When Virginia voters elected businessman Glenn Youngkin as their governor in 2021, the Republican’s victory derailed years of Democratic gains across the commonwealth and even stirred speculation about Youngkin as a future presidential contender.
Less than four years later, Virginia’s Republican Party is on the verge of disaster thanks to an explosive scandal involving the party’s nominee for lieutenant governor and Youngkin’s baffling decision to embrace Donald Trump’s sweeping layoffs of federal workers, even though the state is home to over 340,000 federal workers. Few Virginians talk seriously about a future President Youngkin anymore.
Youngkin’s GOP is turning off voters by the thousands.
The governor’s troubles are one more reminder that, despite playing the part of serious leaders, today’s MAGA-fied Republicans have entirely forgotten how to govern — or even how to police their own bad behavior. Youngkin’s GOP is turning off voters by the thousands and raising hopes of a Democratic blowout in statewide elections later this year.
And Virginia Republicans have no one to blame but themselves.
For many Virginians, the scandal dogging the GOP’s lieutenant governor nominee, John Reid, is a testament to Youngkin’s lack of influence within his own party. In late April, he privately urged Reid, Virginia’s first openly gay candidate for statewide office, to abandon his race after Republican research claimed to link Reid to a Tumblr account with pictures of nude men.
Reid didn’t just refuse the governor’s request. He released a video on social media denying the allegations. Trump-aligned Republican voters rallied around Reid and his message of MAGA persecution. “The governor made a big mistake” asking Reid to drop out, Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, told a Virginia news station. “He really stepped in it.”
Then, late last month, Reid accused Matt Moran, Youngkin’s top political strategist, of defaming and extorting him in an effort to push Reid off the ballot. Moran strongly denied the claims, even providing a sworn affidavit individually disputing each of Reid’s accusations.
Moran’s all-out defense barely lasted a day before damaging audio recordings emerged that showed Moran had, in fact, done exactly what Reid accused him of doing. Less than a week later, Moran quietly left his role leading Youngkin’s Spirit of Virginia PAC. It was a stunning fumble that only fueled Reid’s sense of persecution — and highlighted the fractures in the party’s uneasy alliance with Trumpism.
“The post-MAGA evangelical, tech bro, libertarian coalition is also starting to burst at the seams,” Democratic state Sen. Scott Surovell told me. “Youngkin sees John Reid’s alleged sharing of pornographic images on an obscure website disqualifying, but he thinks it’s OK to stand by a president who brags about sexual assault and was found liable for sexual assault by a jury.”
Youngkin’s fall from grace is a dizzying drop for a man once floated as “the MAGA-lite future of the Republican Party.”
Reid’s huge popularity among Virginia’s Trumpers has many of the commonwealth’s more mainstream Republican leaders worried about their political futures. A few have already decided to avoid embarrassing potential losses by ducking out of the process entirely, boosting Democrats’ hopes that they can pick up legislative seats that once seemed like impossible fights.
State House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert, one of the most powerful Republicans in the Legislature, has made no secret of the fact that he’s trying to secure an appointed job at the U.S. attorney’s office instead of facing voters later this year. Another group of endangered GOP lawmakers formed the “Purple Caucus,” an effort to distance themselves from the extremism of Reid and his MAGA allies.
Seven GOP state lawmakers represent districts Trump lost in 2024, while another seven serve in districts Trump barely won. In a normal election cycle, Democrats might struggle to recruit opponents for these Republicans. That’s not the case this year, when Virginia’s Democratic Party succeeded in fielding candidates for all 100 state House districts. That strategy is forcing Virginia’s Republican Party to spend more money than expected at a time when the party is engaged in a divisive, demoralizing Youngkin-Reid civil war. If Democrats’ strategy pays off, it could provide the crucial votes to secure the passage of three critical amendments to the state’s constitution, which would protect reproductive rights, restore voting rights for released felons and repeal the state’s archaic ban on same-sex marriage. Under Virginia’s multiyear amendment process, if Democrats can hold their razor-thin majority in the state House and pass those bills a second time in 2026, the amendments would head to the voters just in time to play a major role in next year’s midterm elections. Reid’s presence on the ballot isn’t just Youngkin’s problem, it’s also threatening to tank the gubernatorial bid of the governor’s friend and planned successor, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears. Earle-Sears currently trails her Democratic opponent Rep. Abigail Spanberger by 7 points in new polling, and pollsters predict the rift between her conservative Christian base and Reid, who is gay, could be critical in putting Spanberger over the top in November. Youngkin’s time in office has become a potent symbol of Trump-era Republican decline. Late last month, Earle-Sears released a statement quoting the Bible while refusing to clearly condemn or support Reid’s place as her running mate. “It’s [Reid’s] race, and his decision alone to move forward,” Earle-Sears wrote. Clearly, she sees more risk in crossing Reid than in disappointing Youngkin and her own base. Other Republican leaders aren’t as sanguine as Earle-Sears. “The governor … just engaged the entire party in a circular firing squad,” said Phil Kazmierczak, the former president of the Log Cabin Republicans of Hampton Roads. “I think it’s going to damage his legacy.” For Surovell, the Virginia GOP’s growing divisions aren’t surprising for a coalition thrown together in the wake of Trump’s first victory in 2016. “The GOP’s ideological Twister game is an unsustainable governing coalition and is resulting in economic catastrophe. People in Youngkin’s own party are no longer listening to him.” Youngkin’s fall from grace is a dizzying drop for a man once floated as “the MAGA-lite future of the Republican Party.” Instead, hemmed in by a GOP that no longer believes in shame or accountability, Youngkin’s time in office has become a potent symbol of Trump-era Republican decline. Ignored by his own party and likely to preside over a huge Democratic comeback later this year, Youngkin no longer talks much about the future. His present is painful enough.
Max Burns is a Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies. Find him on X, @themaxburns. 
