Live Election News: N.J. Governor and Other Races – The New York Times

Tuesday’s elections left the Democratic Party reeling after one Republican won the governor’s race in Virginia and another posed an unexpectedly strong challenge to New Jersey’s incumbent governor, with the race still too close to call.

The twin blows raised alarms about the Democratic Party’s fortunes heading into next year’s midterm elections, with President Biden’s approval ratings sagging and Republicans eager to wrest back control of Congress.

The most surprising unknown on Wednesday morning was the fate of the governor’s race in New Jersey, a state that Mr. Biden carried by 16 percentage points last year. Gov. Philip D. Murphy, a Democrat seeking a second term, was locked in a razor-thin contest with a little-known Republican challenger, Jack Ciattarelli, a former assemblyman.

The other governor’s race on Tuesday, in Virginia, offered foreboding signs of the political environment for Democrats more than nine months into Mr. Biden’s presidency.

A year after Mr. Biden won Virginia by 10 percentage points, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, failed in his quest to win back his old office, losing to the Republican candidate, Glenn Youngkin, in a contest that was closely watched for what it could signal about voters’ satisfaction or lack thereof with the incumbent president and his party. Mr. McAuliffe conceded to Mr. Youngkin on Wednesday morning.

The setback in Virginia was the latest in a series of stumbles for Mr. Biden, who came under sharp criticism for his handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and who has struggled to unite Democratic lawmakers behind his domestic legislative agenda.

A number of other notable races remained unresolved.

In Minneapolis, where residents rejected a bid to disband and replace the Police Department, the mayor’s race was still too close to call because of ranked-choice voting. Mayor Jacob Frey received nearly 43 percent of first-choice mayoral votes, far more than any challenger but short of the majority threshold needed to win outright. Election officials planned to tabulate ranked-choice selections on Wednesday.

The race for mayor of Atlanta was headed to a runoff. Felicia Moore, the City Council president, was the top vote-getter. But it remained unclear whom she would face in the runoff; Andre Dickens, a councilman, was vying with Kasim Reed, a former mayor trying to make a comeback, for the other spot in the runoff.

In Seattle, a Republican candidate for city attorney and a pro-police candidate for mayor each held large leads, as voters appeared to reject rivals who had sought more aggressive overhauls of policing and the criminal justice system.

If the results hold, Seattle would elect a Republican to citywide office for the first time in three decades, with a city attorney candidate, Ann Davison, who has vowed more prosecutions for low-level crimes in a traditionally liberal city grappling with homelessness.

The debate over policing also figured prominently in the race for mayor, with one candidate, Lorena González, endorsing steep cuts to the police budget last year and another, Bruce Harrell, advocating the hiring of more officers. Early results showed Mr. Harrell in the lead.

Mike Baker and Mitch Smith contributed reporting.

Gov. Philip D. Murphy pulled ahead of his Republican challenger, Jack Ciattarelli, on Wednesday in the race for governor of New Jersey, a contest that was still too close to call and was emboldening national Republicans.

Mr. Murphy, a Democrat in his first term, trailed by more than 50,000 votes at one point after the polls closed on Tuesday night, an unexpected deficit in a race that a recent Monmouth University poll had him leading by 11 points.

But Mr. Ciattarelli’s once significant lead had evaporated as results trickled in from Democratic strongholds, especially those in northern New Jersey like Essex County, which includes Newark. Around midday Wednesday, the two candidates were roughly even, though votes had not yet been counted from some precincts in heavily Democratic areas.

Democrats expressed optimism that Mr. Murphy would survive once all the votes were counted.

Representative Josh Gottheimer, Democrat of New Jersey, predicted that Mr. Murphy would win during an appearance Wednesday on CNN while acknowledging the restlessness of voters.

“My takeaway overall in this election is that people want action,” Mr. Gottheimer said. “They want results, and they deserve results.”

At about 12:30 a.m., both candidates took the stages at their election-night parties to tell supporters that the results of the contest would not be clear until all provisional and vote-by-mail ballots were counted.

“We’re all sorry that tonight could not yet be the celebration that we wanted it to be,” said Mr. Murphy, surrounded by his family in Asbury Park’s Convention Hall. “But as I said: When every vote is counted — and every vote will be counted — we hope to have a celebration again.”

