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This Tuesday, the citizens of the state of Virginia in the United States were called to vote to elect their governor, elections that come as the first test at the polls for President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party. The president expects a victory a year before the parliamentary elections, but the first counts give a wide advantage to the Republican candidate.
First election test for Joe Biden. Virginia residents voted on Tuesday, November 2, to elect the governor to succeed Democrat Ralph Northam.
While Virginia leaned heavily for the Democratic president in a presidential election a year ago, his popularity has been on the decline since America’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
“We are going to win this election,” said the US president from Glasgow, Scotland, where he is present for COP26, and asked the Democratic electorate for their support. Still, the contest between Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin for the governor’s seat has been close.
With about 75% of the votes counted, Youngkin leads with 10 points
With nearly 75% of the state’s votes counted, Youngkin has a 10-point lead over McAuliffe and the race is expected to get closer as more votes are counted.
The great advantage that Terry McAuliffe, 64, and former governor (2014-2018) of this state neighboring the federal capital had, has melted against Youngkin, a 54-year-old businessman.
Polling stations closed at 7 pm on Tuesday, local time in this state on the east coast of the United States, but final results are expected on Wednesday.
Nearly 1.2 million voters voted early, six times more than in 2017, when Democrat Ralph Northam was elected, according to the NGO Virginia Public Access Project.
Glenn Youngkin, against the teaching of “critical race theory”
Terry McAuliffe, whose constituency is predominantly urban, said Tuesday he was “nervous” about a Republican victory that would rhyme with “four years of conspiracy theories and extremist politics.”
Glenn Youngkin bets on the popularity of Donald Trump in the rural electorate of this state, without repeating the most scandalous positions of the former president so as not to scare the moderates and independents.
He is against the mandatory use of masks, mandatory vaccination for children or for certain professions and has entered the battlefield of school programs, ensuring that parents will have a voice.
He has strongly opposed the teaching of “critical race theory,” a school of thought that looks at racism as a system rather than individual biases, although Democrats point out that this theory is not part of the school curriculum in Virginia.
And he is accused of seeking to ban in schools certain books by black authors, such as Toni Morrison’s literary classic “Beloved,” something the Republican denies.
Catherine Jiménez, a local Republican Party official in Falls Church, told the AFP news agency that opponents of Glenn Youngkin wanted to portray him as “someone who should be hated.”
A test before the parliamentary elections
A Glenn Youngkin victory would provide Republicans with a springboard for the midterm elections in November 2022, with the goal of regaining control of Congress.
As a sign of the importance of the election, the heavyweights of the Democratic Party – Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Barack Obama, among others – came to support Terry McAuliffe. Even if Joe Biden denies it, the race is seen as a barometer of support for the US President’s policies. Its main investment plans, one in infrastructure and the other in the social and climate dimension, are blocked in Congress, victims of dissent among Democrats.
The mobilization of African American voters, who traditionally vote Democrats, is also under scrutiny in this state, where the past of slaves is regularly the subject of heated debate. Some accuse Biden of having lost sight of his big promises on minority voting or on police reform.
Another election, that of lieutenant governor, will be historic because an African-American woman will access this function for the first time. The race for the position is between Democrat Hala Ayala, of Lebanese, Afro-Latino and Irish descent, and Winsome Sears, Republican and African-American.
Governance is also up for grabs Tuesday in New Jersey. Outgoing Democrat Phil Murphy leads the polls against moderate Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli.
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