Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) hopes to showcase a political versatility that advisers believe makes him a potent 2024 contender when he travels to Austin, Texas, to sit for an in-depth Texas Tribune Festival interview.
Youngkin recently concluded a pair of strategically choreographed campaign swings through key 2022 battlegrounds, stumping for populist Republicans aligned with former President Donald Trump, among them Tudor Dixon and Paul LePage, GOP gubernatorial nominees in Michigan and Maine, respectively. This Friday in Austin, Youngkin aims to show he is equally comfortable — appealing, even — under a media spotlight and in front of voters, often skeptical of conservative Republicans like Virginia’s governor.
Youngkin is scheduled Friday morning to take the stage of the Paramount Theater in downtown Austin for a one-on-one newsmaker interview and accompanying Q&A session with a politically interested audience that tends to skew center-left. The annual Texas Tribune Festival, sponsored by the Texas Tribune, draws thousands of spectators from all over the country and features a heavy media contingent from New York and Washington.
Next up for Youngkin, later this month, is a trip to battleground Georgia for incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp (R), a conservative who supports Trump but has the distinction of nonetheless being on the former president’s enemies list. Last week, Youngkin was in Nevada to support Joe Lombardo, the GOP nominee for governor supported by both the Trump wing and the traditional wing of the party.
In October, Youngkin heads to swing-state Arizona to campaign for Republican gubernatorial nominee and populist Trump acolyte Kari Lake, as reported by Politico. Youngkin senior political adviser Kristin Davison would not reveal the governor’s other battleground travel plans and declined to address speculation about his political future, focusing instead on the Republican’s effort to boost his party’s prospects in the midterm elections.
“As Gov. Youngkin has said, Republicans make better governors than Democrats. Red states are seeing better results than blue states,” Davison said Monday. “To flip blue states and win the tough races, the governor believes in doing the tough work, just as he did last November to flip Virginia.”
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Nearly 11 months ago, Youngkin defeated Terry McAuliffe (D), a former governor who left office in 2018, 50.6% to 48.7%, capturing a blue state that just one year earlier chose President Joe Biden over Trump by 10 percentage points. A wealthy private equity executive mounting his first bid for public office, Youngkin, 55, was the first Republican elected statewide in Virginia since 2009. Republican insiders were impressed.
They marveled at Youngkin’s success with voters inspired by Trump plus traditional conservatives and suburban swing voters, many of whom disliked the former president and had drifted into the Democratic Party’s orbit after he was elected in 2016. It was a rare political achievement, one that immediately vaulted Youngkin into the GOP’s 2024 conversation. Over the summer, the governor dipped his toe into the White House waters.
“Gov. Youngkin is a stud,” gushed Missouri Republican strategist Gregg Keller in a text message exchange with the Washington Examiner. “If he can continue to combine a focus on the cultural issues ([critical race theory], immigration, school choice, pro-life) that animate the base with his natural political skills and fundraising chops, he will be a force.”
Under Virginia’s constitution, running for reelection in 2025 is not an option, making a 2024 White House bid more intriguing. Through a busy schedule of national travel to boost Republicans running in crucial midterm elections, Youngkin intends to determine his interest in a presidential campaign and test his political team’s theory of a possible candidacy.
Team Youngkin views the governor as a hybrid: personally, devoutly conservative and at home with Republican activists and the grassroots motivated by cultural issues and animated by Trump yet nonthreatening to establishment-oriented Republicans, as well as swing voters, who put a priority on fiscal restraint and American leadership abroad and are repelled by Trump’s polarizing antagonism.
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In that way, Youngkin partisans quietly believe he might be the only Republican capable of beating Trump in the 2024 primary should the former president mount a third presidential bid. Of course, ask Virginia Democrats, and they present an entirely different view of Youngkin’s leadership.
“Glenn Youngkin campaigned like Fred Rogers and is governing like Donald Trump,” L. Louise Lucas, president pro tem of the Virginia Senate, said in a Twitter post. Rogers, who died in 2003, was a beloved and mild-mannered television personality who for decades hosted the Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood children’s program on PBS.