Mr. Ciattarelli, 59, said much the same thing, but appeared far more relaxed after outperforming every public opinion poll conducted during the campaign in a state where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly 1.1 million voters.

“We have sent a message to the entire country,” Mr. Ciattarelli told supporters gathered in Bridgewater. “But this is what I love about this state, if you study its history: Every single time it’s gone too far off track, the people of this state have pushed, pulled and prodded it right back to where it needs to be.”

At 4 a.m., the candidates remained in a statistical dead heat, with about 12 percent of votes still uncounted.

Regardless of who wins, the razor-thin margin has made clear just how divided voters are about the tough policies Mr. Murphy imposed to control the spread of the coronavirus, and his liberal agenda on taxation, climate change and racial equity.

Mr. Murphy, a wealthy former Goldman Sachs executive and ambassador to Germany, had campaigned on the unabashedly left-leaning agenda he pushed through during this first term.

But the defining issue of the campaign was the pandemic, which has killed about 28,000 residents, hobbled much of the region’s economy and disrupted the education of 1.3 million public school students.

Mr. Murphy was one of the last governors to repeal an indoor mask mandate and among the first to require teachers to be vaccinated or submit to regular testing

Mr. Ciattarelli, a former assemblyman, made Mr. Murphy’s strict pandemic edicts a centerpiece of his campaign. The Republican opposed Covid-19 vaccine mandates and mandatory masking in schools, and he blamed Mr. Murphy’s early lockdown orders for hurting small businesses and keeping students out of school for too long.

Kevin Armstrong and Lauren Hard contributed reporting.

A year after voters elected President Biden and pushed Republicans fully out of power in Washington, the G.O.P. rebounded with a strong election night on Tuesday, highlighted by Glenn Youngkin’s victory in Virginia’s governor’s race.

Here is a run-down of election results from some of the closely watched races around the country on Tuesday.

Virginia governor’s race

Businessman Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, defeated former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat who struggled to generate enthusiasm among liberals at a moment when conservatives are energized in opposition to Mr. Biden.

The victory by Mr. Youngkin, a first-time candidate in one of only two gubernatorial races before next year’s midterm election, may provide his party with a formula for how to exploit President Biden’s vulnerabilities and evade the shadow of former President Donald J. Trump in Democratic-leaning states.

New Jersey governor’s race

Former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, a moderate Republican, surprised many analysts with a strong showing in the race for governor in New Jersey against Gov. Philip D. Murphy, a Democrat seeking a second term who was ahead in most public polling before Tuesday’s contest.

By late Wednesday morning, Mr. Murphy had pulled ahead of Mr. Ciattarelli, but the race was still too close to call.

New York City

In the city’s mayoral race, Eric Adams, a former police captain and Brooklyn borough president, easily dispatched his long shot Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, to become only the second Black person elected mayor in the city’s history.

And Alvin Bragg was elected Manhattan district attorney. He will become the first Black person to lead the influential office, which handles tens of thousands of cases a year and is conducting a high-profile investigation into former President Donald J. Trump and his family business.

Boston mayor’s race

Michelle Wu easily defeated City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George to become the first woman, first person of color and first person of Asian descent to be elected mayor in Boston. The city has been led by an unbroken string of Irish American or Italian American men since the 1930s.

Minneapolis police ballot item

Minneapolis residents rejected an amendment that called for replacing the city’s long-troubled Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety, The Associated Press projected.

The ballot item emerged from anger after a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd last year, galvanizing residents who saw the policing system as irredeemably broken.

Buffalo mayor’s race

Mayor Byron W. Brown of Buffalo, an incumbent four-term Democrat, declared victory on Tuesday night in his write-in campaign to defeat his own party’s official nominee, India Walton. But Ms. Walton, a democratic socialist, refused to concede.

The Erie County Board of Elections reported on Wednesday that, with all precincts reporting, just over 41 percent of votes were for Ms. Walton and 58.3 percent were marked for “write-in,” or 23,986 to 34,273.

There is at least one other write-in candidate who has actively campaigned: Benjamin Carlisle, a former Democrat. Ballots marked “write-in” will have to be checked individually to see which candidate — Mr. Brown, Mr. Carlisle, or others — is indicated. And absentee ballots will not be tallied until mid-November.

