The alarms from the Democrats’ campaign headquarters arrive in the mailbox every hour. It is about “all or nothing”, a defeat means “game over”, democracy is “destroyed”. The message is always the same: The gubernatorial elections in Virginia on Tuesday in a week are also a referendum on a possible return of Donald Trump.
The wake-up calls show just how nervous Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe is, with good reason. For a long time, the 64-year-old entrepreneur, who was governor from 2014 to 2018, comfortably led in surveys. But since late August, Republican Glenn Youngkin has been making up ground. In the meantime, the 54-year-old is following his opponent so closely that his lead on the statistical error area has melted.
“Many are disappointed with Joe Biden.”
Indeed, it is about much more than an exciting local choice. The Democrats have only just taken control of both chambers of parliament and the government, for the first time in almost 30 years. They legalized marijuana, abolished the death penalty, raised the minimum wage and extended the opening hours of the ballot boxes. The previously conservative Virginia was declared a progressive model for all southern states by the Democrats. A role model that is acutely endangered.
Now the Democrats are bringing their most prominent figures to the rescue. Joe Biden will be promoting McAuliffe on Tuesday, Vice President Kamala Harris has already been there, and last Saturday Barack Obama traveled to the capital, Richmond. “We are at a turning point in Virginia, the United States, the world,” the former president shouted to the young audience. “I know you are tired. But we cannot afford to be tired.” Obama sincerely asked to vote and to be patient: It was difficult to undo centuries of discrimination.
“Biden is doing a great job,” says Leslie Hall, 73, (left). She attended the election campaign event for Terry McAuliffe in Richmond with Brenda Johnson, who was of the same age.
(Photo: Fabian Fellmann)
The message was tailor-made for African Americans, just under a fifth of Virginia’s population. If the Democrats manage to mobilize them, they have a chance of winning the election. Obama didn’t need to convince 73-year-old Leslie Hall. “Biden is doing a great job,” says the Richmond-based African American. “But his hands are tied because the conservative Senate is blocking everything.” Despite all the frustration at the national level, it is important to ensure progress in one’s own state, adds Brenda Johnson, 73.
Younger African American women, on the other hand, are more likely to stay away from the polls. Democratic party representatives describe this forecast as an invention of the media, but Cenaya Reed sees the evidence in his own environment. “Many are disappointed with Joe Biden. It is not moving fast enough,” says the 20-year-old student at Virginia Commonwealth University. “There was no real police reform, our voting rights were not secured. The schools in our neighborhoods are worse, there are fewer parks and more pollution, and our children still do not have the same opportunities.”
“Our children still don’t have the same opportunities,” says student Cenaya Reed.
(Photo: Fabian Fellmann)
The other world in the mountains
The voters in the Appalachians in the south and west of the state sound very different from these voices from the urban areas. In the mountain areas, the clocks only seem to run backwards. The boom in the coal industry is long over, the days when the miners voted for democrats because their unions campaigned for better working conditions are a thing of the past.
The coal industry is now in dire straits, the local press is full of pictures of suspected drug offenders, every second business is barricaded, many of the simple dwellings are shabby, only the wealthy few live in stone houses.
Such areas seem lost to the Democrats. Their officials have defected to their political opponents in abundance. One of them is Gerald Arrington, the elected prosecutor in Buchanan County, where Trump recently won 83 percent of the vote. He was always a libertarian, says Arrington, but because his family was democratic, he stuck to the party for a long time. His area has always been conservative, very religious, in favor of free gun ownership, resolutely against abortion and the “LGBTIQ movement,” says Arrington in a windowless meeting room in Grundy.
“Everyone forgot about us.”
“Our values have not changed. The Democratic Party has slipped to the left,” says Arrington. He has just left the party because he disagreed with the criticism of the police and the reforms of the criminal justice system, as did three local sheriffs before. Arrington is dissatisfied with the politicians in Richmond and Washington: “Everyone in the Appalachians has forgotten about us.”
Aaron feels forgotten too. The man in his thirties fishes with two friends for rainbow and gold trout in the Levisa Fork river in Grundy. He leaves no doubt that he is one of Trump’s supporters. He eyes the media critically, so he doesn’t want to give his last name or exact age. The bearded man brushes aside the African American women’s complaints about sluggish equality.
Rather, Aaron is driving inflation, the fact that the price of a full tank of fuel for his pickup has gone from $ 30 to over 50 dollars, that lumber has become more expensive, that global supply chains have stalled. It is clear to Aaron that the US president is to blame: “Biden can’t even form a whole sentence.”
Democratic and undecided voters like Paris Parker, who sips his coffee early in the morning in a petrol station shop in Tazewell, are rare here. “Here most would choose a head of cabbage if it is nominated by the Republicans,” says the craftsman. He himself, on the other hand, wants to first check what the candidates stand for. It remains unanswered whether this is the usual excuse of a voter who does not want to hang on to his Trump preference.
According to experts, the elections would by no means be decided in such ultra-republican areas, but in the densely populated agglomerations of Virginia, especially those bordering the federal capital Washington. In Arlington, for example, known worldwide for its huge military cemetery, there were hardly any Trump signs to be seen last fall. Now, however, a red “Youngkin for Governor” shines here and there in the front gardens. Surveys show that voters without party affiliation are not influenced by climate or minority policies that keep the Democratic Party on its toes. What concerns them there are the state of the labor market, the management of the pandemic and the security situation. Biden’s answers to these questions are obviously not convincing enough for these constituencies, and his polls are as bad as those of any other democratic president.
Democrats drive risky strategy
The Democrats’ strategy of demonizing Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin as a Trump fanatic does not seem to work here, on the contrary: They risk deterring pragmatic middle voters. These could therefore be all the more tempted to give at least the majority in Virginia’s parliament back to the Republicans.
The Republican Youngkin did his best to win such alternate voters. The former fund manager has struck moderate tones and has probably repeatedly flirted with the Trumpists, but without taking a clear stand for the former president. Youngkin is a Trump in sheep’s clothing, criticize the Democrats.
Some observers, however, object that Youngkin is cleverly trying to unite the Republicans. His strategy could work. The operator of a historic guesthouse, for example, says that he did not vote for Trump, but that a change of power is now needed in Virginia.