A memo released by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) on Monday credited Virginia Democrats’ recent electoral victories to the party’s commitment to state issues that impact voters in the Commonwealth of Virginia, primarily abortion, as well as the media’s simultaneous focus on the “presidential ambitions” of Governor Glenn Youngkin (R).
In the memo, DLCC Interim President Heather Williams wrote, “while national pundits focused on Governor Youngkin and his presidential ambitions,” Democrats sought to make the election “about state power and the future” of abortion.
“Throughout the year, the DLCC sounded the alarm on the national stage about the stakes of the election and what a Republican trifecta would mean for Virginia,” claimed Williams, explaining that “an unchecked GOP trifecta would have led to an abortion ban,” making Virginia the final state in the South to institute such legislation.
The memo includes a timeline of the DLCC’s actions over the election cycle that seems to indicate it sought to counter spending from Youngkin and the Spirit of Virginia PAC, timing their spending and actions shortly after investments from the Spirit of Virginia PAC and the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC).
Williams reported that her group spent $2.2 million in Virginia, and stated it was the most the DLCC has ever directly spent in the state. She claimed the DLCC established “a self-sustaining program” that Virginia Democrats were able to use.
“Early investment, deploying strategic resources, and clearly defining the stakes of these races have proven to be a winning formula for the DLCC and Democratic candidates,” she wrote.
The DLCC’s memo and its claims echo a recent election postmortem offered by Matt Waters, the Republican who lost his District 70 race in the Virginia House of Delegates last week.
Waters wrote that the Democrats’ message was “crystal clear,” summarizing that Democrats merely called their opponent “an anti-abortion extremist who will kill women.”
Republicans, on the other hand, “were given no reason to vote” by Youngkin or his surrogates, wrote Waters. He noted that Youngkin “campaigned on ‘Secure Your Vote'” as a slogan for Republicans without any clear explanation of its meaning. “‘Secure Your Vote’ proved to be an abject failure,” wrote Waters.
Frustration with Youngkin’s rumored political ambitions also helped fuel a challenge to party leadership in the Virginia House of Delegates, as a group of Republicans sought to deny Speaker Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah) a future leadership position after he forwarded Youngkin’s demands for Virginia legislators to appear at events they considered part of a last-minute presidential bid.
Though Youngkin was reportedly being floated as a possible recruit in the Republican effort to prevent former President Donald Trump from securing the party’s presidential nomination next year, the governor indicated in a press conference held after his party’s defeats that he is not planning to seek higher office, telling reporters he’s “not going anywhere.”
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Heather Williams” by Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. Background Photo “Virginia Capitol” by KWL. CC BY-SA 4.0.
