Since the day he rode down a golden escalator and announced his candidacy for president, Republicans have struggled with how to deal with Donald Trump. But after Glenn Youngkin's stunning victory in the Virginia governor's race — a state President Joe Biden won last year by 10 percentage points — and a strong GOP showing in deep-blue New Jersey's, party leaders believe they have a model that can deliver them big wins in next year's midterm elections. By tapping into culture war fights over issues like school curricula, the GOP can energize Trump's loyal base. But party leaders believe this week's results demonstrate they can also win back suburbanites who abandoned the GOP during the Trump era by talking about local issues like taxes and keeping the former president at arm's length. “Clearly Youngkin's win was a boost to Republicans and gives us momentum going into next year," said Asa Hutchinson, the Republican governor of Arkansas, who has not ruled out a run for president in 2024. That, combined with the surprisingly competitive race for governor in New Jersey, “showed that a Republican in this environment, talking about state issues, talking about education, talking about the future, can even win suburban votes and can win the middle.” As the full extent of Tuesday's voting became clear, the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is focused on retaking control of the House, named 13 more Democratic seats it hoped to flip. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, meanwhile, noted next year's map is weighted heavily toward swing states like Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia, which Biden won by far slimmer margins than he won Virginia and New Jersey. Read:Glenn Youngkin wins in Virginia, dead heat in New Jersey Other states where Democrats have eyed Senate seats, such as North Carolina and Florida, were carried by Trump in 2020. “It completely changes the dynamics of the map," NRSC spokesman Chris Hartline said. The results emboldened some Trump critics like Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican who swept his own blue state and has long stressed the party's need to win back the swing voters and moderates whom Trump alienated. ”That’s the way we’re going to win," Hogan said. "It’s a great road map. You can't double down on failure," he said, arguing that voters “want to hear what you’ll do for them, not for Trump.” Of course, it remains unclear heading into the midterms whether Republicans will nominate the kind of candidates with the same appeal as Youngkin. Many GOP primary contests, from Ohio to North Carolina, have been dominated by contenders who have tried to out-Trump one another, including parroting his lies about a stolen election. And the former president has been wading into races, aiming to crown candidates who have faced serious allegations as he has tried to exact revenge on those who crossed him by voting in favor of his impeachment or opposing his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. One example is Sean Parnell, who is running for the Senate in Pennsylvania with Trump's backing. Parnell's estranged wife this week testified under oath that she had endured years of rage and abuse from him, including being choked until she had to bite him, a newspaper reported. Parnell had emphatically denied her claims. And while Jack Ciattarelli, the Republican candidate for governor in New Jersey who lost a close vote, made a clear break with Trump, Youngkin did not. Instead, the Virginia Republican deftly handled the former president, persuading him to steer clear of the state, while nonetheless maintaining his support. Trump endorsed Youngkin and praised him in the race's final stretch, but his involvement in the campaign was limited, including holding a “tele-rally” on election eve in which he spoke for less than 10 minutes. Trump's allies nonetheless made clear to his supporters that there was minimal daylight between the two men when it came to the issues. John Fredericks, who served as Trump’s campaign chair in the state in 2016 and 2020, hosted Trump on his radio show, and former Trump strategist Steve Bannon appeared at a rally to signal Youngkin’s MAGA bona fides. One GOP strategist noted how Trump had developed a system of code words — like “America first” — that candidates like Youngkin could pick up as a means of signaling to Trump’s base that he was speaking their language. Read:Virginia governor race emerges as test of Biden popularity Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe, meanwhile, flooded the airwaves with ads portraying Youngkin as a Trump acolyte, reminding Republicans that he was one of them. “Thank you, Terry McAuliffe, for spending the money to help me get out our vote in massive numbers,” Fredericks said. “He got our vote out. We didn't have to." Beyond Trump, Youngkin tapped into an issue set that appealed both to rural voters in deeply Republican swaths of southwestern Virginia as well as those in the suburbs who agreed with Trump on the economy and other kitchen table issues but were turned off by his tone. He presented himself in chipper campaign ads as a genial, suburban dad in a sweater vest who could appeal to parents. In particular, he seized on frustrations of parents, many of whom grew incensed over their children’s schools’ refusal to resume in-person classes during the pandemic, and subsequent mask mandates and attendance policies. But as he promised to increase teacher pay and school budgets, Youngkin also didn’t shy away from the culture war issues that Trump heralded in an effort to portray Democrats as out of the mainstream. Youngkin sounded the alarm over transgender rights and critical race theory, an academic framework that centers on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions and that they function to maintain the dominance of white people. In recent months, it has become a catch-all political buzzword for any teaching in schools about race and American history. Indeed, he went so far as to release an ad featuring a mother expressing outrage that her child had been assigned to read “Beloved,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Toni Morrison. Fredericks credited Trump for Youngkin's victory, insisting the Republican wouldn't have won without Trump's base. “Glenn Youngkin did nothing but embrace our core policies and voters from Day One. So he did nothing to alienate us," he said. “He put together a very simple coalition: Trump voters and angry parents.” Trump predictably agreed. “Without that movement, that race wouldn’t have even been close," he said on Fredericks' radio show Wednesday.

