The best-laid plans of two politicians, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) and Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney (D), disintegrated in spectacular fashion this week. The divisive issues in play merited more prudent strategies, but hubris often takes hold in campaigns despite the flashing warning signs.
Youngkin harbored dreams of winning Republican majorities in both legislative chambers—and riding that to an unlikely last-minute White House bid, with funding provided by a large segment of the financial services industry. But his blinkered strategy to achieve this ran right up against what has become kryptonite for Republicans in elections for the past year. Youngkin puzzlingly chose to go to the mat on abortion, forgetting that he is not Tate Reeves and that Virginia is not Mississippi.
Reeves, who won re-election handily, benefited from deeply conservative white voters who just weren’t going to vote for a white Democrat considered the “Black” candidate, even if he was the blood kin of Elvis, promising to expand Medicaid and get rid of an outrageous grocery tax. Reeves’s position on abortion resonated deeply in a place where many people thought abortion had been banned before the Dobbs decision came down. He steered around the subject, as did his opponent Brandon Presley, and Republicans overlooked his latest scandal-laced term.
But this was practically the only bright spot for Republicans the entire night, and outside of the Deep South, abortion bans simply don’t play well. Gov. Youngkin avoided reproductive rights during his own 2021 campaign, but took an aggressive stance this time around, speaking plainly about his plan to implement a 15-week abortion ban. That was a catastrophic mistake for him in a purple state teeming with hives of madder-than-hell Democratic women and more than a few Republican ones. Voters in regions like Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia ended up schooling him on reproductive rights. Republican state lawmakers went down to defeat, yoked as they were to Youngkin and his so-called “reasonable” abortion stance they saw as a prelude to an outright ban.
In fact, nothing worked the way it did in 2021 for Youngkin. His persistent “parents’ rights” refrain on education, which succeeded in beating Terry McAuliffe two years ago, also didn’t resonate: Even in Loudoun County, ground zero of that movement, Democrats recaptured the school board. The fantasy that Youngkin cracked some code of how to win in hostile territory came crashing down to defeat, with him losing both chambers of the legislature, including the House of Delegates where Republicans had previously held a majority.
Meanwhile in Richmond, Mayor Stoney is a man with gubernatorial ambitions, and casinos figured into those plans. In his ideal world, an affirmative vote on casinos in Richmond would have translated into a showcase for attracting economic development, despite casinos’ dubious histories as economic engines. A host community agreement nevertheless laid out the millions that would flow into the city for jobs, child care, neighborhood revitalization, and entertainment options. It would have set Stoney up as a politician to be reckoned with. “Cha-ching” is a sweet sound for someone lining a war chest for a future run for higher office.
Republican state lawmakers went down to defeat, yoked as they were to Youngkin and his so-called “reasonable” abortion stance.
But Stoney also forgot some key facts. In 2021, Richmond voters narrowly rejected a casino. That vote should have been the end of the issue, at least in the near term. Richmond’s political leaders interpreted it a different way. To them, the two-percentage-point spread opened a new window of opportunity. Mayor Stoney and eight of the nine city councilmembers reanimated a second casino referendum, one voters hadn’t exactly been clamoring for. The racial and socioeconomic tensions the earlier vote had sparked flared up again.
The new plan saw Urban One, the developer and media conglomerate that lost out in the first vote, team up with Churchill Downs, of horse-racing and gambling fame. Similar to Youngkin and the groups casting about for a Virginia trifecta, Stoney teamed up with casino supporters, who spent record-breaking millions on trying to persuade voters that casinos would revitalize disadvantaged Black neighborhoods.
Unfortunately for Stoney, Urban One was problematic almost from day one. Earlier this year, Nasdaq announced delisting proceedings against Urban One for failing to file required quarterly reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
An October poll found voters split on the casino vote. Enter Cathy Hughes, the founder of Urban One, one of the most successful African American businesspeople in the country. With less than a week to go before the election, casino opponents released excerpts of Hughes’s comments on one of Urban One’s local radio programs about Richmond’s Black voters, the very people she needed to secure a casino license.
What was her pitch? The disrespect she showered the good people of Richmond with is likely to go down in the annals of Harvard Business School case studies as some of most ill-advised comments ever made by an American business leader. Hughes divided Richmond’s Black electorate into two groups, “house” and “field,” labels that date back to slavery—except that she used edgier nouns never spoken out loud by people trying to drum up votes. Another radio host on a different Urban One program made antisemitic remarks about Paul Goldman, one of the leaders of the anti-casino campaign. The network’s regional vice president drove to the studio and fired the host on the spot.
In the end, the referendum flamed out, 61.2 percent to 38.4 percent. Stoney swiftly tried to backpedal. “I will work for more accessible and affordable child care, for good paying jobs, and for an abundance of opportunities for ALL Richmonders—no matter their zip code or socioeconomic status,” he said in an Election Night statement.
How Stoney extricates himself from being forever linked to the Richmond casino debacle bears watching, especially if he plans to run for governor in 2025. Youngkin, who cannot run for re-election, now must spend his final two years bargaining with a General Assembly run by Democrats, with his national hopes greatly diminished. Regardless, given the rehabilitation-seeking skills long exhibited by Democrats and Republicans, expect both men back on the campaign trail sometime soon.