Virginia gun owners handed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe a devastating loss last night and likely flipped the House of Delegates to the Republicans in the process.
Exit polls indicate that nearly 70% of Virginians who voted for Republican victor Glenn Youngkin came from gun-owning households. If that number holds true, a full 1.2 million Virginians from gun-owning households voted for Youngkin while only 497,000 voted for McAuliffe.
Nearly 483,000 more Virginians who came from gun-owning households voted for Youngkin than voted for Republican Ed Gillespie in 2017.
“Gun owners across the state have been fed up with all the gun control that was passed in the last two years,” Virginia Citizens Defense League president Phil Van Cleave told GunsAmerica. “In 2020, over 50,000 people showed up for VCDL Lobby Day to make it clear that gun control was not acceptable. Gun owners meant it, but gun-controlling Democrats were tone-deaf. I’m betting the Democrat’s hearing is better now.”
SEE ALSO: Virginia Gun Owners! Terry McAuliffe Wants to Ban Guns Using ‘Public Health Crisis’
While education and the economy were among voters’ most important issues, gun control became a contentious topic in the weeks leading up to the election.
As GunsAmerica reported at the time, a liberal political action committee ran social media ads questioning Youngkin’s support for gun rights. The ads were designed to mimic pro-gun groups and fool prospective voters into believing the Republican didn’t support the Second Amendment.
Local media uncovered the scheme, and Van Cleave urged his supporters to inundate one of the PAC’s biggest donors. In the process, the VCDL set the record straight about Youngkin and forced the donor to rescind its donation.
Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, called this development the “most gratifying” part of the campaign.
SEE ALSO: Former Virginia Gov. McAuliffe’s Antigun Ignorance Is Showing – Again!
“What is most gratifying,” he said, “was to see savvy gun rights voters ignore the despicable last-minute ad buy by desperate Democrats to suppress the gun vote by painting Republican Glenn Youngkin as an anti-gunner, when it is their own candidate who has a deplorable record on gun rights.”
Youngkin wasn’t the only Republican to earn a victory last night. Virginians also elected Republicans Winsome Sears as lieutenant governor and Jason Miyares as attorney general.
More importantly for gun owners, Republicans also appear to have re-taken the House of Delegates. Though some races are still too close to call, local media is predicting that Republicans are on track to flip enough seats to gain a slim majority.
This is bad news for anti-gun Democrats — and their financial backers. Michael Bloomberg spent more than $1.8 million in Virginia trying to elect his Everytown for Gun Safety candidates, but as Van Cleave pointed out, all that money just “went up in smoke.”
The more I learn about Winsome Sears the more I love this lady. Go get’em! I can already tell you are going to get things done.
Congrats to the state of Virginia! LT. Gov Sears is a badass!
Offset by the moronic tyrant Murphy getting reelected in Jersey…..even in VA, there were 49.2% sheeple who didn’t mind having their children indoctrinated by the state and their rights trampled. SMH
Yes, but only after more ballots were discovered for Murphy. Why is it when they find ballots,they are always for the Communists?
Clint you are absolutely correct about the mail in ballots. Where I live in Pa it’s always been heavily Republican. Until 2 years ago when mail in ballots became the new magical way Dems seem to pull ahead in these tight elections. So far in Delco Pa out of 5,290 mail in ballots they discovered over 800 that were fraudulent and counting so far. So the republicans went to court and said look we have already found over 800 ballots that are 100% fraudulent, and asked a liberal judge to throw out the batch or at least have them all checked , the liberal judge refused. The Republican were ahead by thousands of votes then magically just enough mail in ballots appeared to squeeze out a victory for the democrats. I am not a conspiracy person but this is not what fair and balanced is. They did get told that the people running certain parts of the collection and counting process need better training , but that doesn’t feed the bulldog. Things are definitely shady when it comes to votes being counted by mail always seeming to tilt way to the left. It’s time to go back to the basics, show ID to vote, any mail in ballots must be proven to be sent by the intended resident, and all mail in ballots must be received by a strict date. All this playing around with our elections is going to get worse unfortunately it seems.
A part of me has to consider their legitimacy. These ballots are requested and delivered right to their door. They can sit at home in their PJ’s, watching Springer, playing video games, surfing the web…..whatever. Likely using free or subsidized service. It’s not like many, if not most, have any place to be or any schedule to keep like most of us do. You know, like a job. Some might be busy getting a free online education/degree, though I’m not sure why – it’s not like they’ll ever use it to get one of those strange “job” things they hear about. They have one of those government cards that their (OUR) money gets loaded onto every month, so why get a job ? All they have to do is request and fill out a few dozen – I mean A ballot every couple of years, electing the same schmucks that keep giving ‘em their “free money”.