Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin wraps up his term in office on Jan. 17 with an eye on the White House — and a steep hill to climb for the MAGA faithful who aren’t quite sure he’s one of them.
His defenders say his record over the last four years — tax cuts and a friendlier climate for jobs and businesses — should be convincing.
But key MAGA figures aren’t buying it.
“Not at all,” Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser, told The Washington Times. “He’s an establishment wimp.”
That sums up Mr. Youngkin’s dilemma within the GOP. Supporters see him as a cheerful warrior in the Reagan mold — a compassionate conservative and Christian who can connect with voters in the heartland. But Trump loyalists dismiss him as out of step with the movement.
John Fredericks, a conservative radio host and former Trump campaign co-chair in Virginia, traces the doubts back to Mr. Youngkin’s 2021 campaign, when he deliberately kept some distance from Mr. Trump. The tactic worked — he held MAGA voters while also winning over Virginians who had backed President Biden just a year earlier.
His brief flirtation with a presidential run after a Trump-inspired mob attacked the U.S. Capitol to protest the results of the 2020 election reopened questions about where he truly stands.
“That hurt him a lot,” Mr. Fredericks said.
But he said the perception is wrong.
“The reality is, he governed through a MAGA lens,” Mr. Fredericks said. “There’s not a decision he made in four years as governor that wouldn’t have fired up the MAGA base.”
Mr. Youngkin, 59, now has a decision to make.
Barred from seeking a second consecutive term by Virginia’s Constitution, he has ruled out a Senate run in 2026 and must decide whether 2028 is the right time to make a bid for the White House.
Or he could take another route — perhaps even a return to the private sector to rebuild the fortune he dipped into, borrowing $20 million to power his 2021 campaign.
There’s also another wildcard: the possibility of a spot in a Trump cabinet.
For now, Mr. Youngkin isn’t saying where he stands, though he has lavished praise on Mr. Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance and the administration.
He also remains on the roster of potential 2028 contenders.
“I think he’s got the mettle, and I think he’s got the gravitas, and I think he’s got the record that he could certainly run for president in 2028, and I think he’ll be very, very competitive,” former Gov. Bob McDonnell told The Times, after campaigning alongside Mr. Youngkin days before November’s state election. “So it would surprise me that if he didn’t run for another office, and I think my gut would be that he would choose to run for president.”
Mr. Youngkin has kept his name in the mix.
This year, he headlined GOP dinners in Iowa and South Carolina, traditionally the first and fourth stops in the GOP nomination race.
Democrats see it differently.
Virginia Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell calls Mr. Youngkin’s tenure a wasted opportunity.
“He ran the office like he was in a perpetual campaign instead of trying to govern,” Mr. Scott told the Times, adding that collaboration with his office was “mostly impossible.”
He pointed to Mr. Youngkin’s record-setting vetoes: “He vetoed three times more bills than any governor in the history of the state. That’s not something he’s going to brag about to the grandchildren.”
The partisan gridlock had real consequences.
Democrats derailed Mr. Youngkin’s big swing at moving the Washington Wizards and Capitals to a shiny new arena in Alexandria. More broadly, some Democrats decided that their best option was to ensure the next governor would be one of their own.
“From the perspective of legislators, they know they can wait, and he’ll be gone,” said Ben Tribbett, a longtime Virginia-based Democratic strategist. “It’s a one-term governor state.”
Republicans, meanwhile, see Mr. Youngkin’s vetoes as a badge of honor.
They argue he drew a hard line against Democratic priorities as the party drifts left, stopping Virginia from becoming “California East.”
In their telling, the veto pen isn’t a sign of dysfunction — it’s a sign of his resoluteness and the very definition of his legacy.
He vetoed 399 bills — more than triple the previous high mark set by Democrat Terry McAuliffe between 2014 and 2018, and whose hopes of a political comeback were dashed by Mr. Youngkin in 2021.
Supporters say Mr. Youngkin reshaped Virginia, pushing the state toward a more conservative line on taxes, public safety, and COVID-19 rules — all while building a business climate that he says attracted over $150 billion in investment.
Former Gov. George Allen said Mr. Youngkin’s impact was immediate.
“Virginia was finally liberated from the paranoid hypochondriac government lockdown restrictions,” Mr. Allen said, praising Mr. Youngkin for pressuring the University of Virginia to roll back its student vaccine mandate.
Mr. McDonnell said Mr. Youngkin is a “rare generational talent,” citing his experience building a successful private equity firm and wearing his faith on his sleeve while governing as a conservative.
“I would put him as one of the most effective, transformational governors of my lifetime,” he said. “He’s a very good communicator for the conservative idea with, I think, generally a soft and warm touch to what he’s doing.”
In the closing weeks of the off-year election, Mr. Youngkin offered a glimpse of a possible campaign message: job gains, tax cuts, more people moving to the state than leaving, cell phones removed from classrooms, regulations scrapped, and a drop in homicides.
He said he delivered on the pro-parent, pro-cop, and pro-education agenda that helped power his win four years ago. He has touted improvements at the Department of Motor Vehicles and other state agencies.
And in one of his last moves as governor, Mr. Youngkin unveiled a new budget plan he said would build on what he called Virginia’s “renaissance.”
“It is a story of transformation, of promises made and promises kept,” he told lawmakers. “A story of competing and winning, a story of Virginia leading.
He said Virginia “is stronger today than she has ever been.”
A significant hurdle for Mr. Youngkin is that voters in his state weren’t buying much of his sales pitch in 2025.
The governor led his party into an election night slaughter that saw Democrats gain total control of Richmond, putting them in a position to unwind Mr. Youngkin’s achievements, pass the legislation that he bottled up, and push forward with proposed changes to the state’s congressional maps that could pave the way for Democrats to net three seats.
Mr. Youngkin has since worked to distance himself from the setback, blaming the government shutdown — which hit the state’s large federal workforce — and what he described as a “biased media” that echoed Senate Democrats.
He also said Republicans continue to suffer from the lingering effects of inflation under Mr. Biden.
However, Mr. Bannon said Mr. Youngkin failed to deliver on core MAGA priorities, blasting him for not being aggressive, including on immigration and transgender issues.
He derided the idea of the governor landing a Trump Cabinet post, saying he wants to “launder his reputation with MAGA.”
Mr. Bannon said Mr. Youngkin wouldn’t take the Homeland Security secretary’s job because “that would require tough calls and action.”
“He wants commerce so he can kill the tariff deals and go back to neoliberal free trade,” Mr. Bannon said.
Mr. Fredericks, though, said that if Mr. Youngkin lands a significant role in a Trump administration and proves to be a MAGA enthusiast, the bruises from 2025 will fade.
“People forget,” Mr. Fredericks said. “They’re not going to remember what he did in Virginia. They’re going to remember what he did in the administration.”
He added, “He’s a very capable guy. That is why you don’t count him out.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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