Glenn Youngkin: America's Next President?

by Justin Soutar

Trump fans in general and Republicans in particular who were bitterly disappointed by the results of last year’s elections in New York City, New Jersey, and Virginia are now eagerly searching for strong leaders who can decisively win future elections. The Commonwealth of Virginia recently concluded four remarkable years under one such leader.

Glenn Youngkin towers head and shoulders above the field of contemporary Virginia governors and their accomplishments. Confident, energetic, indefatigable, and laser-focused on achieving his stated goal of making the Old Dominion the best place in the nation to live, work, and raise a family in the twenty-first century, he accomplished more in four years than his four most recent predecessors combined. In short, he made Virginia great again.

Entering the Richmond governor’s mansion in January 2022, Youngkin inherited a state that was losing population and tax revenue, that was failing economically and educationally, where personal and religious freedoms were curtailed. As he put it, “Virginia was losing.” Governor Youngkin’s independent thinking, unfailing common sense, incredibly hard work, authentic bipartisanship, and selfless dedication to public service led to innovative approaches, smart laws, and sound policies that transformed Virginia into a beacon of excellence, prosperity, and freedom. In his final State of the Commonwealth address in January 2026, he triumphantly declared, “Virginia is winning!”

The positive effects of Glenn Youngkin’s great leadership will continue to be felt in the Commonwealth for years to come. In the course of his extraordinary administration, Governor Youngkin signed more than 2,000 bills into law, the vast majority with bipartisan support—an astonishing achievement. Furthermore, he served without pay, donating 100 percent of his salary to charities.

He cut income taxes and business regulations to stimulate investment and economic growth and handed billions of dollars in tax relief to ordinary Virginians. The $156 billion invested in Virginia during his term, which resulted in more than 100,000 new jobs, exceeded the total amount invested under the previous six governors combined. He balanced the budget and generated record revenue surpluses for the state through sales and use taxes. He raised the state minimum wage to $12.77 an hour.

He secured millions of dollars in federal funding for abandoned mine land development, turning economically struggling southwest Virginia into a hub of nuclear energy research and technology. His Energy Plan rejected arbitrary renewable energy mandates in favor of a flexible, “all of the above” approach to modernizing and expanding Virginia’s electrical grid. He created the largest offshore wind energy farm in the western hemisphere. He set policies for the responsible development and use of artificial intelligence.

He repealed misguided public health mandates imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. His “Right Help, Right Now” program made mental health care more accessible and affordable. He enacted the largest education budget in Virginia history, raised teacher pay, put parents back in charge of their children’s education, banned cell phone use in public school classrooms, and kicked boys out of girls’ locker rooms.

He distributed hundreds of development grants to communities large and small across the Commonwealth, boosting Virginia’s recreation and tourism industries to new heights. He eliminated thousands of foreign nationals and illegal immigrants from the state’s voter rolls in 2024, for which he was sued by the Biden administration’s Department of Injustice, with the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in his favor.

He forbade state employees from using TikTok for official business due to Chinese Communist Party control of the social media platform. And under his leadership, the Virginia State Police seized thousands of pounds of fentanyl and other illegal drugs, arrested dozens of MS-13 gang members, and investigated unlawful teen abortions without parental knowledge facilitated by a high school in Northern Virginia.

That just scratches the surface of Glenn Youngkin’s accomplishments as Governor of Virginia. None of them may have happened. As a successful businessman, a solid family man and a devout Christian running for governor of a state Biden had won by ten points the previous year, with no previous political experience and former President Donald Trump’s endorsement, Youngkin wasn’t expected to win the 2021 gubernatorial election. But former Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe’s foolish claim in a pre-election debate with Youngkin, “Parents shouldn’t be telling schools what to teach their kids,” was wildly unpopular with Virginia parents, which helped ensure Youngkin’s surprise victory.

