Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, embracing his essential lame-duckness, is finally saying the quiet part out loud – that he’s solidly behind Donald Trump.
“Voters in the Commonwealth and across the country have spoken loudly for President Donald J. Trump, and I endorse him for President of the United States,” Youngkin wrote in a message posted to Twitter Wednesday night.
It’s easy to cynically point to how Youngkin hopes his bending the knee works out for him.
Youngkin is term-limited out of being able to run for re-election in 2025, and with two former governors, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, both Democrats, in line ahead of him in Virginia’s two U.S. Senate seats, Youngkin’s political career, launched just three years ago, is already over.
Unless …
“His record on border security, restoring American leadership around the world, reducing taxes and lowering the cost of living for all Americans stands in stark contrast to the open borders, failed leadership on the global stage, rampant inflation and higher costs of today,” Youngkin went on in his Twitter endorsement.
Trump, as we all know, is a sucker for flattery.
Problem for Youngkin here: the guv flirted with a run at the 2024 Republican nomination, against all reason, the thinking being that he could be the milquetoast alternative to the atavistic Trump.
Youngkin was basically trying to position himself as the Trump-lite alternative to Ron DeSantis, who was trying to be the Trump-lite, but went overboard with trying to turn Florida into Afghanistan.
Youngkin’s only hope at this stage in terms of reviving his political career, whose prospects took a death blow when he blundered his way into losing the 2023 Virginia General Assembly elections, is to get a lifeline from a second-term President Trump, maybe a job heading up a minor federal agency, or an ambassadorship to some far-flung country that no one pays any attention to.
Thus …
“It’s time to unite around strong leadership and policies that grow our great nation, not four more years of President Biden,” Youngkin concluded his endorsement of Trump.
It’s a longshot, but it’s all Youngkin has at this stage.
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Chris Graham