San Antonio state seat

A Democratic stronghold in San Antonio flipped to a Republican in a runoff for a seat in the Texas House on Tuesday.

John Lujan, a 59-year-old retired firefighter who had briefly held the seat before, beat Frank Ramirez, a 27-year-old former legislative aide, by fewer than 300 votes, according to a tally released by the Bexar County Elections Department. About 70 percent of the largely working-class families Mr. Lujan will represent, in the 118th District, identify as Hispanic.

“This speaks loudly that people are concerned about conservative values,” Mr. Luhan told his supporters. “You know, we want to secure our border, we want to grow our economy.”

Glenn Youngkin, a Republican business executive, marched to victory in Tuesday’s election, delivering his party the governorship of Virginia and highlighting a strong night for Republicans less than a year after voters pushed them fully out of power in the nation’s capital.

The outcome in Virginia, combined with an unexpectedly close contest in New Jersey, where the governor’s race remained too close to call, delivered a jolt of encouragement for Republicans and a stark warning sign for the Democrats less than 10 months into President Biden’s term.

Here are five takeaways from Tuesday’s contests and what the results could mean for 2022, when control of the House, Senate and 36 governorships will be on the ballot:

Youngkin’s success across the state offers a G.O.P. pathway.

Republicans suffered repeated down-ballot losses in the past four years, as the party grappled with how to motivate a base deeply yoked to Donald J. Trump without alienating the suburban voters who came to reject the former president’s divisive style of politics.

Enter Glenn Youngkin and his fleece vest.

Mr. Youngkin pulled off something of a surprise and rare feat: He drove up the Republican margins in white and rural parts of the state further than Mr. Trump had, cutting into the edge of the Democratic nominee, former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, in suburban areas. He even flipped some key counties entirely.

Mr. Youngkin had campaigned heavily on education and seized on Mr. McAuliffe’s remark that he didn’t “believe parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” Mr. Youngkin used the comment, made during a debate, as an entryway to hammer his rival on issues like race and transgender rights in schools. The issues simultaneously motivated the G.O.P. base while casting the matter to moderates as an issue of parental rights.

All politics are presidential. But Biden loomed larger than Trump.

To the extent that the Youngkin victory provided a fresh G.O.P. blueprint, the surprisingly strong showing in New Jersey by the Republican candidate, Jack Ciattarelli, who was virtually tied with Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, made plain that the political environment had seriously degraded for Democrats nationally.

A national NBC News poll in late October showed that 45 percent of registered voters approved of the job Mr. Biden was doing, compared with 52 percent who disapproved.

Such diminished standing offered Republicans an opportunity even in traditionally blue territory.

Strategists in both parties said that the Virginia race was heavily shaped by Mr. Biden’s falling approval rating, and that the downward Democratic trajectory had begun when the president stumbled through the troubled pullout of American troops from Afghanistan.

Mr. McAuliffe and the Democrats never recovered.

The G.O.P. margins make it even more worrisome for Democrats in 2022.

The headline, of course, is that Mr. Youngkin won. But for political strategists focused on the midterms in 2022, his final margin is every bit as revealing about the trajectory of the two parties.

Because Mr. Biden carried Virginia by 10 percentage points in 2020, a Youngkin victory represents a Republican improvement of more than 10 percentage points in exactly one year.

Just as worrisome for the Democrats is that of the 36 governorships up for grabs in 2022, eight are now held by Democrats in states that had a smaller Democratic margin of victory in 2020 than Virginia, according to an election memo for donors from the Republican Governors Association. That list includes three of the most crucial presidential battlegrounds: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

The political middle still matters.

The American electorate is increasingly polarized, and a shrinking sliver of voters oscillates between the two major parties. But those voters still matter. For every vote that flips to the other side, a campaign must find two new voters to make up for the lost ground.

For years, it was the Democrats in Virginia who were obsessed with cutting into the margins in Republican strongholds and the suburbs.

Yet in 2021, Mr. McAuliffe ran as a mainline Democrat. He deployed Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Barack Obama and Stacey Abrams in a bid to rally his party’s partisan faithful.

If Mr. McAuliffe was seemingly singularly obsessed with his base, the Youngkin campaign homed in on an issue that Democrats typically dominate: education. That focus helped him make incursions into Democratic territory.

