He ran on issues like education and against critical race theory in the school, and distanced himself far enough from trump, repeatedly turning down offers to let him campaign for him, that he pissed off part of the MAGA crowd and beat trumps numbers in the state in several key counties.
He remembered, Virginians and didn't try to win with star power of national politics, and he was running against McAuliffe. You are taking the complete wrong lessons from that election.
Virginia has a history of electing a governor from the opposite party of the recently elected president.
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