Critical Race Theory Is a Potent Issue in the Virginia Governor’s Race

Republican gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin doesn’t get the most applause during his rallies when he talks about lowering taxes or assails President Biden. The loudest cheers come when Youngkin promises to ban critical race theory in Virginia on his first day in office.

His Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe, calls this issue “another right-wing conspiracy” being used to sow hatred and division. He’s never advocated for CRT, until last year an obscure academic acronym, and notes that the controversial concept is nowhere to be found in the state’s public school curriculums. “It really bothers me because it is a racist dog whistle,” the former governor said Tuesday on MSNBC.

What McAuliffe misses is that this term has become a stand-in for deeper-seated fears among parents about what their children are learning. CRT is now shorthand for a broader basket of issues relating to education. Polling shows a plurality of Virginia voters opposed to the teaching of this theory, so dismissing those who speak out against it as racist is doomed to backfire.

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Republicans are in striking distance of winning statewide in Virginia for the first time since 2009, and Democrats seem to be sleepwalking into disaster. Many parents feel exhausted and frustrated after a year of learning loss and hardships because of remote schooling. They’re upset about schools canceling gifted and talented programs in the name of equality.

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Youngkin, who calls education the No. 1 issue in the race, held his latest “Parents Matter” event on Wednesday in Culpeper. “We don’t need to teach our children to view everything through a lens of race,” Youngkin tells crowds, sounding eminently reasonable.

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Youngkin is benefiting in the homestretch from a gaffe by McAuliffe during their final debate. “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” the ex-governor said on Sept. 28.

Republicans say their focus groups show college-educated suburbanites react sourly toward McAuliffe when shown the clip because he comes across as arrogant and out of touch. Youngkin deployed the clip in an attack ad playing frequently in the Washington media market. {snip}

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School board meetings like that have reemerged this year as front lines in the culture war. On Tuesday, for example, the board in Virginia Beach, the state’s largest city, voted down a resolution 7 to 4 that was designed to ban CRT. The governor’s race will be decided in the counties along Interstates 95, 66 and 64 where, not coincidentally, those meetings have turned especially heated.

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