Democratic ideological factions face off in cities.

Several municipal races pitted the progressive and moderate wings of the Democratic Party. The contests offered mixed results.

In Buffalo, India Walton, who was seeking to become a rare democratic socialist elected to a mayoralty, was trailing the write-in campaign led by Mayor Byron Brown, whom she had defeated in the Democratic primary.

In Minneapolis, voters rejected an amendment to transform the city’s Police Department into a new Department of Public Safety. At the same time, the city’s moderate Democratic incumbent mayor, Jacob Frey, held a significant advantage after the first round of ranked-choice voting.

In Seattle, Bruce Harrell, a former City Council president, was leading his more progressive rival, Lorena González.

The left did score some wins. In Boston, Michelle Wu, who was running with the backing of progressives, won the mayor’s race. And in Cleveland, Justin Bibb, a 34-year-old with progressive backing, is set to become mayor as well.

President Biden returned from his second foreign trip since taking office aiming to celebrate the return of American leadership on the global stage and Democratic victories in key elections in Virginia and New Jersey. It didn’t work out like that.

Instead, just as Mr. Biden stepped off Air Force One early Wednesday morning, Glenn Youngkin delivered a victory speech as the first Republican to win the governorship of Virginia in more than a decade. In New Jersey, an unexpectedly strong Republican showing against Gov. Philip D. Murphy made the race too close to call. And a central piece of Mr. Biden’s agenda remained stalled after Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, raised new doubts about what was thought to be an agreement over a $1.85 trillion climate change and social safety net bill.

The political losses meant that within hours, Mr. Biden went from celebrating the reassertion of American credibility in Rome to contending with growing anxiety in his own party back home.

The results in Virginia and New Jersey did not just expose the party’s limitations in relying on anti-Trump sentiment to galvanize voters, but also highlighted a growing concern for Democrats and the White House: that the failure to pass Mr. Biden’s agenda or make good on his campaign promise of overcoming the pandemic had fueled dissatisfaction among voters.

Mr. Biden’s approval rating has declined across the board in recent months amid concerns about rising inflation, a seemingly everlasting pandemic, the United States’ botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and an increase in immigrant crossings at the southwest border.

In a sign of the administration’s need for a victory, Mr. Biden made a last-minute visit to Capitol Hill on Thursday just before flying to Europe to implore a fractured Democratic Party to embrace his spending package, which would invest in universal prekindergarten, child care and combating climate change.

But Mr. Biden faced challenges even as he traveled to the Group of 20 summit last week, as House liberals demanded legislative language and assurances from key Senate centrists that they would back the larger social spending package before the liberals would vote for a separate, Senate-passed $1 trillion infrastructure investment. Then, this week, after liberals signaled support for votes on both bills, one of the Senate holdouts — Mr. Manchin — delivered a blistering news conference outlining his concerns with the larger package and saying he would not be pressured by their demands.

That left Mr. Biden without a major piece of his domestic agenda that he could use to rally foreign allies, and it left Democrats without a win they could promote to voters.

Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic nominee for governor of Virginia, had begged the White House and Speaker Nancy Pelosi to push for the passage of the infrastructure bill.

“The people have spoken,” Ms. Pelosi said on Wednesday.

Asked whether the Democratic loss changed the House’s agenda, she added, “No, no.”

Mr. Biden did try to help in the election, traveling to Virginia days before his foreign trip in an effort to increase turnout among Democrats.

The president barely mentioned the infrastructure and social spending proposals. And instead of relaying a concrete message from the Democratic Party, he focused on criticizing his predecessor, former President Donald J. Trump.

That proved ineffective, as Republicans won the statewide election for the first time since 2009.

In Southern Brooklyn, a New York City Council seat long held by Democrats flipped to Republican control. On Wednesday morning, two other Democratic seats nearby still hung in the balance, including a race where the incumbent — a likely candidate for Council speaker — was trailing.

On Long Island, Democrats were wiped out at every level of government.

And in Buffalo, a democratic socialist who had been hailed by left-wing leaders as a future face of the party appeared to be headed to a defeat after the long-serving moderate Democratic mayor ran a write-in campaign aided by Republican voters.

