RICHMOND, Va. (CN) — Jim Wilson stood next to his white Chevy Silverado, covered in American flags and signs for Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin, and tapped out a wooden pipe.
He pointed to a faded sticker from Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign and said the Utah Senator gave him the truck after “union goons” burned down his old one as Wilson worked the failed campaign in Pennsylvania,
“I started [working campaigns] with Eisenhower with my dad in Iowa; there’s an addiction and there’s no cure,” said the 79-year-old Buckingham, Virginia, resident of his love of campaigning.
And while Wilson smiled when he said he worked on the last three successful Virginia GOP gubernatorial races, he frowned a bit when he admitted to skipping former President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign.
“Doesn’t matter now cause he’s history,” Wilson snarled when asked why he sat 2020 out. He also notes he never worked for any tea party “loons.”
“If you don’t nominate a loon, you win,” Wilson said as the conversation returned to Youngkin, the first candidate for governor he’s supported in years; his name adorns Wilson’s truck.
“Glenn’s a breath of fresh air,” he said, taking a drag from his pipe. “He’s not a politician; he’s sincere.”
Wilson is the kind of voter Youngkin needs to attract.
It’s been over a decade since a Republican won a state-wide race in Virginia, but supporters like Wilson, who calls himself and his vehicle the campaign’s “mother trucker,” hope Youngkin can break that streak.
Changing demographics in Virginia’s formerly-conservative suburbs and attacks on immigrants and federal workers who dominate the state’s increasingly diverse Washington, D.C. suburbs led to Trump losing the once-purple state by 10 points in 2020.
This legacy has former Democratic Governor Terry McAullife, barred from a consecutive term under state law but hoping to reclaim his seat this fall, energized. Youngkin has avoided any discussion of the former president.
He’s gone as far as refusing to respond to questions about the three endorsements Trump has given the candidate since his primary win in May. Instead he’s pushed a folksy businessman’s image, concerned about failing schools and liberal indoctrination, even after spending $12.4 million of his $300 million personal fortune on his own campaign.
“Everywhere we go, more and more people are standing up and saying ‘No, we’re not going toward that left-liberal, progressive agenda anymore,’” said the former Carlyle Group executive to a packed house Tuesday in Richmond’s Southside.
“No CRT in Virginia schools!” he shouted about a promised fight against Critical Race Theory, the latest conservative boogeyman over a doctorate-level legal philosophy that is not taught in any Virginia public K-12 school.
The crowd offered their most enthusiastic chant of the event back: “No CRT!”
The speech worked on Randy Walker, a Richmond native and retired security consultant who hopes Youngkin will push back on Virginia Democrats who won complete control over the state’s government for the first time in 20 years just two years ago.
Walker called the changes, which included mandatory background checks for gun purchases, expanded voting access, legalized marijuana and criminal justice reform, “the abyss we have in the state right now.”
“I’m not against immigration, I’m against illegal immigration,” he said, mistakenly accusing the left of giving “free education to illegals” after they granted in-state tuition for undocumented students.
“I was born and raised here and I know the monuments on Monument Avenue were all Confederates, but it’s history,” Walker said of Democrats’ successful efforts to remove statutes of Civil War generals, including one who said of Black people “that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.”
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