by Paul Goldman

The latest poll predicting a Democratic ticket sweep this fall doesn’t come as a surprise to anybody who has read my columns here. When Donald Trump was in the White House the last time, the Dem nominee for Virginia governor won by the party’s biggest percentage in 32 years. Ralph Northam also swept in his running mates. The only question remaining this November is whether the Democratic ticket eight years later can do better.

Take it from me: The last four elections have led to ticket sweeps by one party or the other. Virginia’s famed constituency of independent cross-ticket voters exists no longer. 2025 is going to produce the fifth straight ticket sweep, the first time since the end of the one-party Byrd Machine era. President Trump has made NOVA a radioactive zone for the Republican statewide ticket.

I doubt many Bacon Rebellion readers got a chance to listen to my radio interview last month with Andre Whitehead. In that interview, I explain why I thought John Reid had fallen into a trap far more his own making than he or the media has acknowledged. 

I believe he has been played by Governor Youngkin and the MAGa crowd here in Virginia. He didn’t really see what was coming due to inexperience. 

In this interview, I explained why I thought John had become victim to his own 15 minutes of fame. I know John and like him from his days hosting a radio host on WRVA in the Richmond Metropolitan area. He had the best political talk show in Virginia by far. I thought he should go national. He is a very smart political analyst with radio skills. He did lean too far pro–Trump MAGA in my view in terms of analyzing political issues and events. But he certainly was not in the “Trump can do no wrong“ mindset of the Virginia MAGA crowd. I surely thought he understood being pro-MAGA would be a big albatross in the upcoming November elections

I was surprised when John declared for the GOP lieutenant-governor primary. Campaign politics is a different world than radio show politics. John had never run for office before. Much less played a major role in any statewide campaign. In my mind, he didn’t really know what he was getting himself into. He seemed to assume the campaign would be one on the issues. But that was never going to happen. This is Virginia.

When you run for lieutenant governor your future is at the mercy of the gubernatorial candidate at the top of your ticket. Yes, technically the lieutenant governor runs independently from the governor. But as indicated above, the odds today heavily favor one ticket or the other winning it all. 

In my view, John was competing for the right to lose possibly very badly. As we all now know, John’s opponent in the LG primary dropped out, giving him the nomination without having to compete for any votes or take any positions. With most not knowing his biography, he seemed the magical candidate. Everybody praised his good luck. Except for those of us who understood political reality. 

Which, by the way, includes Governor Youngkin and his team along with Trump’s MAGA leadership here in Virginia. They knew what any competent political analyst knew: The GOP ticket is going to get beat this fall. Which means sooner, rather than later, the smart politicians will be making sure they don’t get the blame. No one plays the “don’t blame me” game better than Donald Trump and his allies. President Trump is never wrong. He’s always right: Just ask him and his people. He will tell you what should be so obvious.

The Trump people did not like Governor Youngkin to begin with. He isn’t sufficiently a knee-jerk Trump backer. So, they were already ginning up the MAGA crowd to blame him for the GOP loss this fall. Because they knew the press would use Virginia as a referendum on the president. The media invariably says the Virginia election is the first test of a new president‘s popularity. Is that fair? There have been several instances in the past when the Virginia gubernatorial election — in hindsight — has been the canary in the coal mine indicating a national trend building against the party of the sitting President. 

Let’s cut to the chase: Trump in 2025, even more than 2017, has  made it impossible for any republican gubernatorial candidate to have a chance of winning this year. To be fair, in the modern area of the Virginia two-party politics, no gubernatorial candidate of the sitting president’s party has ever received 50% of the vote. But Trump has added an extra 200-pound weight onto an already historically huge political burden.

Youngkin and his team have presidential ambitions in 2028. They know 2026 will be a Democratic year. Senator Mark Warner would be hard for Youngkin to beat under normal circumstances. Youngkin does not want to have to run and defend Donald Trump‘s policies which are hurting Virginia. So, I predict Youngkin will take a pass on challenging Warner. Truth is Warner is more vulnerable in a Democratic primary. I can see the political case for an AOC-type new-generation candidate challenging Warner and winning. This scenario is true for many older Democratic incumbent across the country, given the current mood in the Party among younger voters.

Warner did vote for a few Trump cabinet picks, for example. But he has time to readjust his political positioning to fend-off such a challenge. 

