it s also are a rejection of what mcauliffe has done. he has tried to make this all about trump and youngkin has tried to make it about virginia issues. ron, same question. look, i think i turn it around and look from the demand side, i guess. there is no question donald trump is the dominant figure in the republican party. the trump faction is the largest faction in the republican party by three quarters or four fifths of the party is in line with what he is doing. there is a quarter of republican voters uneasy with everything donald trump has done, particularly since the election, and who view many of his actions as a threat to american democracy. if trumpism is going to be curbed in the republican party, those voters have to exact a price on other republican candidates. if in fact to use scott s phrase, if they kind of revert back to voting for a orun of th mill conservative republican who nonetheless is winking at
by contrast, i think it s been a fascinating campaign. youngkin decided he was going to run a virginia campaign focusing on virginia issues and then mcauliffe made this crazy comment in the debate that he didn t want parents to be involved in schools. that began to eat him up and then the school system the loudoun county school system turned out that they had actually lied to the parents about a girl who was raped in the girls room by a guy in a dress and doctor was transferred to a different school without telling them about his problems and he attacked another girl in a different school. so people felt that the whole system was lying to them, and i think brilliantly, the youngkin team had an ad up less than 12 hours after mcauliffe made this mistake and they had been pounding away education in the last poll is the number one issue in virginia, more than the
politically unaffiliated say, oh, that s what the democrats think of me, they think i m a racist. i think them can accurates are democrats are so hungry for a victory gauze the ba because the gop has more than 30 governors across the country, and they are so desperate to hold onto this governorship. one thing we re going to have to watch is how these suburban districts where trump is really unpopular, if gillespie can outperform trump. the facts on the ground here should favor the democrats, and if they can t pull this off, this is going to be a major defeat for them. paul: and gillespie is focusing on virginia issues, the economy, tax cut proposal is a big, big issue, but some people would criticize him for focusing on this gang, ms-13, which is the central american gang that murdered some people in virginia, and gillespie ran an ad about it saying, linking northam s opposition to a bill banning sang chow ware cities.