normal politics, is this good? the question is we don t know, yet, if it will be a small and incremental move or an even bigger move for the republican party because even to win, youngkin did have to win the trump base. and to win the trump base, he went on the show tied with neo-nazis. he also did the wink and the nod with saying there should be an audit of the dominion voting machines, while also saying that biden s win was credible. there was that acknowledge. double speak. there was double speak. there was a a the wink and the nod to conspiracy theorists, to the trump base that i m with you. i understand you. i m there. you know, after he went on his show, fully said look, he is one of us. he is a trump republican. even though, at the same time, youngkin didn t want to campaign with trump. yeah. the other difference, too, is in these primaries is trump going to stay away in all of the republican primaries? and if he is not, then you are
the first time in 2013, obama s approval rating in the exit poll in virginia was 46% which was about the same as biden s tonight which was 45%. but back then in 2013, ken cucinelli, the republican, only won 80% of the people who disapproved of biden i m sorry, of obama. this time, glenn youngkin won 90% of the people who disapproved of biden and which was basically the number of people who disapproved of trump who voted democratic in 2018. that is the reality of modern politics. it is almost a national referendum, in which the president s approval rating just has enormous impact on every race and i think the message can t be clearer to democrats that if biden is in the same position in a year, they are going to have a really rough night and they all need to figure out what they can do to help him rebuild his standing. okay. having said that, then. even they have got to do something. they have got to pass legislation, right?
youngkin running out with trump at arm s length really made some gains. and let s look at how he did that. let me ask you, so then is this a is this a i don t know if we should call it bellwether or sign of things to come. or is this just a race? because this is the way it normally happens here. biden did win by ten points, right? he he did. look, democrats have been feeling that virginia was moving their way with population growth and urban and suburban centers. youngkin reset that. and i think that s a real cautionary tale for democrats who thought that a really strong campaigner and former governor like terry mcauliffe could pull it off. here s what i want to show you, though, because it s important. you yo youngkin deserves a lot of credit. he over performed donald trump in every county in the state, red and blue. donald trump was a drag on the republican ticket. youngkin was able to appeal to his base with a lot lot of themes. but keep in at arm s length. didn t want t
getting e-mails from donald trump taking credit for this. and even the rnc said this was maga voters out there that helped pull this across the line for youngkin. look. if there were so many maga voters in virginia, donald trump would have won virginia. if there were so many maga voters that supported him in georgia, we would have two senators from georgia. and the fact of the matter is that with donald trump, look, i support his policies 100%. i don t agree with the tone and tenor. but if the maga vote was so strong, he would still be president. we would still have the house and we would still have the senate. the magic formula moving forward is to embrace the policies, embrace the base, but add to that and do away with the tone and tenor that we had of trump because it is clearly not a winning formula. there is only so many times you can run on the trump name and lose until you have to realize you cannot do that anymore. and look. trumpism worked for trump but it s not working for an
month that this is all moving in the direction of of youngkin. but in virginia, it was these sort of social these cultural issues that were came to fore. critical-race theory. school choice. or parents choice in school. how how did that impact the vote? i mean, if you look and you look at those who said essentially that that parents should get a lot of say in what in what their children learn, look at who won that vote. it was overwhelmingly glenn youngkin. look at that. 51% said that they should essentially have a lot of say in what the schools teach. youngkin won that vote by look at that nearly 4-1. it was clearly an issue that worked for him in this race. okay. but where did this issue fall? because the economy was the number one issue for voters in virginia, right? this issue was correct. i guess that was high up. but right. right. so, essentially, if you look, the economy was numero uno. number two was education. but look. if you look on the econo