Blanding could play spoiler to McAuliffe, peeling progressive voters away from the more traditional candidate.
In 2013, Democrat Terry McAuliffe was elected Virginia’s governor by a 2.6 point margin over the Republican nominee, Ken Cuccinelli.
The Libertarian candidate, Robert Sarvis, gathered 6.5 percent of the vote.
With Republican Glenn Youngkin surging ahead of McAuliffe in the polls ahead of Tuesday’s election, there has been remarkably little coverage of this year’s preeminent third-party candidate, Liberation — not Libertarian but Liberation — Party nominee, school administrator Princess Blanding, and the role she could play in helping Youngkin secure the upset victory.
Indeed, while the Republican Party, and small-c conservatives remains divided on a number questions, they appear to have coalesced around Youngkin, who has managed to secure Trump’s endorsement and run as his own man, on his own brand.
Instead, in the Biden era, it is progressives who are left with more questions about the stability of their coalition, with the debate over the “Build Back Better” infrastructure package exemplifying the divide.
In Virginia, Blanding could play spoiler to McAuliffe, peeling progressive voters away from the more traditional candidate who once ran the Democratic National Committee.
Blanding’s campaign website states that “now, more than ever, Virginia is in need of progressive, courageous leadership that will put people over profit and politics,” and asserts that “liberation is a human right, not a privilege.” That’s the kind of flowery, utopian rhetoric that you just won’t get out of McAuliffe, who despite having moved leftward remains an old political hand, not a flashy newcomer with his finger on the pulse.
On discrete issues as well, Blanding should be significantly more appealing to the Bernie Sanders wing of the party than McAuliffe.
It doesn’t matter the topic, Blanding is either as or more progressive than the Democratic nominee. She, like McAuliffe, would fund failed systems instead of students, arguing for defunding popular voucher programs for low-income families, which she characterizes as “private education subsidies.” But she does not stop at appealing to Democratic interest groups like teachers’ unions, she also touches activists’ hearts by promising to pursue the goal of “prevent[ing] unethical evictions” through a variety of means, including rent control and burdensome zoning regulations. The energy crisis and high gas prices accompanying it would surely entrench themselves in Old Dominion under Blanding, who says she would “ban harmful practices such as fracking statewide” and “dismantle existing fossil fuel infrastructure such as pipelines.” That passion might scratch the activist itch in a way that McAuliffe’s promise to “restructure Virginia’s regulatory system,” and “reduce energy consumption” just doesn’t.
Moreover, while McAuliffe is happy to label his opponent a racist, he hasn’t been willing to redress past grievances as Blanding, who has vowed to “examine, pursue, and implement Reparations” end the state’s cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, defund the police, and legalize sex work.
Her commitment to defunding the police is at the center of her campaign. Her brother, Marcus David Peters, was shot and killed by Richmond police in 2018 after he ran through a taser and tackled an officer to the ground while having a mental health crisis.
The Virginia Commonwealth’s attorney ruled the shooting justified — but Blanding disagreed and decided to enter the race shortly thereafter. It’s the kind of story that will attract progressive true believers who might be turned off by McAuliffe’s establishment credentials.
Blanding also leans on more traditional, class warrior rhetoric, expressing her intent to “fight for, protect, and facilitate the power of the working class in Virginia to ensure more equitably shared wealth and power.” That’s one thing. Her methods of doing so, which include “facilitat[ing] the formation of labor unions, including the public sector,” — except for police unions, which she promises to ban — ending “right to work” in Virginia, and “compensat[ing workers with a dignified wage,” only further satiate the socialist appetite of the far-left constituencies of the Democratic Party.
Blanding is unlikely to garner the proportion of the electorate that Sarvis did in 2013, but in an election that’s expected to be even tighter, she may nevertheless play the same role, just in the opposite direction.