Old-school types often referred to election time in Virginia as the “silly season.”
But because there’s an election every year in Virginia, it’s always the silly season.
And this presidential election in Virginia — never mind, it’s not even Labor Day, the traditional kickoff to November — is not without its sillier moments.
Among them: That Donald Trump, the putative Republican nominee for the job that he lost to Joe Biden four years ago, would select Gov. Glenn Youngkin as his vice presidential running mate.
This is not to debate Youngkin’s strengths or weaknesses as Trump’s potential No. 2.
That Youngkin entertained opposing Trump for the nomination is seen by Trump as a double-cross — a sign Youngkin is insufficiently grateful to Trump for mobilizing the MAGA masses behind Youngkin’s squeaker victory in 2021.
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Never mind that Youngkin, if only to preserve his viability, is all in on Trump’s candidacy — requiring that, as he did with his considerable personal assets before taking office, the Croesus-rich governor put his political manhood in a blind trust.
But were Youngkin on the 2024 ticket — and it won? Or if Trump were restored to the presidency with a different running mate, might Youngkin land a Cabinet appointment or top administration assignment?
Youngkin would have to do what no Virginia governor has willingly done since the state switched to direct election of its chief executive in 1851: resign.
Talk about silly.
Mills Godwin would roll in his grave. The only Virginia governor twice elected by a vote of the people, Godwin, who showed no interest in national or congressional office, famously intoned of the post that he won in 1965 as a Democrat and in 1973 as a Republican: “no higher honor.”
This asterisk: William “Extra Billy” Smith, a Confederate general elected governor in 1863, surrendered the office at the point of a bayonet about 1½ months after Appomattox, when Union-conquered Virginia would, in short order, become Military District No. 1, its official designation until it was declared reconstructed in 1870.
Smith was sorta, kinda the Godwin of his era, also serving two terms.
Smith’s first term — beginning 16 years before the Civil War — was as a governor elected by the state legislature. Smith, whose nickname was, alternately, a compliment or criticism of the plump profits he amassed controlling postal routes, was elected in 1863 by popular vote over two other candidates.
A Youngkin resignation — perhaps concurrent with the presidential inauguration in January 2025, 10 months ahead of what would be the election to choose his successor — could introduce historic uncertainty to Virginia politics because of a historic certainty laid out in the Constitution of Virginia: The lieutenant governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, would succeed Youngkin to the governorship. She would be as the first woman, the first Black woman and the first Republican woman to achieve the state’s highest office.
Earle-Sears would also be the nation’s first Black female governor — and a Republican, to boot. It’s a distinction that in Virginia — and beyond — the GOP would bellow as evidence of the party’s appeal to voters other than those who have long dominated it: whites.
And this: Earle-Sears, as the incumbent, would be eligible to seek a full, nonrenewable four-year term as governor. That she would already be in office presumably would rule out opposition for the Republican nomination.
Translated: Attorney General Jason Miyares, the first Hispanic elected statewide in Virginia, might have to cool his jets, seeking a second term in the 2025 elections that would also decide the lieutenant governorship and control of the now-Democrat-held House of Delegates.
Earle-Sears, elected along with Miyares on Youngkin’s coattails three years ago, says this scenario is speculative, though she acknowledges the political domino effect in Richmond should Youngkin leave the governorship early for Washington, D.C.
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Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears pounds the gavel for her first session presiding over the Virginia Senate on Jan. 17, 2022.
It would also mean an opening for lieutenant governor. Virginia law is not clear on filling such a vacancy. There have twice been special elections when the office was vacant because of the death of the lieutenant governor — in 1952 and 1971.
But an attorney general’s opinion in 1984 by Democrat Jerry Baliles, who was elected governor the following year, said the governor could appoint the lieutenant governor — an option Earle-Sears might find intriguing, if only to guarantee a Republican gets the job.
“Now we’re dealing with what-ifs,” Earle-Sears, seated on a bench in the chamber of the Virginia Senate, of which she is presiding officer, said during a break this past week in the General Assembly’s on-again, off-again sessions on a fix for increasingly pricey college aid for veterans, emergency personnel and their families.
“What if he’s offered the job?” Earle-Sears continued, referring to Youngkin as a prospective Trump veep or an administration muckety-muck. “If he’s not, then we’re right back where we started.”
Earle-Sears, who served a single term in the House of Delegates from 2002 to 2004, twice sought congressional seats — against Rep. Bobby Scott, D-3rd, in 2004 and as a write-in option for U.S. Senate in 2018 — before her election statewide. She says she has no idea whether Youngkin is auditioning for Trump.
“I really don’t know,” she said. “I don’t think anybody knows. Is he capable? Of course, he is.”
Handing over the governorship to Earle-Sears with roughly a year remaining in his term, Youngkin — intentionally or not — would be perceived not as putting his thumb on the scale that is the GOP nomination but his entire hand.
And if Earle-Sears, a stout conservative given to posing with military-style rifles, marching with abortion opponents and public displays of her Christian faith, were to win the office in her own right, defeating the presumed Democratic nominee, Abigail Spanberger, Youngkin could claim credit for one of his party’s powerfully symbolic moments.
Unlike Youngkin, Earle-Sears appears to have put some distance between herself and Trump, perhaps a recognition that 45 — who lost Virginia to Hillary Clinton by 5 percentage points in 2016 and by 10 percentage points to Biden in 2020 — remains toxic, despite public polls showing Trump and Biden statistically tied here, feeding the Republican narrative that the blue-trending state is in play.
Earle-Sears, a co-chair of a national effort to turn out Black votes for Trump in 2020, earned his ire after the 2022 midterm elections in which an anticipated GOP tsunami was barely a trickle. She said at the time that the results signaled that Republicans should move beyond Trump, nominating a fresh face in 2024.
“I couldn’t support him,” Earle-Sears — speaking with Neil Cavuto on Fox Business — said of Trump, who would dispatch more than a dozen opponents for this year’s nomination. “I just couldn’t. ... The voters have spoken, and they’ve said they want a different leader.”
Trump fired back, describing Earle-Sears as a “phony.” Trump would also attack Youngkin as unappreciative of his two endorsements, which the former president said, guaranteed his loyalists “showed up big.”
As for the governorship, Earle-Sears may have a head start, whether the office is handed to her by Youngkin or not.
Two Republican polls — one in March 2023 by Differentiator Data, the other in March 2024 by Cygnal — show Earle-Sears leading Miyares for the gubernatorial nomination by about 30 percentage points.
However, Earle-Sears says that, at this time, she’s only exploring a bid for governor.
But there’s one sign an Earle-Sears campaign for governor may be more reality than possibility.
As she volunteered before dashing from the Senate chamber, “I’m not running for lieutenant governor again.”