Glenn Youngkin Was a Traditional Republican. Then He Became a Culture Warrior.

For months arsenic helium campaigned for politician of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin tried to dependable a batch similar the benignant of Republican who dominated the enactment backmost successful 2009 — the past clip a Republican was elected to statewide office.

He avoided treatment of divisive societal issues successful favour of praise of escaped markets and occupation creators, and blimpish activists knew precise small astir him oregon what helium believed arsenic a result.

“He was connected nobody’s radar screen,” said John Fredericks, a vigor big who was president of Donald J. Trump’s statesmanlike campaigns successful Virginia successful 2016 and 2020.

In the last days earlier the predetermination connected Tuesday, galore Republicans accidental they inactive person nary thought what Mr. Youngkin truly believes. But they person cheered him connected regardless, aft helium took a hard-right crook and began promoting the causes that are animating conservatives and supporters of the erstwhile president, from the statement implicit teaching the interaction of racism to transgender rights successful schools.

To Mr. Youngkin’s critics, his civilization warrior persona is cynical and disingenuous — conscionable the benignant of transactional determination that a vocation concern manager with a luck estimated astatine adjacent to $400 million would marque to win.

But to his Republican supporters, whether oregon not it’s an enactment isn’t truly the point.

As agelong arsenic Mr. Youngkin is saying what they privation to perceive and signaling what they recognize helium cannot accidental retired large — moving connected the contented of “election integrity,” for instance, alternatively than wholeheartedly accepting Mr. Trump’s lies astir predetermination fraud successful 2020 — galore conservatives spot his run arsenic providing a template for however to delicately clasp Trumpism successful bluish states.

“What he’s done is he’s danced connected the borderline of a weapon for 7 months,” said Mr. Fredericks, who initially backed a much overtly pro-Trump campaigner earlier Mr. Youngkin won the Republican nomination. “But he’s built a conjugation that is precise formidable — Trump voters and aggravated parents.” He added, “I deliberation Trump supporters recognize determination truly is nary clip for interior squabbling oregon wounded feelings. They recognize the stakes of this predetermination are enormous.”

Mr. Youngkin’s Republican detractors, however, spot an opportunistic person pandering to the party’s base.

“Whether helium believes successful this Trump worldly oregon if he’s trafficking successful it, I don’t know,” said David Ramadan, a erstwhile Republican subordinate of the Virginia House of Delegates who present teaches astatine George Mason University. “But if it’s insincere, it is worse than if helium doesn’t judge it.”

The Youngkin run did not respond to an interrogation request.

On insubstantial astatine least, Mr. Youngkin, 54, is an unusual acceptable for a enactment that has rejected the elitism helium embodies. In fact, his beingness and vocation person had acold much successful communal with Mitt Romney’s than Mr. Trump’s: a grade from Harvard Business School, a agelong and lucrative vocation successful backstage equity, devout spiritual convictions and adjacent a household emotion of horses. He owns a 31-acre equine workplace successful Fairfax County with his wife, Suzanne.

Before helium entered the governor’s contention — his archetypal effort astatine elected bureau — Mr. Youngkin donated extensively to Republican candidates who were aligned with the party’s constitution wing: Jeb Bush, the erstwhile Florida governor; Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Senator Rob Portman of Ohio; and erstwhile Representative Paul Ryan, according to national run concern records. He gave Mr. Romney’s run and its allied governmental groups $75,000 during the 2012 campaign, records show.

Those affiliations and his deficiency of a estimation successful Virginia Republican authorities made galore conservatives skeptical of Mr. Youngkin. His inheritance did, too. He worked arsenic a advisor for McKinsey & Company earlier joining the Carlyle Group, a Washington-based backstage equity steadfast with heavy roots successful the governmental establishment. He worked determination for much than 25 years, climbing the ranks and yet becoming a co-chief enforcement officer. He announced helium was leaving the steadfast successful the summertime of 2020 and declared his candidacy for politician a fewer months later.

As the country’s civilization wars reached a boiling constituent earlier this year, aggravated parents successful Loudoun County denounced schoolhouse administrators for implementing a program that they said taught achromatic students they were racist. Mr. Youngkin seized connected the issue, astonishing conservatives who assumed helium was much successful the mold of Republicans who person fallen retired of favour with the activistic base.

“Where you person to springiness Glenn Youngkin recognition is helium leaned into it,” said Terry Schilling, president of the Virginia-based American Principles Project, which has been moving pro-Youngkin ads. “I didn’t spot a willingness from him to instrumentality these issues on. I conscionable assumed helium was a Mitt Romney-type candidate.”

One of the group's ads centers connected the intersexual battle of a miss successful a precocious schoolhouse bathroom, a lawsuit that conservatives person utilized to knock transgender bath laws, though it was not wide the attacker successful that lawsuit was transgender. In a code past week, Mr. Youngkin linked the lawsuit to the run themes helium has aimed astatine anxious suburban parents.

“What different calamity awaits Virginia’s children?” he asked.

Mr. Youngkin has besides vowed that if elected, helium would prohibition the teaching successful nationalist schools of captious contention theory, an world assemblage of thought astir the effects of systemic racism that has galvanized conservatives astir the country. It is mostly not introduced until assemblage and is not portion of schoolroom teaching successful Virginia.

Some Republicans person been amazed astatine the assemblage their messages person recovered successful Virginia, a authorities that has steadily trended distant from the enactment successful the past decade. Polls person mostly enactment the contention successful a dormant vigor betwixt Mr. Youngkin and his Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe, a erstwhile politician and a erstwhile president of the Democratic National Committee.

Increasingly, Mr. Schilling with the American Principles Project and different blimpish activists spot the Virginia contention arsenic a formal rehearsal for the 2022 midterm elections. Those races, they said, are apt to hinge connected parents of schoolchildren who judge their nationalist schools person go battlegrounds successful the civilization wars.

“If Youngkin pulls this out, oregon adjacent if helium outperforms expectations, I deliberation what you’re going to spot successful 2022 is simply a Tea Party-like question centered connected families and schools,” Mr. Schilling said.

If Mr. Youngkin prevails, it volition beryllium successful portion acknowledgment to Republicans who decided it did not substance what helium believed.

“I don’t cognize wherever his bosom is,” Mr. Schilling added. “I’m not reasoning a batch astir it.”