Youngkin blames the shutdown for GOP's election night defeat

Gov. Glenn Youngkin, R-Va., blamed the ongoing government shutdown for the Republican Party's major election defeats on Tuesday evening.

The GOP lost all three statewide races in the Old Dominion by clear margins on Tuesday evening.

“I firmly believe that the government shutdown was a very, very big challenge as we ran into this election,” he said Wednesday. “We have 330,000 government workers here that weren’t getting paid. That is a real challenge heading into an election.” 

The shutdown has persisted for more than one month and has left many federal workers furloughed. Northern Virginia counties broke particularly hard for the Democrats, with many pundits highlighting that they were free to vote without work interfering for roughly a month.

Ben Whedon is the Chief Political Correspondent at Just the News. Follow him on X.