Virginia’s most popular Republican is AWOL on the most ludicrous redistricting in the nation.
The Commonwealth of Virginia now stands exactly a month away from an April 21st vote that would approve the most partisan Democrat gerrymander in the nation, and Republicans are nowhere to be found.
Governor Abigail Spanberger (“Moderate” – The Wall Street Journal) rubber stamped the 10-1 redistricting attempt by octogenarian radical leftist Louise Lucas — who actually runs the Richmond legislature — sending a bizarrely shaped map to Virginia voters which amounts to a blatant power grab, allowing for five Democrat majority seats all based within a stone’s throw of Washington, D.C. to govern the entire state. With zero acknowledgement that Virginia’s electorate had a Republican governor just months ago, and a 6-5 Democrat majority in the current Congressional representation, it’s an obscene approach to destroying local representation that short-circuits districts approved by a bipartisan commission on a decade-long basis.
The question on the minds of conservative Virginians through all of this is clear: Where is Glenn Youngkin?
Youngkin, the most popular Republican politician in Virginia, criticized this attempt in its early days. But when Virginians tune in to March Madness, they aren’t seeing a single ad featuring the former governor. Instead, they’re barraged with Democrat ads featuring Donald Trump and decrying the current map (where they already have a majority) as racist, unfair, and corrupt.
The deluge is unending, and funded primarily from out of state Democratic entities.
The amount in question is upwards of $22 million in ad spending — closer to $30 million according to some consultants — and one of its biggest funders is, you guessed it, George Soros to the tune of $5 million.
By comparison, the Virginia Republican-aligned pushback in defense of the current map is essentially nonexistent. There is no major ad campaign pointing out the false narrative Democrats are advancing. With Youngkin apparently unwilling to expend significant political capital fighting this effort, only former Attorney General Jason Miyares has stepped into the breach — and unlike the former governor, he lacks the donor class connections to bring major resources to the fight.
What’s particularly maddening for conservatives in the Commonwealth is that even Democrats admit the April referendum is a close-run thing, well within the margin despite their recent sweep of the Old Dominion’s top three jobs. With a winnable situation sitting right in front of them, though, Republicans seem to be throwing up their hands — or hoping that the Virginia Courts will bail them out and render the map unacceptable. But this question won’t even be heard until after the vote.
Glenn Youngkin seems to have a mindset that having had a successful four-year tenure as governor, his time engaged in partisan politics is at a comfortable lull. He’s happy to wait a couple of years and just run for president if he’s in the mood. But if this blatantly partisan Democrat redistricting wins in April, Republicans — and not just those in Virginia — should absolutely blame him for the loss, and for the ludicrously skewed gerrymander that will end up with five Democrat Congressmen representing most of the state while comfortably living within driving distance of the best country clubs in Northern Virginia.
