor, defeating Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa. Adams, a retired NYPD captain, will become New York City's second African-American mayor after David Dinkins. Adams, who replaced current Mayor Bill de Blasio, also a Democrat, wrote in a message posted on Twitter: "Tonight we celebrate because tomorrow the real work begins!" One of the new mayor's main campaign messages was the expansion of the police force.
Republican Mike Carey won the write-in election to fill Ohio's 15th District congressional seat, which was vacated after former House Republican Rep. Steve Stivers resigned earlier this year to fill the position of president and CEO of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. Carey defeated Democratic candidate Allison Russo on Tuesday.
MTI
Photo: Reuters
