Early Marks From CNU Wason Show Youngkin Approval At 41%

With the Virginia General Assembly at the crossover, the bureaucracy is picking winners and losers quickly.

Feb 21, 2022

First and foremost is a new poll from the Christopher Newport University Wason Center showing Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin at 41/43 after what could only be termed as a relentless assault on Youngkin’s character and reputation by House and Senate Democrats. The implication of the poll is to reinforce the narrative that the not-one-inch orders are working.

Of course, Republicans were quick to — how does the media say it? — pounce on the demographic split of the CNU poll:

Tucker Martin @jtuckermartin

If you’re looking at new Wason Center poll I’d note one thing that jumps out in sample: Their Oct ‘21 Va poll had self ID’d “liberal/very liberal” voters at 23%. This one has that group at 35%. That significant jump will have an impact on the final numbers. Found it interesting.

The only small critique to add to this is that Youngkin — despite pretensions to the contrary — didn’t win the gubernatorial election by that much. Is a 41/43 split plausible? Certainly so — and while Youngkin’s public campaigning and media schedule suggest that the governor is doing all he can to keep the honeymoon going, Virginia Democrats are going to get a say and are committed to the task of grinding him down.

Meanwhile, Speaker Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah) seems to be emerging as the leading limit of what Republicans are willing to consider as theoretical maximums when it comes to moving the needle. Nothing earthshattering, but it is a series of small yet important legislative wins that come with the wisdom of knowing that ships of state do not turn on a dime (much less in one day).

Some other notables from the CNU Wason poll?

A majority of Virginia voters prefer spending the state budget surplus on underfunded government services, such as education, public safety and social services (59%), rather than providing tax cuts or tax rebates (38%).
This is one of those “how do you frame the question?” polls where the word underfunded does a remarkable amount of lifting. If something is underfunded, you fix it before you spend it. The wider question remains as to whether or not education, public safety, or social services are underfunded, or whether or not underfunding is a chronic and systemic problem of each that deserves some form of reinvention or reallocation of resources.
Voters overwhelmingly support cutting the 2.5% grocery tax, either by a total repeal (47%) or by giving low-income Virginians a tax credit (25%).
Not a whole lot of brainpower needs to be expended here.
Voters support teaching how racism continues to impact American society (63% to 33%) and oppose a ban on the teaching of Critical Race Theory in public schools (57% to 35%).
Once again, how the question is asked (and the order in which they are asked) is important. How many people can accurately define what CRT is on the left or the right? Probably not suited for a poll. But most people are going to say that the legacy of racism should be taught as a historical artifact. Is it a present-day reality? That’s the CRT question we missed…
Virginia voters support vaccine mandates for first responders (58%), teachers (57%) and medical providers (61%), while opposing mandates for elementary students (55%) and middle school students (51%). On masks in schools, voters say health data should be used to determine mask requirements (56%) versus leaving the decision to parents (41%).
National media reported last week that the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) instantly reversed the science… er, I mean saw the writing on the wall when it came to mask mandates after a closed-door meeting reviewing poll numbers for the upcoming 2022 elections. Common sense is a common virtue after all.
Voters strongly support stationing a police officer in every school (70%).
And yet 57% believe that CRT should be taught while that very same theory states that police officers and SROs are visible signs of white supremacy? Something of a disconnect here…
On abortion, a plurality oppose a 24-hour waiting period (49% to 44%), while a majority oppose requiring an ultrasound (57% to 36%) and a ban on abortions at 6 weeks (58% to 33%).
Which means that a European-style regulation of abortion up to six weeks enjoys the same degree of support that same-sex mock marriages did when Mark Herring picked up his briefcase and opposed the Virginia Constitution in 2010. Ultrasounds — it should be noted — are universally required for surgical abortions; the reason why the abortion industry opposes an ultrasound requirement is because it would interfere with lucrative and medically risky abortion-by-mail schematics being pushed by the Biden administration.
Voters support the state’s membership in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative carbon cap-and-trade program (67% to 26%) and the Virginia Clean Economy Act (67% to 28%), a law requiring the state to generate 100% of its electricity from renewable energy by 2050.
Most voters also oppose skyrocketing energy prices without even considering whether RGGI or the Clean Economy Act contribute to such consequences.

What should alarm most observers is the rigidity of the partisan divide. As Quentin Kidd notes:

Differences are largely along partisan lines, with 80% of Republican voters saying Virginia is heading in the right direction, compared to 22% of Democrats and 45% of Independents. On Governor Youngkin’s job performance, 85% of Republicans approve, while 81% of Democrats disapprove, and Independents are fairly split (42% approve, 36% disapprove, 22% don’t know).
“In this highly polarized environment, we see partisans running to their corners on how they view the direction of the Commonwealth and the job of the governor,” said Quentin Kidd, Academic Director of the Wason Center. “Youngkin’s approval numbers are certainly lower than those of recent governors in Wason Center polling early in their term.”

Which I surmise is the real tale of the tape with the CNU Wason poll. Even if one seeks to quibble with the partisan shift, one doubts that the demography of Virginia has shifted radically over the last three months. Virginia remains rather evenly and sharply divided with very few issues enjoying bipartisan crossover support (though the CNU Wason poll does attempt to explore possible pathways).

