Purple State Pro-Familism

Gov. Youngkin offers a version of pro-family politics, played in a slightly different key, in the Commonwealth of Virginia

This week’s newsletter will be slightly shorter than usual because what’s more pro-family than going to a wedding? (Congratulations, Erin and Michael!)

• The Main Event: Gov. Youngkin’s Version of Pro-Family Politics

• Et Cetera

The Main Event

What a difference five weeks makes. In mid-July, Republicans were feeling confident about their recently-wrapped convention, President Joe Biden was the Democratic nominee, and the Seattle Mariners were in first place in the A.L. West. Donald Trump’s selection of Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) as his running mate suggested strong confidence in his electoral prospects. He eschewed someone more likely to reassure college-educated suburban voters, like Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota or Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia, for someone who, as I wrote at the time, was a pick with an eye towards shifting the long-term trajectory of the Republican party in a more populist direction.

If Trump and his team knew they’d soon be in a political dogfight with a resurgent Vice President Kamala Harris, it seems quite likely they may have made a different decision. And while Vance’s vocal, sometimes abrasive, comments on the politics of family and fertility have made for cable news fodder, the Republican veep pick also-rans offer a glimpse into what a version of G.O.P. family policy that placed a strong emphasis on suburban voters might prioritize.

Photo: Office of Gov. Glenn Youngkin

In 2023, Burgum experimented with some child care measures, increasing state funding while launching a pilot project enabling employers to help pay for child care expenses. And just last week, Gov. Youngkin signed into a law a set of bipartisan bills he had been selling as "Building Blocks for Virginia Families," which includes:

• Streamlining staffing/training requirements by requiring the Virginia Dept. of Ed. to review its training courses to ensure child care staff aren’t forced to go through modules that are irrelevant to the age groups they serve and expediting some background check processes

• Permitting localities to waive zoning requirements for child care programs co-located in office buildings

• Making families that receive WIC or Medicaid categorically eligible for the state's child care assistance program

• Exempting child care programs on military bases from state licensing requirements and better align projected growth in child care demand with available subsidies

Youngkin’s broader child care approach has included the pursuit of strengthening parental choice "of home-providers, public school preschools, community co-ops, church programs, and private day centers,” creating a digital wallet to enable more creative funding approaches, and greater funding for workforce development and after-school programming.

73 percent of moms with young kids in Virginia are in the labor force, some due to economic necessity (be they low-income married parents or single moms), but many because they are juggling family with their careers. Being pro-family, in the context of the Commonwealth, means improving options for parents who need child care; that, on top of Gov. