[The Old Dominion’s neck-and-neck legislative elections have
huge implications for abortion rights, public education, gun safety,
and Glenn Youngkin’s political future.]
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BATTLEGROUND VIRGINIA  
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Gabrielle Gurley
September 28, 2023
American Prospect
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_ The Old Dominion’s neck-and-neck legislative elections have huge
implications for abortion rights, public education, gun safety, and
Glenn Youngkin’s political future. _

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin greets supporters during an early-voting
rally, September 21, 2023, in Petersburg, Virginia (Steve Heleber/AP
Photo).,

 

In a less polarized climate, the “off-off-year” contests in
Virginia for school board members, state prosecutors, sheriffs,
treasurers, revenue commissioners, county clerks, boards of
supervisors, soil and water conservation directors, and the entire
General Assembly—as well as the hyperlocal issues that animate the
races—would fly way under the national radar.

That’s not the case this November. Virginia is the only Southern
state not to pass any new abortion restrictions after the decision
in _Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization_. That was not for
a lack of desire on the part of its Republican governor, Glenn
Youngkin. Just six months into his term when the _Dobbs _ruling came
down, Youngkin said
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he would “happily and gleefully sign any bill to protect life.” He
later proposed a 15-week ban with exceptions for rape, incest, and the
life of the mother.

Earlier this year, the state Senate, which has a one-seat Democratic
majority, defeated the bill in committee, so it never made it to the
House of Delegates, where Republicans hold a three-vote majority. This
followed a party-line pattern since Youngkin came on the scene, with
Senate Democrats halting a far-right Republican plan.

That dynamic has turned election season in the Old Dominion into a
nationalized proxy battle on abortion, stoked by a Republican governor
who is uncommonly anxious to step into the presidency after barely two
years in office. To get there, he has to prove that he can turn a
purplish state red by securing a GOP trifecta, bringing Virginia more
in line with the Deep South. That goal runs straight into a
still-mad-as-hell crew of Democratic voters. Mad that they got saddled
with Youngkin, they are even madder now.

Despite his oft-repeated preferences for a 15-week abortion ban,
Youngkin has been steadily funneling dollars
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his Spirit of Virginia PAC
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Republican candidates who support total bans. Though Youngkin is often
mentioned as an alternative to Republican Ron DeSantis in the
presidential race, an outright ban could put Virginia on a path
similar to Florida. In April, DeSantis signed
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six-week abortion ban that would take effect
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if the state supreme court lets a 15-week ban remain in place.

Youngkin remains relatively popular in the state, with a 50 percent
approval rating in a late-January poll
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Christopher Newport University’s Wason Center for Civic Leadership.
But the roadblocks to his agenda from Senate Democrats have arguably
helped him maintain his favorability. Youngkin’s positions on
abortion, as well as rollbacks on environmental measures like the
Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), do not match up with voter
sentiment. A plurality, 43 percent, prefer Virginia’s abortion
status quo (where pregnant people can seek abortions up to 26 weeks).
A majority of Virginians also support RGGI. On issues like gun
control, where Youngkin has shied away
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doing much of anything, a 2019 Wason Center poll found that nearly 90
percent of Virginians supported
[[link removed]] universal
background checks, more than 70 percent support red-flag laws, and a
majority 54 percent support assault weapons bans.

Youngkin has been helming his own get-out-the-vote (GOTV) effort,
encouraging Republicans to take advantage of early voting, once a GOP
target, which began last week and runs until the Saturday before
Election Day. With a little more than a month to go, what looks
certain is that voter engagement is high. More than three times as
many people have already cast ballots compared to 2022, a year with
federal candidates on the ballot. This year, 33,560 people
have already voted
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according to the Virginia Public Access Project. In 2022, 11,433
people had cast ballots by September 26.

Overall, this year’s legislative races are particularly critical
since there will be a new cast of characters operating in the Virginia
General Assembly. An independent redistricting commission
completely shredded
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old maps and old alliances, devising Senate districts that pit two or
even three incumbents against one another. They also created
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new districts with no incumbents. In the House of Delegates, of the
100 districts, half have matched up incumbents against one another.
Both the Senate majority and minority leaders are retiring and, in the
House, Democrats currently in the minority will see new leadership as
well.