With a record like this, it’s no surprise that Glenn Youngkin has set his sights on the White House. If he has a canny political strategist, just as Bush had Karl Rove and Trump had Dick Morris, his presidential bid may very well be successful. Such a strategist will help him raise the campaign money he needs, increase his visibility on the national stage, and focus on key issues that really matter to voters.

Republicans and Trump supporters looking to win the 2028 presidential election would do well to unite around Glenn Youngkin as Trump’s successor. While they are two different men, there are many parallels between Trump and Youngkin. His legendary work ethic, traditional family values, strong Christian faith, unsullied integrity, longtime business experience, excellent communication and debating skills, practical governing style, and promises made and kept are unmistakably similar to Trump’s.

The popular and phenomenally successful MAGA Republican governor of a Democratic-leaning state will be a strong candidate who will attract many independent and some Democratic voters, as Trump did. He is a great leader who not only can win, but knows how to win. He can be trusted to carry the Trump legacy forward into the next decade. He is also relatively young, around 60. And unlike younger presidential hopefuls J. D. Vance and Marco Rubio, whose real and alleged differences of opinion with Trump are constantly and unfairly exploited by dishonest and irresponsible secular media, Washington outsider Youngkin carries no such baggage.

Additionally, those seeking to break the current Democratic stranglehold on Virginia should not discount the possibility of Republican presidential candidate Glenn Youngkin carrying his home state and its thirteen electoral votes. In any case, America has not had a president from Virginia in more than one hundred years.

Donald J. Trump has been the greatest President of the United States since Ronald Reagan. If anyone can fill his enormous shoes, it is certainly Glenn Youngkin.

Copyright © 2026 Justin D. Soutar.

Election Watch 2025: Virginia Makes History

by Justin Soutar

Next week, we the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia will elect a female governor for the first time in the nearly 250-year history of our state. This unprecedented and interesting two-woman gubernatorial race pits our popular black Republican Lieutenant Governor, Winsome Earle-Sears--a Jamaican immigrant, Marine veteran, mother, small business owner, first black female state delegate and lieutenant governor, and patriot--against corrupt white former CIA agent and three-term Democratic Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger. We will also elect a new lieutenant governor and cast votes for attorney general, state senators and state delegates. 

Virginia's off-year election contest is drawing national attention because the results will be widely interpreted as indicating the relative strengths or weaknesses of the Republican and Democratic Parties nationwide one year after Republicans swept the White House and Congress and one year before the next elections for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. In many respects, Virginia is a microcosm of the United States as a whole, so any major shifts in the balance of power in Richmond will serve as a barometer for the political weather to expect in the national 2026 elections.

Historically a reliably Republican state, Virginia was unfortunately bought out by the Democratic political machine in 2008 and has voted for every Democratic presidential candidate since then thanks to massive Democratic spending on election advertising and widespread voter fraud in the Commonwealth. However, the illegitimate Democratic occupation of Virginia has never been completely secure, and it has remained a battleground state. In 2009, just one year after Obama carried the state, we handily elected a Republican governor, Bob McDonnell, and the following year Republicans regained control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Again in 2021, the year after Biden carried Virginia by ten points, we elected a Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, as well as a Republican lieutenant governor and attorney general, and the year following that, Republicans again reclaimed the House. 

What will happen in the Commonwealth next week? There are three main possibilities: 1) Republicans may retain the three statewide offices and the House of Delegates and regain a majority in the State Senate; 2) Democrats may seize all three statewide offices, retain control of the State Senate, and take over the House of Delegates; 3) a mixed result, with minor adjustments to the current configuration, several close and disputed elections, Democrats seizing one or two statewide offices, and each political party celebrating some victories. The Democratic cartel is spending massive amounts of money--some of it from George Soros and the Chinese Communist Party--in a major attempt to reclaim control of the statewide offices, which may seem to favor option 2 and to render option 1 very unlikely. However, Virginia, like the nation as a whole, remains deeply divided politically, so option 3 is probably the most likely outcome. And Donald Trump only lost Virginia by a few points last year, so Republicans may yet manage to pull off a general victory.

