Republicans Update Their Race-Coded Strategy To Mobilize The Trump Base

The Virginia gubernatorial election won by Republican Glenn Youngkin, the former CEO of the private equity firm The Carlyle Group, confirms that Donald Trump’s presidency inaugurated a new era of high-turnout elections.

He did so with a kind of racially coded appeal that Republicans have used to forge their winning coalition over the past 50 years but have updated for the Trump era. The issue of the teaching of “critical race theory” ― a post-civil rights era legal theory that racism is systemic in American law and institutions ― in public schools provided an ambiguous enough target to mobilize the rural Trump base to go to the polls while overlapping the issue with other education-related anxieties for persuadable suburban voters.

In Virginia, the critical race theory issue did not focus on the teaching of actual critical race theory, which is almost exclusively taught in universities and law schools. Nor did it solely focus on clumsy anti-racist teachings or the ideas that some anti-racist consultants promote that stem from critical race theory concepts.

But the issue still helped Youngkin turn out the base without scaring off swing voters in the way needed to win amid high turnout.

Finding an issue to do both was needed to win amid high turnout. Every election since Trump took office has seen increased turnout from a more motivated electorate. The 2017, the Virginia gubernatorial race saw turnout hit a record that was broken again this year. The 2018 midterms also saw record-high turnout, as did the 2020 presidential race. Each election appears to be building on the one that preceded it — and any lingering doubts that Trump’s effective absence from the political scene would dampen turnout have been quieted.