Shocking Twist: Is Glenn Youngkin Secretly Running for President?

In a clever video posted to social media earlier this year, Virginia’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, contemplates America’s future.

“We can usher in a new era of American values,” Youngkin narrates through footage of him speaking at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and strolling beneath a colonnade worthy of the White House. “The stakes are high and the consequences couldn’t be greater. »

The video, funded by Youngkin’s fundraising vehicle Spirit of Virginia, looks a lot like a presidential campaign ad.

But for months, Youngkin, 56, has insisted he is not running for the White House, even as deep-pocketed Republican donors call on him to do so. challenge Republican Party favorite Donald Trump.

At the same time, however, the former Carlyle executive and his aides have also quietly left the door open for a last-minute entry into the 2024 election. Republican primary domain.

“The presidential pot is simmering, and he’s happy to stir it,” said a former colleague of Carlyle’s, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Publicly, Young Kin says he remains focused on this November, when Virginia will hold an off-year election to determine which political party controls the state legislature in Richmond.

Yet the governor — who met with wealthy foreign donors in the Hamptons and Nantucket over the summer, and whose personal net worth is estimated at nearly $500 million — also often appears coy when he is insisted on his presidential ambitions.

“I’m not in Iowa at the state fair,” he told Fox News earlier this month. “I’m campaigning in Virginia for Virginians, not across the country.”

Speculation around Youngkin’s presidential ambitions underscores the meteoric rise of a former private equity boss who burst onto the political scene just two years ago, defeating a Democratic opponent in a state that Joe Biden had won convincingly in 2020.

But it also reveals the deep divisions within a Republican establishment grappling with Trump’s grip on the party and voters increasingly committed — or in some cases, resigned — to the former president being the Republican Party candidate in 2024.

Youngkin was a political novice when he left Carlyle in 2020 after losing a power struggle with his co-chief executive, Kewsong Lee. He had spent a quarter of a century at the private equity giant.

But his electoral victory in Virginia the following year immediately strengthened his position with establishment Republicans, having won over centrist suburban voters who had shunned the Republican Party during the Trump era. Many wondered whether his Wall Street resume, mild manner and emphasis on education issues offered a new model for the national party.

Youngkin’s campaign philosophy was on display recently on a weekday afternoon in Leesburg, an affluent suburb about 40 miles west of Washington. More than 200 voters filled an auditorium at Cornerstone Chapel, an evangelical megachurch, to hear the governor speak at what was billed as a “Parents Matter” forum.

For more than an hour, Youngkin — who had removed his suit jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves after taking the stage — answered questions from voters and scribbled in a notebook, promising to address their concerns about everything, from classroom sizes to sex education to sex education. rights of transgender students in schools.

A social conservative and evangelical Christian, Youngkin has emphasized his faith on several occasions. Parents should be “empowered to play a role in their children’s lives.” . . God granted it to us,” he said. “There has only been one perfect person in the history of this planet.”

Youngkin made no mention of national politics, nor the former president, nor the current race for the White House. But in closing, he asserted his own conservatism.

“Elections have consequences. At the heart of my conservative philosophy, I talk a lot about common-sense conservative governance,” Youngkin said. “We need you to get to work.”

After the event, supporters praised the governor. Susan Cox, a ballroom dance instructor from nearby Sterling, called him “classy,” adding, “I really think he cares.” »

But Cox demurred when asked whether Youngkin should run for even higher office.

“If in the future he decides to run for president, you can probably count me among you.” . . but it’s so new right now,” she said.

Paul Lott, a Republican candidate for the Ashburn state legislature, said Youngkin would make a “wonderful candidate” for the White House – but said the former president’s Republican nomination seemed inevitable.

“If Trump doesn’t go off the rails, he’ll be the nominee,” Lott said.

Their comments underscored Trump’s seemingly unassailable lead in the polls, despite a raft of criminal charges. The failure of other Republican candidates to mount a credible challenge has disappointed anti-Trump donors and party operatives, who have called on popular Republican governors such as Youngkin and Georgia’s Brian Kemp to make a last-minute bid for office. nomination before the party primaries. the season begins in January 2024.

The latest FiveThirtyEight average of national opinion polls shows Trump has the support of more than 55 percent of Republican voters, followed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a distant second place with 14 percent. The rest of the candidates are in the single digits.

The most recent Roanoke College poll of Virginia voters paints a similar picture.

The survey, conducted last month, found that Youngkin enjoyed a 51 percent job approval rating among Virginians. But the same poll showed that among Republican voters, Trump was the first-choice presidential candidate for nearly half of them, followed by DeSantis, with 13 percent. Youngkin came in third, with 9 percent.

“The former president remains incredibly popular among Republicans, not just nationally, but certainly here in Virginia,” said Bryan Parsons, senior political analyst at the Institute for Policy and Opinion Research, which conducted the Roanoke investigation.

“It’s not surprising that there are elements within the Republican Party that would lean toward a candidate with Youngkin’s resume,” Parsons added. “But there are other elements of the party who are very mobilized and very favorable to the former president.”

Many campaign veterans agree. Mick Mulvaney, who was Trump’s White House chief of staff, said Youngkin was a “great candidate” and a “very capable gentleman” — but he was skeptical that Youngkin or Kemp could attract more Trump voters than other challengers.

“What does Glenn Youngkin bring to racing that doesn’t already exist?” » Mulvaney said.

“Are there really Trump voters who say, ‘You know what, I was with Trump. I wasn’t with DeSantis or [former vice-president Mike] Penny or [former UN ambassador Nikki] Haley but I’ll be with Glenn Youngkin’?

Youngkin’s former colleague at Carlyle said his former boss played the political game “brilliantly” by building notoriety without entering the presidential race.

They predicted he would keep his powder dry next year — and run for president in 2028. Virginia law prohibits governors from serving consecutive terms, meaning Youngkin is ineligible to run stand for election in 2025.

Several voters at the event in Leesburg also said running for president in four years might be a better choice for Youngkin.

“I would love to see him president at some point,” said Amy Riccardi, a local business owner and nonpartisan candidate for the county school board. “Is this cycle?” Next cycle? I don’t know.”

Additional reporting by Antoine Gara in New York