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Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin may run for president, but his first focus is on winning the federal midterm elections this November. Although he is not on the ballot, all 140 seats in the Virginia Legislature are on the ballot. If the Republicans gain a narrow majority in the House of Representatives and regain control of the Senate, Governor Jonkin will be free to pass a broader agenda, particularly focused on education reform and parental rights. He could become a conservative hero in the weeks before the presidential primaries begin.
But the teachers’ union, which has worked hard to overthrow Jonkin in 2021, has other plans. Three years ago, the governor at the time. Ralph Northam signed a law allowing local officials, especially teachers, to bargain collectively for the first time in state history. The teachers’ union hadn’t progressed at all until the election of Governor Yonkin in 2021, but the past two years have seen a ferocious effort to organize. They signed their first collective bargaining agreement in Richmond late last year, and basically all of Northern Virginia isn’t far behind.
The 2023 elections are the first real chance for trade unions to make a difference. It is no exaggeration to say that they are trying to show off their strength. The influx of union dues has opened the floodgates for election spending. The Virginia Education Association, the state’s largest teachers’ union, increased political donations 11-fold from 2020 to 2022 and is on track to break that record this year.
The motivation of trade unions is very high. One of Gov. Jonkin’s top priorities is an education savings account that allows families to spend thousands of dollars a year on the schools of their choice. In the spring of 2023, Virginia families benefited from the governor’s approval of his $30 million grant to hire tutors and receive other educational services. The fund was flooded with applications, demonstrating the incredible demand from families seeking educational freedom. Moreover, many such policies, especially the ESA, pose the greatest threat to teachers’ unions as they break the de facto monopoly of public K-12 education.
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That monopoly contributes to student dropouts. According to a national assessment of educational priorities, commonly referred to as the “national report card,” Virginia students lag far behind. Only 37 percent of 4th grade students were proficient in math and only 31 percent of students were proficient in English, a decline of 10 and 6 points respectively over the three years. In eighth grade, the average is even lower, with less than a third of her students achieving proficiency in math, reading and writing.
An Education Savings Account is the ticket to excellent grades that Virginia students need. These provide families with access to a market of choices, spurring competition and innovation that could change student performance for decades to come. Sadly, teachers’ unions want to keep as many students in public schools as possible, even if it means that they will not be successful.
Unions know they can’t break Republican claims about the primacy of school choice policy. Rather, they want to beat the Republicans with good political strategy. Unions are devoting resources to efforts to facilitate voting, with a particular focus on absentee and early voting. The obvious hope is to build an unsurpassable lead for Democrats in early voting. The model is the 2022 national midterm elections. 42.5 percent of his early voters were Democrats, while only a third of him were Republicans. Virginia Democrats, with the support of teachers’ unions, have argued that the 2023 initiative will be “the largest and fastest voter turnout project in history.”
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FILE – Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin speaks during a press conference on US-Japan cooperation on economic issues in Tokyo, April 27, 2023. The track and field sanctioning body, which oversees most high school sports in Virginia, announced Monday, July 24, the rules governing the participation of transgender athletes following the Youngkin administration’s recent announcement of new guidance on transgender policy. He told the school there were no immediate plans to change. student. (AP Photo/Hoshiko Eugene, File) (AP Photo/Hoshiko Eugene, File)
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There’s no guarantee that the left’s early voting strategy will work, but Governor Jonkin and the Republicans aren’t taking the chance. Launching his own early voting campaign in July, the governor declared that he was “tired of entering an election by thousands of votes.” He’s right, but the Republican Party still doesn’t have an ally that can match the teachers’ union in power and money. Unions already have the infrastructure to vote early and absentee voters statewide. Conservative groups are trying to catch up and need all the help they can get.
Let’s say this about the teachers’ union. they play to win. If they succeed in maintaining or expanding the Democratic majority in the General Assembly, they will stifle school choices and a myriad of other conservative priorities. Governor Yonkin knows that, so he’s focused on early voting and absentee voting to break with Republican conventional wisdom, while also focusing on education, which is his winning agenda. To improve his chances in 2024, he needs to win in 2023.
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