Glenn Youngkin recalled the moment he told his wife during a walk that he wanted to quit his job as co-CEO of private equity firm the Carlyle Group in order to seek the Republican nomination for governor in Virginia, which has not elected a statewide Republican since 2009.
“She said, ‘Are you having a midlife crisis?’” an upbeat Youngkin, 54, told the Washington Examiner in an interview. “I literally had a moment where I felt like this is what I was supposed to do.”
Virginia’s 2021 gubernatorial race is one of the first indications of where the Republican Party will go politically and ideologically as former President Donald Trump teases a potential 2024 run and aims to keep an active hold on the party.
“I first appreciate the fact that an outside business guy who’s never run for anything before but actually has a clear view about how to get things done can succeed,” Youngkin said of Trump’s impact on the party.
TRUMP IS A TOUGH ACT TO FOLLOW FOR 2024 REPUBLICAN HOPEFULS
Like Trump, the wealthy businessman and first-time candidate has the means largely to self-fund his campaign, putting him in the top tier of potential Republican gubernatorial hopefuls. His political inexperience is a key part of his campaign pitch that distinguishes him from his primary competition, telling voters that he is “an outsider who doesn’t bring years and years and years of relationships that they have to compromise or adhere to.”
But Youngkin’s praise of and similarities with Trump largely stop there. Rather than taking hard-line stances or making bombastic comments, Youngkin aims to be a uniter.
“Republicans are coming together like you cannot believe, whether it’s a meeting with the libertarian breakfast or Tea Party lunch or Never Trumpers, always Trumpers,” Youngkin said during a meet-and-greet Thursday morning in a quiet Arlington, Virginia, park with about 10 voters.
Supporters of Youngkin said that they hope he can win centrist and disaffected Democrats.
Asked by a mother about gender policy in schools, Youngkin did not tiptoe around the question. “Biological males should not be allowed to play sports in girls sports,” Youngkin said. “It’s just not fair.”
But he also didn’t lean into the issue. “We start talking about the wrong things. We start talking about whether Dr. Seuss should be in our schools as opposed to getting our schools open.”
In an appeal to what has emerged as a top grassroots issue for conservatives, Youngkin’s campaign launched an “election integrity task force.” His plan includes updating voter rolls monthly, requiring not only a voter’s signature and that of an observer on mail-in ballots and ensuring observers can watch the vote-counting process.
Lack of trust in election systems is not partisan, Youngkin said. “Hillary Clinton lost. She professed they stole the election. This has been an issue that has been around for a long time.”
Youngkin’s “ticket to a great, great education” was attending Rice University on a basketball scholarship, a fact that well matches his towering “just under” 6-foot-6 stature.
“I was a mechanical engineer, and my lovely wife Suzanne and I were introduced,” Youngkin told the morning park crowd. “Went to grad school, and then we came back to northern Virginia 27 years and made our home here,” joining private equity firm the Carlyle Group, he said, when it was a “small company” before becoming its co-CEO.
He left unsaid that the “grad school” he attended was Harvard Business School, a name also not mentioned on his campaign website biography.
Youngkin said that he was “racing” to tell his story to the park crowd. “I’m very proud that I went to Harvard,” he said, calling it “another amazing privilege to me. It was a gift.”
The omission gets a point of criticism for some opponents who are wary of supporting a member of the high-society insider class with corporate baggage, someone who was pictured with former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan in a 2017 holiday edition of Washington Life magazine and who was named on its 2020 “social list.” Multiple shadowy PACs and political groups have hit Youngkin with attack ads attempting to tie him to the Carlyle Group’s business interests in China and donations to left-wing groups.
“I am never going to apologize for being successful. And, in fact, it’s the American dream,” Youngkin said.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
In order to get to the governor’s mansion, Youngkin first needs to win the state party’s nomination at its May 8 convention.
“I so firmly believe that Virginia has been and should be the best state in America to live and work and raise a family,” Youngkin said. “Unfortunately, we’re not there right now. It was like that when I was growing up, and it was like that when my kids were little, and we’ve got to get her back.”