Youngkin’s numbers are indeed lower than average and probably because Youngkin was not elected to enact an agenda, but rather to oppose one. Democrats — still seething from their electoral reverses — haven’t figured this point out, but will throw as much sand at the gears of government in the hopes it fails in the hopes that Youngkin will be blamed by the media among other institutions for the inevitable failure.

Does The United States Have Any Compelling National Interest in The Ukraine?

For those who have watched the neoconservative brand shift from the Democratic Party in the 1970s and 1980s over to the Republican Party in the aftermath of 9/11 only to watch them magically transform back into Democrats after the election of Donald J. Trump, the obsession over Putin is a wonder to behold.

Over at Bearing Drift, the neoconservative D.J. McGuire (who is indeed a friend) has been damning the Tucker Carlson wing of the Republican Party for their obstreperous questioning of the Biden administration’s Hamlet-like involvement in Ukraine. Neither willing to abandon nor support the pro-Western Maidan uprising, the Biden administration seems bent on creating an ‘indigestible’ Ukraine — one that would thrust 40 million people into a Syrian-style conflagration over a land area the size of Texas.

KENNEY: Biden Weaponizes Genocide In Ukraine? (Bearing Drift, 24 December 2021)
MCGUIRE: To Russia With Love (25 January 2022)
KENNEY: Who Knew There Was This EU-Macron-Francis-Putin-Grandma Conspiracy Against Biden? (25 January 2022)
MCGUIRE: Conservatives Must Reject Anti-Anti-Putinism (28 January 2022)
MCGUIRE: Ukraine Will Continue To Resist Invasion No Matter What The Rest Of Us Think (14 February 2022)
MCGUIRE: Richard Nixon is Dead (18 February 2022)
KENNEY: The Weak Russia Hypothesis (18 February 2022)
MCGUIRE: The No Self-Determination Hypothesis (21 February 2022)
KENNEY: The Peter Pan Hypothesis Will End In Ukrainian Blood (21 February 2022)

I suspect there are three positions here:

We cease our support for the Maidan government and allow events to take their course, up to and including Russian peacekeepers (sic) supporting a pro-Russian government and a return to the pre-2014 status quo ante bellum.
We provide the resources to turn Ukraine into Syria, effecting a lengthy and protracted insurgency against the cream of the Russian Armed Forces and leave 43 million Ukrainians to their fate in the hopes that either world opinion will be galvanized against Russia or that causalties will become so high that the Russian oligarchs finally tire of Putin and magically install Navalny (or some derivative thereof).
The United States and United Kingdom announce our intention to enforce the 1994 Budapest Agreement, deploying 50,000 Coalition soldiers to western Ukraine along with US/UK peacekeepers along the Ukrainian border, evict any separatist movement in the Donbas basin, and then force the Russian Federation to the table with the array of sanctions previously announced until a settlement of Crimea is arranged (or a Ukrainian-led liberation can be effected) — a solution that would threaten open war with the Russian Federation, drive them further into the arms of the Chinese government, but solidify our intention to back our treaty obligations to NATO and Eastern Europe.

The math becomes quite simple.

The Russians are prepared to bleed Russians for Kiev. For Russia, this is a question of geopolitical survival. With Ukraine, Russia is a great power. Without Ukraine? Russia is a minor power compared to rivals in the European Union and China. Simply put, the idea of Russia was born in Kiev — it is akin to having a foreign government snap off the Heartland and install a pro-Chinese or pro-Russian government. We are going to want that back. So too do the Russians with Ukraine.

Therein lies the kicker. Unless the United States is willing to identify the national interest that is worthy of comparable sacrifice? Then one finds it quite hard to justify a conflict so that Europe can keep what we effected through an Obama-era democratic uprising. Even by feeding a pro-Western insurgency, what precisely are the victory conditions other than allowing Ukraine to burn in order to effect a showdown with the Russian Federation? Will Biden accomplish what Napoleon could not?

Turning Ukraine into Yugoslavia on a mass scale would be the opposite of good. As General Jim Mattis was so fond of saying, the enemy gets a vote. Assistance from outside actors would be viewed as belligerent and would inspire a direct response, the stakes for Russia being that high.

The moral horror of putting 43 million Ukrainians into the maw of an insurgency strikes me as shockingly unhuman. There has to be a middle way between appeasement and insurgency, and if it means recognizing that an Obama-era policy of democratic uprisings may have stretched their fingers out a bit too far in places such as Libya, Syria, Algeria, Egypt, Yemen, Oman, Qatar, Jordan, and yes even Ukraine — maybe it’s time to figure out that the world doesn’t run on pixie dust and memes.

Nailing Russia down to the diplomatic table would be the definition of good — but they will not do so as long as they perceive that there is an intent among US and EU policy makers to keep Russia weak and divided.

Of course, neoconservative meddling that simply seeks war as the highest good or else you are a racist, anti-gay bigot is just mindboggling — but somehow an effective argument in today’s woke political environment.

Signs and wonders.

Shaun Kenney is the editor of The Republican Standard, former chairman of the Board of Supervisors for Fluvanna County, and a former executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia.