Youngkin at heart
Businessman Glenn Youngkin triumphed in the Virginia GOP’s convoluted gubernatorial primary late on Monday night.
Throughout his campaign, the candidate styled himself as a political outsider. Before jumping in the race, Youngkin spent 25 years working for an inside-the-beltway private equity firm called The Carlyle Group, which came under scrutiny for its role in weapons manufacturing and trade in the early 2000s. And though he considers himself an outsider, Youngkin hasn’t shied away from Republican-spearheaded culture wars, recently posting a series of videos lambasting critical race theory on his social media accounts. During the campaign, Youngkin was endorsed by Republican Senator Ted Cruz and former Confederate-flag-waving gubernatorial candidate Corey Stewart. Youngkin also has not acknowledged that Joe Biden legitimately won the presidential election.
The former investor pumped almost $6 million of his own money into the campaign, leading all Republicans in spending.
Just 30,000 voters cast ballots in the convention, a controversial ranked-choice-voting affair, which was held in drive-through locations around the state. Results were slow to arrive because all ballots had to be transported to Richmond and hand counted, to demonstrate the Republican party’s commitment to election security. Entrepreneur Pete Snyder finished second, conservative firebrand state Senator Amanda Chase came in third, and longtime legislator Kirk Cox finished fourth.
In November, Youngkin will go head to head with the winner of the June 8 Democratic primary.
Gov says save the date: June 15
Governor Ralph Northam is trying the old bribery technique. Last Thursday, he announced that Virginia will fully reopen by June 15—if, that is, vaccine numbers continue to rise and statewide COVID case numbers continue to fall.
“If you’re planning your swim league, or if you are planning for opening your theater, or if you are planning your yoga studio, plan on June 15 to be able to go to full capacity,” said Northam’s Chief of Staff Clark Mercer.
Other states have been even more explicit in tying reopening to vaccine rates. West Virginia Governor Jim Justice announced last week that he would lift indoor mask restrictions if 70 percent of the state got at least one shot. President Biden’s goal is for 70 percent of Americans to receive one shot by July 4.
As of Monday, 47 percent of Virginians have had at least one shot, and 35 percent are fully vaccinated. According to The New York Times, the commonwealth ranks 14th nationwide in percent vaccinated, and Albemarle and Charlottesville continue to be among the most-vaccinated localities in the state: 45 percent of Albemarle and 41 percent of Charlottesville are fully inoculated.
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Quote of the week
“Legislators can’t just talk the talk on multimodal transit—we gotta scoot the scoot.”
—Delegate Sally Hudson, via Twitter, after arriving at an event on an electric scooter
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Cops out
Nearly one year after ending Charlottesville City Schools’ contract with the city police department, the division’s school board unanimously voted last week to replace armed school resource officers with unarmed care and safety assistants. The new assistants will monitor hallways and common areas, build positive relationships with students, and use deescalation techniques to resolve conflicts, among other duties. Candidates must have at least six months of experience working with adolescents, but those hired will receive extensive training. In the coming weeks, the board will come to a new agreement with CPD, finalizing which scenarios will require schools to still contact police.
No-klahoma
Blue Toad cidery has called off a scheduled production of Oklahoma after it was revealed that the show’s director is a hard-core Trumper whose last directorial gig ended in a storm of racism allegations. Brian Clowdus, a once-renowned Atlanta theater leader whose fall from grace included posing for a picture with the Capitol-storming QAnon Shaman, seems to have other plans anyway—this week he announced that he’s running for a seat in the Florida House of Representatives.
Hall monitor
Kardinal Hall boss Joshua Hunt took to Facebook over the weekend to apologize for his restaurant accidentally hosting a rally for Republican gubernatorial candidate Pete Snyder. Hunt wrote that the beer garden was reserved by a purported “non-profit group,” and that “at no time did [they] mention that the event would be a political rally”—so you can imagine the surprise of patrons and proprietors alike when Snyder and 5th District Republican Congressman Bob Good showed up. Must have been unbeerable!