As national Democrats grappled with losing the Virginia governor’s race and confronted a far closer race than expected for governor of New Jersey, New York Democrats of varying ideological stripes were dealt one stunning blow after the next on election night, as Republicans made inroads across a state perceived by much of the country to be a liberal stronghold.

Statewide, voters appear to have soundly rejected a pair of constitutional amendments meant to liberalize access to the ballot in future elections — a major national priority for the party — that Democrats had believed would sail to approval. Democrats were left to grapple Wednesday morning with how they lost so many local seats that had been safely in their corner for years, with the potential for the greatest Republican presence on the New York City Council since Rudolph W. Giuliani was mayor.

And to Democrats already worried about next year’s midterms, there were abundant warning signs that the moderate suburbs that had increasingly shifted left in the Trump era were going to be far more difficult to maintain without a polarizing Republican president on the ballot.

“There’s no way to sugarcoat this: This was a shellacking on a thumping,” said former Representative Steve Israel of New York, a former chair of the House Democratic campaign arm.

Nowhere was that clearer than on Long Island, where Democrats lost a pair of district attorney races, a county executive who had been widely seen as a strong incumbent was trailing her Republican opponent Wednesday morning and other local seats tilted toward Republicans.

Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate for governor in Virginia, conceded on Wednesday morning to his Republican opponent, the businessman Glenn Youngkin, as the Republican Party claimed the state’s governorship for the first time in more than a decade.

“While last night we came up short, I am proud that we spent this campaign fighting for the values we so deeply believe in,” Mr. McAuliffe said in a statement.

He added, “While there will be setbacks along the way, I am confident that the long-term path of Virginia is toward inclusion, openness and tolerance for all.”

With his victory, Mr. Youngkin, 54, presented his party with a formula for how to exploit President Biden’s vulnerabilities and evade the shadow of Donald J. Trump in Democratic-leaning states. A wealthy former private equity executive making his first run for office, he elevated education and taxes while projecting a suburban-dad demeanor to demonstrate he was different from Mr. Trump without saying so outright.

With Mr. Trump out of office, Mr. McAuliffe struggled to generate enthusiasm among liberals at a moment when conservatives are energized in opposition to Mr. Biden.

The Associated Press called the race for Mr. Youngkin shortly after 12:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, hours after the polls closed on Tuesday night.

Mr. Youngkin’s surprise victory in Virginia represents the starkest warning yet that Democrats are in danger. It was likely to prompt additional congressional retirements, intensify the intraparty tug of war over Mr. Biden’s agenda and fuel fears that a midterm electoral wave and Mr. Trump’s return as a candidate are all but inevitable.

“The MAGA movement is bigger and stronger than ever before,” Mr. Trump said in a statement Tuesday night.

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Democrats across Virginia expressed profound disappointment on Wednesday after Republicans romped to an unlikely victory in the governor’s race, an ominous sign for the Democratic Party ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

But one group refused to be blamed for the party’s poor showing: Black voters and elected officials.

Fears about Black turnout and a lack of enthusiasm did not materialize in Tuesday’s results, as former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, ran close to expected totals in the state’s majority-Black areas. Instead, Black state leaders and voters who backed Mr. McAuliffe said the results were a sign that the party could not rely on minority voters to cover its cratering totals in more white areas of the state, particularly in rural communities that voted heavily for Glenn Youngkin, the Republican businessman who won the governor’s race.

“I believe that Black voters are easily the first target for when things don’t go for how they want it to go,” said Marcia Price, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates who won re-election.

“It’s a trash take to look at us and not the middle,” she said. “The middle said Youngkin is more palatable than Trump and they were willing to take a chance with him.”

Ms. Price’s words reflect a sense among the state’s Black political class that communities of color are often blamed when Democrats lose.

At the grass-roots level, voters in Newport News also said that their support for Mr. McAuliffe did not mean they were satisfied with the performance of Democrats in Washington.

Several voters cited a radio advertisement that had been playing on local stations saying Black voters should not back Mr. McAuliffe because Democrats cared about Black communities only during election season. They rejected the ad’s plea to stay home but said the general theme resonated, and they urged Democrats in Congress to pass bold legislation on President Biden’s core campaign promises, including climate change, police reform and economic investments in Black communities.

