LEESBURG, Va. — A packed crowd at the Loudoun County Fairgrounds welcomed Republican gubernatorial hopeful Glenn Youngkin just after 10:00 p.m. Monday night for the final rally of his campaign.
One rallygoer remarked “It’s like WWE" while AC/DC's “Thunderstruck” played and Youngkin's campaign bus blared its horn as it pulled up to the crowd.
Candidate alert pic.twitter.com/DkotBgaTLM
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) November 2, 2021
The music turned to “Spirit in the Sky" when Youngkin stepped off his bus after arriving by plane from an earlier rally in Virginia Beach while an enthusiastic crowd waved American flags, Virginia flags, and the campaign's "Parents for Youngkin" signs.
Perhaps needless to say at this point, the place is packed and ready for Youngkin who is traveling here from his earlier rally in Virginia Beach. Cars are backed up more than a mile in either direction from the Loudoun County Fairgrounds as more people try to make it in. pic.twitter.com/RkpwykZOrA
— Spencer Brown (@itsSpencerBrown) November 2, 2021
"Are you ready to win tomorrow?" Youngkin asked of the cheering crowd. "We can feel the spirit in the sky — it’s the spirit of Washington and Jefferson and Monroe," he said alluding to his walkout song. "We find ourselves tonight thinking about what can happen tomorrow," Youngkin said surrounded by his supporters on a crisp mid-40s Election Day Eve.
"America needs us to vote tomorrow, America’s watching," he said before talking about the choices Virginians will make on Tuesday. "It may say Jason Miyares, it may say Winsome Sears, it may say Glenn Youngkin — but who’s really on the ballot is all of you — Virginia’s on the ballot.”
Billed as a "Loudoun Parents Matter Rally," Youngkin didn't shy away from the top-ranked issue of education that put Loudoun County on the national political map this election cycle with battles over school board meetings, Critical Race Theory in curriculum, parental rights, and attempted coverups of violence in schools.
Ticking off a list of priorities in the education category, Youngkin pledged "extra investment" for students with disabilities who "suffered mightily during this pandemic," in addition to "the most aggressive charter school program the Commonwealth has ever seen."
"Virginia has eight charter schools in the entire Commonwealth, Maryland has 140, North Carolina has 190, we have eight," Youngkin emphasized. "On day one we're going to launch 20 innovation charter schools" as a "down payment to close that gap over four years," he explained. "We will have choice in our public school system."
Here’s Youngkin’s riff on education got the biggest cheers. Watch it here: pic.twitter.com/T8D6xCKhMu
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) November 2, 2021
"But friends, we know it all starts with curriculum, and so let me be really clear: we will teach accelerated math, we will award advanced diplomas, we will teach all history, the good and the bad," Youngkin said. "America is the greatest country on the planet — we know it — we have an amazing history but we also have some dark and abhorrent chapters," he explained. "We must teach them all. We can't know where we're going unless we know where we have come from."
"What we won't do is teach our children to view everything through a lens of race where we divide them into buckets and one group's an oppressor and one other group's a victim and we pit them against each other and we steal their dreams," Youngkin promised.
"We will not be a Commonwealth of dream stealers, we will be a Commonwealth of dream enablers and builders — we're all created equal — and we're trying so hard to live up to those immortal words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who implored us to be better than we are, to judge one another based on the content of our character and not the color of our skin." To wild applause, cheers, and at least one cowbell, Youngkin repeated a promise he's made at many a campaign stop across Virginia: "On day one we will not have political agendas in the classroom and I will ban Critical Race Theory."
"Starting tomorrow, we can make this statement that, yes, will be heard around the country," Youngkin said in closing. "We in fact get to redefine our future." Joined on stage by lieutenant governor candidate Winsome Sears and attorney general candidate Jason Miyares, Youngkin declared "We are going to win Loudoun County tomorrow. How amazing is that going to be? Wake up Virginia, here we come," he added. "We are going to win this."