Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume said Tuesday that if Democrat Terry McAuliffe loses the gubernatorial contest to challenger Glenn Youngkin, “it will be seen as a political earthquake.”
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“[McAuliffe] has made up all kinds of wild numbers about the COVID presence in the state of Virginia, in the schools, he’s been slapped down with four Pinocchios from The Washington Post left-leaning fact-checkers. This is a man in trouble and that is why we are seeing all these characters rolling into the campaign for him,” Hume told Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
Former Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia and leading Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin are locked in a tight contest in the Virginia gubernatorial race that has focused on the coronavirus vaccine, the economy and education (RELATED: As Virginia Governor Race Draws To A Close, McAuliffe Will Not Name One Abortion Restriction He Supports)
“If he loses, if Terry McAuliffe loses, it will be seen as a political earthquake, and if the Democrats weren’t already worried about what’s gonna happen to them in 2022, they will be terrified if that comes about. Look, the fact that the race is even close at all, and it is very close indeed from the polling and, ought to be terrifying to Democrats that they are on the wrong course and need to change. Doubt they will but that ought to be the message.”
“Consider this, it was only a few short weeks ago that he was complaining that Joe Biden’s unpopularity and his low approval rating was dragging his, that is to say McAuliffe’s campaign down. And tonight, there he is, Biden with him in Virginia. This is a candidate running scared, very scared and with good reason,” Hume said.
“Now as you point out, solidly blue Virginia, when this year began and this guy Glenn Youngkin …. a very successful businessman but a political novice. He’s run a disciplined campaign and McAuliffe has made one blunder after another, not the least of which was his assertion in a public meeting just a few weeks ago that he didn’t want parents telling the school board what to teach the kids.”
In late September, McAuliffe publicly proclaimed, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
“Now that is a widely shared view in the Democratic Party but not widely shared across the body politic as a whole. Independents don’t like it and Republicans obviously don’t like it either. It was as big a political blunder as I think I’ve seen in a long time.”
“But he is worried, he is scared, and the presence of the president there is only a recent manifestation of that.”(RELATED: McAuliffe And Youngkin Locked In Close Race, Vaccine And Economy Are Driving Issues)
Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin greets supporters in Virginia Beach on Oct. 25, 2021. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Hume said that Youngkin has made the parents’ battle with the school boards has been central to his campaign.
“This is a phenomenon that I’ve seen happen in races through the years that a candidate who is sort of behind and doing the best he can suddenly hits on an issue that resonates with voters in a way that moves the needle,” the journalist recalled, noting that “this education issue … with all these restrictions with our kids going to school” combined with the “pain and suffering” that has accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic “has hit a nerve. And he has pounded it and pounded it hard.”