John McCormack of National Review Online highlights interesting new polling information from North Carolina’s northern neighbor.
A new poll by Roanoke College shows GOP governor Glenn Youngkin’s job-approval rating ticking up to 55 percent in Virginia, while President Biden’s job-approval rating is at a dismal 39 percent in a state he carried 54 percent to 44 percent in the 2020 presidential election.
The Roanoke poll finds that most voters in the state disapprove of overturning Roe v. Wade, but the decision hasn’t hurt the pro-life governor’s standing. Youngkin said he’d push for a 15-week limit on abortion in the state, with exceptions for cases of rape, incest, and to protect the life of the mother. But he has also said he’d sign an earlier limit on abortion if it made it through the state legislature. “Any bill that comes to my desk I will sign happily and gleefully in order to protect life,” Youngkin said on June 28. Republicans control the House of Delegates, but Virginia Democrats have a narrow 21–19 majority in the state senate. One moderate Democratic state senator has expressed support for at least a 20-week limit on abortion, and the AP reported in February that Democrat “indicated a willingness to join with Republicans in a long-shot procedural move to try to bring it to a floor vote.” GOP lieutenant governor Winsome Sears would cast any tie-breaking vote in the upper chamber.
Perhaps this new information will send another message to the “consultant class.” That group proved lukewarm to Youngkin before his victory, as JohnLocke.org discussed at the time.
Glenn Youngkin and the Republicans’ Tuesday victories in Virginia are proof of concept that the left’s commitment to waging the culture wars on school children and their parents can prove deadly even in a blue state — and Republican politicians who ignore the consultants and follow their voters will follow them to victory.
