race. when you are thinking of where glenn youngkin was a year ago, nobody knew him, a former private equity co-ceo, and now statewide recognition and so that is what they are talking about. the fact that this unknown figure could be running neck and neck with the former governor of virginia, and all of that having them feel pretty good. eva mccann, thank you. and now, we go to pamela at the voting desk, and what are you looking for in virginia? well, turnout is key, and virginia has on of the longest voting periods in the country after the state expanded voting options last year. the registered voters had six weeks to cast the voting in person starting september 17th, and ending saturday, and all registered voters could request an absentee ballot and vote by mail. so to be counted the mail-in ballots had to be postmarkeded by today and received friday by noon. taking a closer look at the
seized on it, and it has clearly galvanized the voters. and it is not the leadership of virginia, but augerings of the future, and one thing that people are going to be looking at is if youngkin wins, how would he get some of the suburban vote back. and what does that mean for the republican party out there, and can you be a republican and not support the former president and still vote republican. there were many nods here to some of the cultural issues that trump issued, soft core versions of it, but yes, youngkin kept trump at an arm s length in the general election, and used some of issues to the advantage, but he is like the mr. roger s version of it. and with the polls closing at 7:00 p.m. tonight, this could go either way, and this is one of those lelection nights where yo do not know. it could go either way, and the interesting thing about
about 10% of the electorate in today s race. that is about half the share that they were just a year ago. they made up 20% of the electorate in 2020. smaller group and look at this. mcauliffe is only winning young people by seven points. 53%. youngkin, 46%. you would say, hey, that s good. except, joe biden won young voters a year ago by 29 points. so, glenn youngkin making up some ground there. with young voters. let s look at the other end of the age spectrum. 65 and older. you see, youngkin here has 53% of them. mcauliffe, 47%. they make up about a quarter of the electorate and they are a much bigger size than they were just a year ago. so, this electorate is older and youngkin is winning them by six points. white, college-educated voters. this has been part of the story of the trump era of politics where democrats have made real inroads into white college-educated voters. right now, you see mcauliffe is winning 52% of them. youngkin, 48%.
mcauliffe is slightly ahead. if you go back to the 2020 presidential race and come down here to that same county, trump was more competitive. used to be a republican suburb county. it has trended to the democrats but the youngkin campaign will tell you if they can win this state tonight, they will prove it in places like this. we talked earlier if you come out to the full statewide map, i will come back to the current race in a minute. this is the presidential race. might actually be better to look at it in the context of the last governor s race and move this over. again, ralph northam won chesterfield county become lieu hot close it was, right? essentially, a tie. so this is one of the places republicans used to win. it s been trending more to the democrats. if youngkin is going to compete and possibly win tonight, it is going to happen like this. run it up out here in rural trump country, rural republican country and then compete in the suburbs. so as we come back to the race tonigh
which they did and and i have no problem with that. but then, not agreeing, necessarily, to in-person education even though they were vaccinated. a lot of frustration and glenn youngkin may have given them an outlet for that. absolutely. this is such an animating issue in this in this campaign. and when was the last time we saw education as such a front-burner issue for the electorate? but you re exactly right. the reason, full stop, is because of the pandemic. because of parent frustration no matter what their political affiliation is. and he saw that. and he played on that. he took it a step further. sure. glenn youngkin. in that he played it played into the culture wars. but that is an example of how he is trying to appeal to independents, appeal to people who are, generally speaking, frustrated and just looking for an outlet for that. but also, giving a little drop to the trump base, the gop base who like to hear, you know, get some red meat.