“A lot of people are upset with Biden,” said William Joyner, a 54-year-old Democrat. “We have high gas prices. Everything is so expensive right now.”

He added, “Biden made promises to Black people he hasn’t kept yet.”

Tony McCright, 68, who also voted for Mr. McAuliffe, said there was a sense among Black voters that they were voting for Democrats only out of necessity.

“Republicans are happy to come together to do the wrong thing,” Mr. McCright said, “but Democrats never come together to do the right thing.”

CHANTILLY, Va. — Former President Donald J. Trump never appeared in public with Glenn Youngkin, Virginia’s new Republican governor-elect. Other than delivering a six-minute speech during a conference call with supporters on Monday and issuing a few written statements, Mr. Trump was not that involved in Mr. Youngkin’s campaign.

But that did not stop him and his supporters from claiming, mere hours after the race was called, that Mr. Youngkin could not have won the election without the former president and his legions of supporters.

A little after 9 a.m. on Wednesday, Mr. Trump called into the John Fredericks Radio Show and, in typically grandiose fashion, claimed most of the credit.

“Without MAGA, he would have lost by 15 points or more,” Mr. Trump said, referring to the shorthand he and his supporters use for the Trump movement. “Instead of giving us credit, they say, ‘Oh he’s more popular than Trump.’ It’s unbelievable.”

Mr. Fredericks, who served as Mr. Trump’s Virginia campaign chairman during his presidential campaigns, said multiple times during the interview that he agreed. “If there was no Trump in this election, there’s no Glenn Youngkin,” he said.

Mr. Trump endorsed Mr. Youngkin in a news release in May — but only after the Republican had secured his party’s nomination. The two men did not know each other and are not close. Republicans were concerned that the former president’s interference in the race could cost Mr. Youngkin in a state that voted for Mr. Biden by 10 percentage points.

Mr. Youngkin kept his distance from Mr. Trump even as he leaned into issues that are popular with Trump supporters, including exaggerated claims of lax security around elections.

After the interview, Mr. Trump’s office issued a single-sentence news release. It was Mr. Fredericks’s comment about the former president’s supposedly pivotal role in the race.

Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, campaigned heavily on education — and in opposition to what he called “critical race theory” — in his successful campaign for Virginia governor against the Democrat Terry McAuliffe. But Mr. Youngkin also made an issue of the state’s handling of schooling during the pandemic, which may have played a part in his win.

“Virginia’s excessive and extended school closures ravaged student advancement and well-being,” he wrote in an opinion piece for Fox News just before the election.

Last year, districts in Virginia, led by Governor Ralph Northam, a Democrat, were some of the last to reopen classrooms full-time.

While some parents supported the cautious approach — driven by teachers’ unions, school boards and some administrators — others became frustrated and angry, especially in suburban counties like Fairfax and Arlington.

And national and state teachers’ union leaders drew public ire for slowing reopening timelines even after educators were given early access to the vaccine.

Hostility toward teachers’ unions has been a problem for Democrats like Mr. McAuliffe, since the party is closely tied to organized labor. In the final days of the campaign, Mr. McAuliffe appeared with Randi Weingarten, the powerful president of the American Federation of Teachers, which drew rebukes from Republicans.

Schools are open this year, but that has not neutralized the issue. Education in Virginia, and in other states, has continued to be disrupted by occasional quarantines and classroom closures to contain the coronavirus.

Some parents have become fed up with their children learning in masks. A smaller group has also loudly resisted vaccine mandates for student athletes, which some districts, like Fairfax County, require.

Parents angry over how schools have operated during the pandemic span the political spectrum, from lifelong liberal Democrats to activist Trump supporters. But on the right, the issue has been a potent way to energize voters who are also angry about other cultural issues in schools, namely, efforts to teach a more critical history of race in America.

The strategy is not new. For many decades, conservatives have used white grievance politics around education to energize their base.

Mr. Youngkin seized on Mr. McAuliffe’s remark that he didn’t “believe parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” Mr. Youngkin used the comment, made during a debate, as an entryway to hammer his rival for supporting efforts that would help address racial inequities in schools — including changes to the curriculum, discipline policies and diversifying the teaching staff.

“This is no longer a campaign,” Mr. Youngkin said. “It is a movement being led by Virginia’s parents.”