Glenn was chosen in a convention, not a primary, so he didn’t have to face the full GOP electorate. Plus his opponents didn’t raise any money to compete with him. And running for state office, rather than a federal office, gave him a bit of cover when he would duck and dip his way around the latest Trump-induced hot-button national issues.
This isn’t to take away from Youngkin’s skills as a candidate or his campaign’s strategy. It’s just observing reality: The context in which Youngkin was running in 2021 was very different from what GOP Senate candidates were going to face during primaries in 2022.
And once the Glenn Youngkin Model faced actual Republican voters and real intra-party competition, its defects were exposed.
McCormick wasn’t capable of answering repeated questions about election fraud and what he would do in Washington should another election challenge arise. His ability to deftly avoid the culture-war issues that turn people off in the suburbs was stunted because he was forced to engage with one Trump-endorsed opponent who actually had money to compete and another upstart grassroots firebrand who was more in touch with the base.
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