A multi-millionaire, former chief executive of a private equity group, who has never held political office, is emerging as a top candidate for Virginia governor, as state Republicans prepare to nominate their candidate in the coming November election. Fifty-four-year-old Glenn Youngkin is one of seven Republicans hoping to secure the nomination during the state’s “drive through” convention, which will take place at 37 locations throughout the state on May 8.
Youngkin hopes to be the GOP candidate to replace the current governor, the controversial Ralph Northam, a Democrat. His likely opponent from the Democrat side looks to be former Virginia governor and longtime Bill and Hillary Clinton associate Terry McAuliffe.
In Virginia, the governor is not allowed to serve consecutive terms, which is why Northam will definitely be out next January.
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Youngkin had some harsh words for educators in the state who wish to bow to “woke” elements and remove accelerated and remedial math courses from the state’s schools, as well as teach critical race theory to students.
Speaking to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson on Tuesday, Youngkin lamented the direction that the Virginia Department of Education and some school districts in the state have taken in terms of teaching children.
“What they’re next onto is actually not awarding advanced diplomas to kids who have earned them in high school; to taking the Pledge of Allegiance and the Fourth of July out of the curriculum of things that actually bind us together, unite us as Americans and Virginians. And it just seems that Terry McAuliffe and the left, liberal Democrats here want to take our education policy from having everybody in the fast lane to putting everybody in the broken down lane,” Youngkin said.
“In education, they want to teach our kids what to think,” Youngkin said. “They want to teach them critical race theory and they want to take accelerated math out of the curriculum. “I want to teach our kids how to think, and not have critical race theory in the curriculum and, actually yes, teach accelerated math.”
The Virginia Mathematics Pathway Initiative (VMPI) — a joint project between the Virginia Department of Education, the State Council of Higher Education and the Virginia Community College System — is a proposal to “modernize” the state’s math curriculum. Among the proposals for “modernizing” the math curriculum is to do away with labels such as algebra and geometry and instead blend those courses “into a seamless progression of connected learning.” Instead of the labels for certain types of math, the schools would simply refer to them all as “essential concepts.”
Although state officials have denied that the proposal does away with the various levels of math, many parents in the state are still concerned about much of the language in the VMPI’s proposal.
As for critical race theory being taught, nowhere is that concept more in the news than the Loudon County School District, where teachers have been told to “disrupt and dismantle this systemic racism,” that allegedly occurs throughout America.
According to Youngkin, the reason he quit his high-paying job at private equity giant the Carlyle Group — which reportedly earned him $254 million over the years — and decided to run for governor was that he “could not recognize his home state of Virginia,” after ten years of Democrat rule.
“This is exactly what we’re seeing from the Democrats and particularly Terry McAuliffe is that they’re on the wrong side of every issue.”
“I’m homegrown and I love the commonwealth of Virginia,” Youngkin said. “I was so frustrated with the Republican Party because the Republican Party had not mounted a winning campaign in over ten years. So I left my job and prepared to run for governor.”
While seven GOP candidates are in the running for the nomination on Saturday, election observers believe that it’s really a four-person race with Youngkin, State Senator Amanda Chase, State Representative Kirk Cox, and entrepreneur Pete Snyder.
Chase is actively courting Trump supporters, calling herself “Trump in heels.” Cox appears to be the favorite of the GOP establishment, and Snyder, who is portraying himself as a political outsider, has been endorsed by former Trump officials Sarah Sanders and Ken Cuccinelli. Youngkin, who just snagged an endorsement from prominent GOP Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), is also running as a political outsider, despite being a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the establishment powerhouse that has exercised extraordinary influence over government policy for generations.