  RICHMOND, Va. (AP/UNB) — Glenn Youngkin won the Virginia governor’s race early Wednesday, tapping into culture war fights over schools and race to unite former President Donald Trump’s most fervent supporters with enough suburban voters to become the first Republican to win statewide office here in a dozen years. The 54-year-old Youngkin’s defeat of Democrat Terry McAuliffe marked a sharp turnabout in a state that had shifted to the left over the past decade and which President Joe Biden captured by 10 points in 2020. And with the party stinging from that loss, Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey was in a dead heat to win reelection in a state Biden won by 15. The elections were the first major tests of voter sentiment since Biden took office. And they offered stern warnings heading into next year’s midterms that the party’s thin majority in Congress was in peril. “This is the spirit of Virginia coming together like never before,” Youngkin told cheering supporters in a hotel ballroom in Chantilly, about 25 miles west of Washington. AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” blared from speakers as the race was called after midnight. Youngkin promised to lead not just from the state capital but with “a vision where Virginians’ power, the power that has historically resided in the marble halls in Richmond is spread out, spread out into the kitchen tables that are held together with the bond and the spirit of liberty and freedom.” A political neophyte, Youngkin was able to take advantage of apparent apathy among core Democratic voters fatigued by years of elections that were seen as must-wins. He successfully portrayed McAuliffe, a former Virginia governor, Democratic National Committee chairman and close friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton, as part of an elite class of politicians. He also seized on a late-stage stumble by McAuliffe, who during a debate performance suggested parents should have a minimal role in shaping school curriculums. Perhaps most significantly, Youngkin prevailed in a task that has stumped scores of Republicans before him: attracting Trump’s base while also appealing to suburban voters who were repelled by the former president’s divisive behavior. During the campaign, Youngkin stated his support for “election integrity,” a nod at Trump’s lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, while also focusing on education and business-friendly policies. He never campaigned in person with Trump, successfully challenging McAuliffe’s effort to cast him as a clone of the former president. That approach could provide a model for Republicans competing in future races that feature significant numbers of Democratic or independent voters. Elsewhere in the country Tuesday, mayoral contests helped shape the leadership of some of the nation’s largest cities. Democratic former police captain Eric Adams won in New York, and Boston voters elected City Councilor Michelle Wu, the city’s first female Asian American mayor. Cincinnati is getting its first Asian American mayor, Aftab Pureval. Minneapolis voters rejected a ballot initiative that sought to overhaul policing in their city, where George Floyd was killed by a white police officer on Memorial Day 2020, sparking the largest wave of protests against racial injustice in generations. The initiative would have replaced the police force with a Department of Public Safety charged with undertaking “a comprehensive public health” approach to policing. In the New Jersey governor’s race, Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli posted a surprisingly strong showing, campaigning on issues including taxes and opposition to pandemic mask and vaccination mandates. Incumbent Gov. Murphy was trying to become the first Democrat reelected to the office in 44 years. But no other contest in this off-year election season received the level of national attention — and money — as the governor’s race in Virginia, a state with broad swaths of college-educated suburban voters who are increasingly influential in swaying control of Congress and the White House. A former co-CEO at the Carlyle Group with a lanky, 6′6″ build that once made him a reserve forward on Rice University’s basketball team, Youngkin poured vast amounts of his personal fortune into a campaign that spent more than $59 million. Favoring fleece vests, Youngkin sought to cut the image of a genial suburban dad. Youngkin ran confidently on a conservative platform. He opposed a major clean energy mandate the state passed two years ago and objected to abortion in most circumstances. He also backed a business-friendly approach to the state’s economy, opposed mask and vaccine mandates, promised to expand Virginia’s limited charter schools and ban critical race theory, an academic framework that centers on the idea that racism is systemic in the nation’s institutions and that they function to maintain the dominance of white people. In recent months, it has become a catch-all political buzzword for any teaching in schools about race and American history. McAuliffe tried to energize the Democratic base by highlighting abortion, denouncing a new Texas law that largely banned the procedure and warning that Youngkin would seek to implement similar restrictions. Youngkin didn’t discuss abortion much publicly, and a liberal activist caught him on tape saying the issue couldn’t help him during the campaign. He said an election win would allow the party to “start going on offense” on the issue. While McAuliffe pulled on the star power of a host of national Democrats, including former President Barack Obama and ex-Georgia governor candidate Stacey Abrams, Youngkin largely campaigned on his own, focusing on issues he said were important to Virginians. Youngkin also proved perhaps most successful in deflecting McAuliffe’s efforts to tie him to Trump and the former president’s divisive political style. Polls showed the race tightening after McAuliffe said during a late September debate that he didn’t think “parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” That prompted Youngkin to run hundreds of TV ads on the statement and to focus on his own pledges to make school curricula less “un-American” and to overhaul policies on transgender students and school bathrooms. The race took an especially bitter turn last week, when Youngkin ran an ad featuring a mother and GOP activist who eight years ago led an effort to ban “Beloved,” the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Black Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, from classrooms. McAuliffe accused Youngkin of uncorking a “racist dog whistle,” but Youngkin said Virginia parents knew what was really at stake — and so did families across the country. That was a nod to how tapping into parental activism could work for the GOP next year and in future election cycles. “America is watching Virginia,” Youngkin said as part of his closing argument. “And America needs us to vote for them too.”