This author fully expects Winsome Earle-Sears to win the gubernatorial election, for many reasons. The Republican Party in Virginia is growing stronger, better organized and better funded due to the continuing Trump effect. Millions of Virginians are very happy with the Republican leadership of Governor Glenn Youngkin, Lieutenant Governor Sears, and Attorney General Jason Miyares these past four years on a wide range of issues from abortion to education to taxes to illegal immigration, and these people are energized and turning out in huge numbers to vote Republican. Winsome's traditional values of common sense, hard work, freedom, family, and faith resonate with and represent the average Virginia voter. She has run an excellent grassroots campaign, fundraising aggressively, communicating effectively, and clearly exposing Spanberger's corruption, radicalism, and anger. She will win a significant share of the black vote. Winsome has been tied or very close to Spanberger in the polls since August despite her opponent's two-to-one fundraising advantage. And finally, Governor Youngkin has taken steps within the past two years to clean Virginia's voter rolls and ensure the integrity of our elections. 

Virginia will make history next week, and Republicans and their supporters will have much to celebrate!

Copyright © 2025 Justin D. Soutar.

Election Watch 2024: Good News for Trump

by Justin Soutar

There has been a great deal of encouraging news lately for "former" President Donald Trump's re-election bid. 

First, his campaign continues its now longstanding but still remarkable pattern of setting and breaking new fundraising records on a monthly basis, and this almost entirely with one, two, and three-figure donations from ordinary, working-class Americans. Unlike illegitimate Vice President Kamala Harris' presidential campaign, which is being largely underwritten by George Soros, Planned Parenthood, and the Washington, D.C. swamp, Trump's campaign is primarily a grassroots one funded by "we the people," that is, by tens of millions of ordinary, hardworking American citizens who steadfastly support him because of his record and his common-sense positions on the issues that are important to them.

Second, national polls clearly indicate that Trump is slowly but steadily continuing to win over additional new supporters in key demographic groups. For example, his lead over Harris with independent voters, who will decide the election in crucial battleground states such as Pennsylvania and North Carolina, has grown to twenty-five points. Trump is also faring considerably better with Hispanic and Black voters than he did eight years ago; in fact, it appears very likely that he will win a plurality of the Hispanic vote and at least 30 percent of the Black vote. Furthermore, whereas a majority of blue-collar workers in the rust-belt states and nationwide were formerly Democratic, they are now Republican. Perhaps most surprising and encouraging is the news that 25 percent of Democrats have decided to break with their party and vote for Trump instead!

Third, it was just revealed a few days ago that the total number of registered Republican voters in the United States now exceeds the total number of registered Democratic voters for the first time since the 1980s. This, and all of the foregoing good news, is a tribute to the fact that Donald Trump has brought more new people into the Republican party than any other American political figure since Ronald Reagan. He has accomplished this by establishing a successful record on the economy, taxes, Supreme Court appointments, crime, illegal immigration, the military, and foreign policy during his administration; by maintaining clear and consistent positions on these issues; and by his generally strong support for traditional values, including the right to life, religious liberty, marriage, and parental rights in education.

Fourth and finally, last week, the corrupt Biden-Harris Department of Justice sued the Commonwealth of Virginia and our Republican Governor, Glenn Youngkin, for mandating the removal of illegal aliens and foreign nationals from our state's voter rolls as required by state and federal law. How ironic it is that our governor is being sued for acting in accordance with the law, not for breaking it. This is a sign of just how desperate Kamala Harris is to win the most powerful political office in the world by any means necessary, including dark money and election fraud. If there was any doubt whatsoever that Harris can win this presidential election without fraud, it is gone. 

But why has Virginia specifically been targeted, and why is this good news for Trump? Because, although corrupt Democrats have successfully bought out our state for the past twenty years, they realize that the pendulum of momentum is now swinging back to the Republicans. No longer a reliably blue state, Virginia has joined the ranks of the battleground states that are up for grabs. The Biden-Harris cartel is afraid that they may very well lose Virginia to Trump without hundreds of thousands of illegal votes in their favor. In other words, they fear that Trump will win Virginia if the election here is free of fraud. They wouldn't be afraid of something that had no real chance of happening. The prospect of Donald Trump becoming the first presidential candidate to carry the Old Dominion since George W. Bush in 2004 is an exciting one!

Add to this recent good news the important fact that Judicial Watch has forced many states, including Pennsylvania, to clean up their voter rolls in accordance with state and federal election laws in the past four years since Joe Biden fraudulently won the 2020 election. It is reasonable to conclude from all of this that the 2024 presidential election will be an electoral and popular vote landslide for Donald Trump. May God and his angels continue to protect him from harm, and may the Blessed Virgin Mary intercede for his victory in this crucial election, for the good of our country and for a more secure, free, and peaceful world.

Copyright 2024 Justin D. Soutar.

Quote of the Day

"Common sense is something that's all too lacking in government and politics these days. Too often, we're bogged down by the mental gymnastics of partisanship, the heavy weight of hands that do too much finger pointing, and a media culture that stokes controversy instead of collaboration. But in a Commonwealth that was founded for the people, by the people, we must change course. With courage and conviction, we can--and will--restore common sense to governing."

--Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, State of the Commonwealth Address, January 11, 2023

Election Watch 2021: The Battle for Virginia

by Justin Soutar

As some readers of this blog may be aware, I enjoy writing about off-year and midterm elections here in the United States. New Jersey and Virginia are the only two states in the country that elect their governors every four years in the year following a presidential election. Their gubernatorial election campaigns typically generate a fair amount of national media and public interest because both the pre-election surveys of likely voters and the actual election outcomes tend to offer a glimpse of the issues and concerns that matter most to Americans in general, as well as a preview of the results that may be expected in the nationwide midterm elections the following year. My adopted home state of the Commonwealth of Virginia is particularly interesting to watch because it is one of a handful of "bellwether" states whose election outcome offers a reliable indicator of the general direction the nation is heading. The fact that no governor of Virginia may serve two consecutive terms, which means the contest for governor is always an open race, only adds to the interest level.

Formerly a southern Republican stronghold, Virginia has been occupied by Democratic agents from the Clinton-Obama-Biden political cartel in recent years, who have poured millions of advertising dollars into the state to win it for Barack Obama in 2008 and to take control of all five statewide offices--governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and both U.S. Senate offices--from 2013 to the present. It's been a long eight years under Democratic Governors Terry McAuliffe and Ralph Northam as their corrupt and tyrannical administrations have imposed crushing tax burdens on Virginians, increased the number and complexity of business regulations, supported ObamaCare and the HHS mandate, imposed unconstitutional and economically damaging anti-COVID mandates, shoved gender ideology and critical race theory into the public schools, attacked our religious freedom, further liberalized our abortion laws, and even attempted to legalize infanticide. Furthermore, McAuliffe and Northam have given scandal by claiming to be Catholic while advancing public policies that violate natural law and Church teaching on the sanctity of life, marriage, and religious liberty.

A year ago at this time, few Virginians knew who Glenn Youngkin was. This unfamiliar contender for the office of governor shrewdly adapted the Donald Trump presidential campaign model of a successful businessman and political outsider taking on the corrupt establishment to his own primary campaign for the Virginia governorship, and it worked: by May, he had sufficiently overcome his lack of name recognition to secure the Republican nomination for governor. Since his Democratic opponent and former governor Terry McAuliffe galloped into the race with huge name recognition and fundraising advantages, it was no surprise that he was far ahead of Youngkin in the polls for months. Despite his considerable handicaps, however, Youngkin steadily gained momentum across the Commonwealth, and by late August, much to the alarm of the political establishment, he was actually tied in the polls with McAuliffe. But the momentum didn't stop there. On September 8, a WPA Intelligence survey showed Youngkin running slightly ahead of McAuliffe, 48 to 46 percent. The latest poll by the University of Mary Washington, released yesterday, showed Youngkin leading McAuliffe by a healthy margin, 48 to 43 percent.

This steady upward trajectory from obscurity to front-runner is remarkable considering that McAuliffe's campaign has been outspending Youngkin's campaign by a significant amount throughout the race. The fact that the Republican gubernatorial ticket includes the first African-American female candidate for lieutenant governor, Winsome Sears, and the first Cuban-American candidate for attorney general, Jason Miyares, has played a role in this climb out of the doldrums, as these two candidates are certainly pulling some minority voters away from the Democratic Party of Virginia. More significantly, however, Youngkin's surprise ascendancy indicates that increasing numbers of Virginia's likely voters are losing confidence in the unprincipled leadership of McAuliffe and Northam and are rejecting the radical liberal agenda of the incumbent Democratic Party. These two governors have been profoundly out of touch with the daily problems and concerns, not to mention the traditional religious and moral values, of the silent majority of ordinary Virginians. People want an honest and trustworthy governor who will truly advance the common good, not an establishment politician who will exploit the office for personal gain.

It looks like we're in for a repeat of 2009, when New Jersey and Virginia elected Republican governors one year after Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama carried both states. In fact, to the surprise of many observers, Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell won Virginia with 59 percent of the vote. This landslide rejection of the party controlling both houses of Congress and the White House by Virginia voters was a foretaste of the 2010 midterms, when Republicans regained control of the U.S. House of Representatives, expanded their strength in the Senate, and picked up many more state governorships. Virginians' mounting dissatisfaction with their Democratic governor reflects the increasing disapproval of American citizens with their illegitimate president Joe Biden, who stole the White House from President Donald Trump through massive organized vote fraud in violation of the U.S. Constitution and federal and state election law. They've already had more than enough of the Biden administration's executive overreach, fiscal recklessness, monetary inflation, tax hikes, pork-barrel spending, immigration irresponsibility, abortion expansion, vaccine mandates, and radical secularism. They're increasingly realizing that Biden is a puppet of the Chinese Communist Party whose treasonous agenda serves the interests of Red China, not those of the American people. 

If New Jersey and Virginia voters elect Republican governors by substantial margins in November 2021, then it is highly likely that Republicans will win many victories across the nation in November 2022. The Democratic political establishment knows this and is very fearful of losing its grip on power, which is why George Soros recently donated $250,000 to Terry McAuliffe's campaign for governor, and why Youngkin signs are being vandalized and stolen across the Commonwealth. McAuliffe and his Democratic cronies will use all the cash they can haul in and every dirty trick in the book from mudslinging to vote fraud to try to keep Glenn Youngkin out of the Governor's Mansion in Richmond, but their efforts seem doomed to failure. The citizens of the Old Dominion have apparently made up their minds to elect a Republican leader who will put their interests first and govern in accordance with the state constitution and traditional values grounded in natural law. If this is any indication of a national trend, tens of millions of American voters will follow suit next year, resulting in a "red wave" election that will return the U.S. Senate and House and other state governorships to the Republican Party.

In conclusion, it must be candidly observed that Virginia and the United States remain perilously divided. While great leaders such as Trump and Youngkin may gain large followings and unite millions of people in support of their philosophy, agenda, and accomplishments, a large minority of their people will remain their bitter enemies for ideological reasons. Virginia played a leading role in the founding of the United States of America on the basis of common religious and moral philosophy and values that are rejected and attacked by today's adherents of radical secularism. We need to pray for the conversion of these militant secularists in the Democratic Party, Hollywood, Big Tech, academia, the courts, and elsewhere who threaten to drag our country into a second civil war and to destroy our traditional American society and culture. May such a catastrophe be averted, and may we return to being "one nation under God" before it's too late.

Here's to Glenn Youngkin as the next Governor of Virginia!