MCLEAN, Va. (AP) — McLean, as one of the wealthiest localities in arguably the richest region of the richest country in world history, is the central nervous formula of the Democratic uprising. Here, politically, is whether the anti-Trump fever is enough to sink Republican Glenn Youngkin.
Youngkin, a millionaire businessman, had supported President Donald Trump, but never sought to get Trump to come and do a crusade for him. These wealthy, white, Republican neighborhoods are precisely where Trump’s Republican revulsion had created Democratic majorities. Terry McAuliffe and the national media had tried to paint as Trump’s replacement) will they get away with it in those places?
When I parked at James Fenimore Cooper High School this morning, the closest cars were a Tesla Model S, a Porsche Cayenne Hybrid, a Mercedes C 300, and a Porsche Panamera. Republican Bob McDonnell won this chamber through 14 percentage issues in 2009, and Democrat Ralph Northam won 16 numbers in 2017.
In 2015, Democrats took this wealthy district about to take over the state legislature; Democrats won this congressional district in 2018 on the verge of taking congress.
“For me, a lifelong Republican, honestly, made it all the way to Trump,” said one voter, who gave his call to worry about getting into trouble at his union store. “If I had participated more in this election,” the voter said. he said, “You would have noticed it was happening to me on the left. “
That voter, a “longtime Republican who voted for anyone other than Trump,” took the lever away from President Joe Biden in 2020, his first vote for a Democrat, he said. It’s okay with Youngkin, he told me, because Youngkin didn’t hug Trump. One woman, a longtime Democrat, voted for McAuliffe (“I’m a strong advocate for women’s rights”).
“I sought to vote against Terry,” said Jake, a lobbyist who opposed Trump. “Youngkin, I don’t know him, but he likes a moderate guy. “Jake supported Marco Rubio in the 2016 primary.
“I just can’t do the Trump thing. It’s just not for me,” Jake said. That’s what I wanted Trump to be, but he’s just not a non-politician. “
A McAuliffe voter I interviewed, when I asked him why he voted this way, said a word. Any Trump vote is my vote. You can put it in your article,” he said.
She is a Democrat, but claimed she “voted for Reagan. “
“More than anything else,” said her husband Arthur Kales, “the predominant factor is Trump. “
It was McAuliffe’s hope: that he could lead a career that had nothing to do with his obedience to teachers’ unions or his record in his first term or his love of corporate welfare or his own party’s hard drive to the left. in the hope that it would simply overlook the fact that the opposing party had recently had a president who was a con man, a liar, and a serial adulterer.
“I don’t think Youngkin is a Trumper,” Mary Cull, a former Trump management appointee, told me. “Actually, I know it’s not. “
The main theme of McAuliffe’s crusade this fall is that a vote for Youngkin is a vote for Trump. Tuesday night’s effects will tell us whether this simplistic argument is compelling.