However, Youngkin knows he has no such timing luxury: Republicans will soon realize the disaster awaiting them this fall and the blame game will start in earnest. In that regard, ground zero is a Republican sitting in the Governor’s Mansion. Youngkin’s team knows this. They know he’s gonna have to spend millions of his personal money on a lost cause. They know he’s gonna have to spend his political capital on the last course. Otherwise, he’ll be setting himself up to get the blame. A lose-lose in that regard. 

Indeed, the whole Youngkin national image is based on him being able to win in a state Trump has lost three straight times. 

But the Youngkin brand has national juice only if he can show it can elect other Republicans. Thus logically: If the Youngkin brand cannot elect someone in Virginia, how is it gonna elect folks in any other jurisdiction casting electoral vote votes?

I am not going to say what follows is necessarily what happened to John Reid. But every politician puts their self interest first assuming they’re smart enough to know what it is. Youngkin’s self interest is not to get blamed for the loss that is going to happen. Ditto for the MAGA crowd. John’s is to win. He’s never seen himself as the Poster Boy for the equal rights cause

Therefore, it doesn’t take a political genius to know the whole John Reid fiasco winds up helping both Youngkin and Donald Trump…not John. Surely he doesn’t believe MAGA has become a movement of gay activists trumpeting how much they want everybody to be treated equally in America. 

But John’s fight with the Governor plays out perfectly for MAGA. This should be obvious to everyone. If MAGA really had John’s interests at heart, they would’ve told him you can’t fight a sitting Republican governor publicly and think that gets you more votes in November. 

Like it or not — and I’ve been in that position as a campaign manager — you don’t publicly fight a sitting Governor of your party governor even when he is against you. Why? Because in the end you want that person to be able to back you publicly with credibility. John has now made that impossible for Youngkin. Whatever support the Governor gives will be seen as pro-forma. The experienced MAGA leadership knew. But their political interest was best served by creating a public feud so they could say the GOP lost due to Youngkin’s bungling, not Trump‘s policies. Whoever advised John to make his fight so public with the governor did not have his best political interest at heart. 

You gotta say, MAGA set it up perfectly… for MAGA.

As for Youngkin, things actually are turning out as best as they possibly could be expected. Politics is perception. He had his people warn that the stuff with John might prove a losing political distraction. 

Does John thinks he’s not gonna get some blame if the ticket gets crushed? This is politics, not shuffleboard. Depending on how badly the ticket goes down, he might have a hard time getting a radio show again. Moreover, he won’t be a player in 2029. 

In my interview with Mr. Whitehead, I said John should have seen the pressure from Youngkin’s team to get off the ticket as a gift. He could have said, quite truthfully, the public stuff created by Youngkin’s folks made it impossible for him to get a fair hearing this fall. After all, this is precisely what Youngkin’s people were saying.

It’s true, John was right in saying the Youngkin people had created what they called this distraction. But this isn’t a court of logic. It’s the public arena of politics. What I told Mr. Whitehead, I still believe: John should have gotten off the ticket. He should have said he did it because he didn’t want any distraction from stopping the Republicans from winning. He should have said he was taking one for the team.

Everyone would have praised John. He would’ve become the most popular Virginia Republican overnight. Then he could’ve sat back, and watched the loss take place without getting any of the blame.

He instantly would’ve become the GOP front runner for governor in 2029, even if the Democrats win the presidency in 2028. Without ever having to have competed for a single vote. Or winning any contested election. 

Instead, John went for his 15 minutes of fame, saying publicly he had been discriminated against because of his sexual orientation. Democrats praised him. He got national media attention. The politically correct Republican. He and his advisors actually thought he would get some votes from Democrats!  Republicans rallied to him across the state, especially those pro MAGA anti-Youngkin Republicans! He became their antiestablishment hero. The Youngkin slayer. A part in the Game of Thrones sequel. 

He’s begun drawing big GOP crowds. Very heady stuff for a newcomer.

But:  let’s see John’s position in the Republican Party on Memorial Day 2026. As the Chinese say, don’t wish for something you might get it. John got his wish. So did the MAGA crowd. As did Governor Youngkin in my view.

I know the current AG’s people think he can survive a huge loss at the top of the GOP ticket. That’s probably the biggest illusion in the 2025 campaign if you ask me. 

Paul Goldman is former Chair of the VA Democratic Party, a former candidate for mayor of the City of Richmond, and author of “Remaking Virginia Politics.”