Jamie Lockhart, executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of
Virginia, has seen an increase in volunteer engagement, with double
the number of people canvassing than in 2021. She has been out
canvasing since a January state Senate special election that saw a
Democratic victory, and says she has had good feedback, even from
voters who don’t always back the group’s positions.

“That has been encouraging in this universe of people who aren’t
necessarily supporters that they’ve been supportive and are really
just feeling strongly about wanting to see their reproductive rights
protected,” says Lockhart. “I don’t trust that [Youngkin] would
stop at 15 weeks if he had majorities in the House and Senate.”

Lockhart described abortion as a “very top-of-mind issue” in three
races in the Urban Crescent of the state: the Northern Virginia
suburbs of Washington, D.C., Richmond, and Hampton Roads in
southeastern Virginia, the state’s key population centers where the
most competitive races are under way.

The Planned Parenthood Virginia PAC plans to spend $1.5 million to
support its endorsed candidates in races where abortion is a defining
issue. One of those races is the Manassas area of Northern Virginia
House contest pitting Democrat Josh Thomas, an attorney and Marine
Corps veteran, against Republican John Stirrup, a former county board
of supervisors member, who has been recorded twice saying that he
would support a total abortion ban. However, he has also told
[[link removed]] _The
Washington Post_ that he believes a 15-week ban would be more
palatable to state lawmakers.

In another key race in a Democratic-leaning, suburban Richmond
district that includes parts of Henrico County, Republican state Sen.
Siobhan Dunnavant faces off against Democrat _Del_.
Schuyler _VanValkenburg. _Dunnavant supported a 22-week ban last
year, and has announced support for Youngkin’s 15-week ban.

In a new Democratic-trending district that makes up most of Virginia
Beach, Democrat Michael Feggans, an Air Force veteran and tech
entrepreneur, takes on Republican Del. Karen Greenhalgh. Feggans has
noted that the most important issue for the state is reproductive
health care and abortion access; Greenhalgh says it is the economy.

Luis Aguilar, the Virginia director of CASA in Action, a legislative
advocacy group that works with immigrants and communities of color,
believes that the Democratic Party has improved its GOTV efforts since
2021, particularly when it comes to making people aware of early
voting. But the Republicans have upped their game too, not only on
early voting but also with bilingual campaigning—which is something
that the group hasn’t seen on the Democratic side.

Democratic legislative majorities are also key to preventing
retrenchment on gun violence, which has emerged as a key issue
[[link removed]]. In 2020, the
state passed background checks for point-of-purchase gun sales, and
forced people under restraining orders to give up weapons. However,
this year, state lawmakers failed to pass stronger gun control
measures, such as tougher storage laws in homes with minors, in the
wake of three shootings in Newport News in southeastern Virginia (one
involving a first-grader wounding his elementary school teacher). Four
bills passed the Democratic Senate, but failed to advance in the
Republican House.

Education financing has also been a flashpoint, with lawmakers mired
in a monthslong budget impasse. Youngkin’s preference for permanent
corporate tax cuts ran straight into Senate Democrats’ interest in
increasing education dollars. A special session of the legislature
finally resolved the issue in mid-September, with the governor
finally signing
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compromise two-year budget agreement. Youngkin gave up the corporate
tax cuts for a smaller package of tax rebates; Democratic lawmakers
got nearly all of the $1 billion in education funding they sought.

Overall, Aguilar sees Republican candidates touting positions that are
“anti-choice and anti-public education.” “There is a lot of
conversation about parental rights but there is really no pro-public
school funding agenda,” he says. “When it comes to gun control and
school safety there’s no pro agenda—they claim that they are the
victims of people trying to take away their gun rights. They have such
an anti agenda that they are not willing to make the investment in
their own people, in Virginians.”

Given the stakes, a close election is likely assured. The final
tallies in Virginia may produce a legislature as narrowly divided as
the current body, unless a powerful surge of pro-choice voters
determined to preserve reproductive rights keeps the state purple.

_Prospect senior editor and award-winning journalist Gabrielle Gurley
writes and edits work on states and cities, transportation and
infrastructure, civil rights, and climate. Follow @gurleygg._

_The American Prospect is devoted to promoting informed discussion on
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* Virginia
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* Glenn Youngkin
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* state legislatures
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* abortion
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* Public Education
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* Gun Control
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