The Virginia Monologues

A Republican scandal has upended the Virginia governor’s race—but not in the way that anyone expected, with the MAGA base flocking to John Reid, an openly gay Trump supporter, and turning on Glenn Youngkin for trying to push Reid out. “Trump broke the evangelical stuff,” said a campaign operative in Richmond. “There is purity, and there is winning. And they are both drugs, but one of them is a lot more addictive.”

The days of Glenn Youngkin as a Republican rising star, with or without Trump in the mix, now seem quaint thanks to this new springtime scandal consuming Richmond. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Peter Hamby

May 6, 2025

Thanks to Donald Trump, we are confronted on a near-daily basis with vivid reminders that the Republican Party is not what it used to be. In Boston this week, Mike Pence was hanging out with the Kennedys, who bestowed upon him a Profiles in Courage Award for standing up to Trump on January 6. In Georgia on Monday, Gov. Brian Kemp, a God ’n’ guns Republican straight out of ’90s G.O.P. central casting, passed on a Senate run, essentially ceding the nomination to MAGA conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene.