The Youngkin administration is claiming that the state’s unemployment rate increased only a smidge in February, to 3.1 percent, which is a bit of fun with numbers on the part of the MAGAs, with tens of thousands of federal government layoffs still obviously not on the books yet in those numbers.
“Virginia’s economy remains strong with more than $100 billion in capital investment committed by companies growing in Virginia, 259,000 open jobs across the Commonwealth, and our ongoing workforce development initiatives connecting skilled workers to in-demand industries,” Youngkin said in a taxpayer-funded, reality-ignoring press release.
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Among the problems here: the “open jobs” don’t match the skills of the people who are about to start counting toward our unemployment rate, the open jobs largely being in low-wage sectors, and then you have to take into account geography – the bulk of those being pushed out of the federal government workforce live in Northern Virginia, and aren’t going to be able to just easily pick up and move to take open positions in other parts of the state.
Don’t fear, though, because Youngkin and his handpicked successor, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, are on it – well, maybe not so much Earle-Sears, who suddenly finds herself in a tight race for the Republican nomination for governor in the 2025 cycle.
Audio highlighted by the liberal news website Meidas Touch has Earle-Sears trying to make the pending job-loss-pocalypse as being a function of “the media,” because of course it’s always the media making up bad news.
“Now I’m hearing about DOGE and all that. Yes, we don’t want folks to lose their jobs. We have over 250,000 jobs that we’ve created since we’ve been in office. So, if you’ve lost your job, and how many people have lost a job, oh, you mean it’s not unusual? It happens to everybody all the time? OK,” Earle-Sears said.
“The media is making this out to be this huge, huge thing. I don’t understand why,” Earle-Sears said.
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Yeah, that’s going to go over well with people that, and apparently Earle-Sears doesn’t understand this, but just because tens of thousands of people are losing their jobs because of DOGE, that doesn’t mean they lose their right to vote.
“Winsome Earle-Sears not only refusing to stand up for Virginia’s workers, but laughing off their worries about losing their jobs makes it clear that she’s wrong for Virginia,” Democratic Party of Virginia spokesperson Maggie Amjad said.
Obviously, this is going to be a 2025 campaign issue, though it needs to be more than that.
We’re still seven months away from the election, and nine months away from a new administration running policy in Richmond.
We can’t afford to have Youngkin and Earle-Sears dithering while tens of thousands lose jobs due to the DOGE nonsense, cratering their lives and our state economy, because they want to play politics.
And don’t miss out on that point, because that’s what’s going on here.
Youngkin can’t run for a second term, so he has his sights on the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Mark Warner in the 2026 cycle.
Earle-Sears, trailing bigly in the 2025 polls to Democrat Abigail Spanberger, meanwhile, has her own right flank to worry about because she can even begin to think about November.
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College dropout Dave LaRock and “Trump in Heels” Amanda Chase are challenging Earle-Sears for the Republican nomination for governor, and Chase is telling every podcaster with more than two subscribers that she’s about to get a Donald Trump endorsement.
You’re not going to get a Trump endorsement, of course, if you concede a millimeter to the Dems on anything, even if it’s the right thing to do.
MAGA isn’t about doing the right thing, but you already knew that.
This is the challenge for Republicans going forward in the near-term.
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Chris Graham
