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Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s dream of finishing out his final two years in office with Republican legislative control in Richmond was dashed Tuesday.
Democrats successfully defended their slim majority in the state Senate and flipped control of the House of Delegates, according to The Associated Press.
“The blue brick wall in Virginia stands,” Susan Swecker, chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Virginia, said in a statement. “Voters across Virginia voted for leadership that will protect their abortion rights, keep guns out of the wrong hands, and lower costs for Virginia’s families.”
Democrats emerged victorious in competitive races for Senate and House seats in Northern Virginia, the Richmond suburbs and Hampton Roads, where their candidates ran against Mr. Youngkin’s embrace of a proposed 15-week abortion ban that included exceptions for cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother. Virginia limits abortion to 26 weeks gestation.
Every seat in the state Legislature was up for grabs Tuesday for the first time under new legislative maps.
SEE ALSO: Ohio passes amendment to enshrine abortion rights in state constitution
Democrats emerged Wednesday with a 21-18 majority in the Senate, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, a nonpartisan election tracker.
The sole race yet to be called was in Senate District 24, which includes Newport News and Williamsburg.
Key wins for Democrats included state Delegate Schuyler VanValkenburg’s victory over state Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant in Senate District 16 in Henrico County and Russet Perry’s win over Juan Pablo Segura in Senate District 31, which covers communities in Loudoun County and parts of Fauquier County.
Democrats will have at least a 51-seat majority in the House of Delegates.
Both parties were still waiting on the final tally in a race for a seat in the Petersburg area.
Mr. Youngkin, who was elected in 2021, was not on the ballot but happily made the race a referendum on the record he compiled over his first two years in office, and what could be done to advance conservative policies if voters handed Republicans control of the state Legislature.
He touted his record on crime, tax cuts, education and empowering parents, but his political coattails proved to be shorter than he hoped.
Democrats are now positioned to block Mr. Youngkin’s most conservative priorities but will have to find common ground with him to get things done.
Democrats heralded the results as the death knell to Mr. Youngkin’s presidential ambitions, a huge blow to the “extreme” GOP agenda, and a victory for fundamental individual freedoms.
“Youngkin will never be president,” said Abhi Rahman, spokesman for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. “Access to an abortion was on the line in Virginia. Virginians proved that Republicans’ message to voters is not resonating.”
“The electorate wants Democrats to lead,” he said.
The off-year elections in Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and elsewhere are the latest barometer for the political climate as both major parties turn their full attention to the 2024 presidential race.
Overall, it was a tough night for Republicans.
Voters in Virginia and other states signaled the GOP has yet to find the policy sweet spot on abortion following the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, which had established abortion as a federal constitutional right in 1973.
In two solidly-red states, voters Tuesday delivered victories for abortion rights, giving a second term to Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, and amending the Ohio state constitution to enshrine the right to an abortion and other reproductive health care.
For Democrats, it was a reason to breathe a sigh of relief.
The elections came on the heels of polls that have shown President Biden trails former President Trump in a hypothetical rematch and has fallen out of favor with most Americans. Much of the public disapproves of his performance and believes he is too old to serve another four years as president.
Mr. Biden’s campaign said Democrats “won because they ran on standing up for personal freedoms, defending democracy, and fighting for working families” and said, “voters across the political spectrum … rejected the dangerous MAGA extremism that has come to define today’s Republican Party at every level.”
“In hundreds of races since Donald Trump’s conservative Supreme Court appointments overturned Roe v. Wade, we’ve seen Americans overwhelmingly side with President Biden and Democrats’ vision for this country,” the campaign said. “That same choice will be before voters again next November, and we are confident the American people will send President Biden and Vice President Harris back to the White House to keep working for them.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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