Last year, Joe Biden beat Donald Trump by 10% in the state of Virginia. Democrats believed this swing state, which has been gradually shifting from Republican to Democrat, had completed the transition and become a deep blue stronghold.
Democrats were dead wrong. Yesterday, in the Virginia governor’s race, Republican Glenn Youngkin beat Democrat Terry McAuliffe, a popular former governor of the state. As if to further chasten the Democrats, karma dealt a historically heavy blow: A Black Republican, Winsome Sears, was elected lieutenant governor, becoming the first woman of color ever to win statewide office in Virginia’s history. Jason Miyares, also a Republican, was elected as the state’s first Hispanic attorney general. All of this happened after Democrats have spent the last few years saying that Republicans are supposedly a bunch of deplorable racists.
Four years ago, when Ralph Northam was running for governor, I was serving as a Democratic Party county chairman in southwestern Virginia, doing everything I could to help Northam and our fellow Democrats get elected. This year — despite voting for Joe Biden in 2020 and strongly disapproving of ex-president Donald Trump — I chose not to vote in the Virginia governor’s race between Glenn Youngkin and Terry McAuliffe. It was the first time I didn’t vote in a major election in more than 20 years.
I’ve been a Democrat since the presidency of George W. Bush, and at times I have passionately supported the Democratic philosophy and candidates. But not anymore. In this post, I’m “coming out” as an independent and former Democrat. I’ll explain why I’ve left the party and why millions of Americans like myself are doing so — propelling Republicans like Glenn Youngkin to victory in previously solid blue states such as Virginia.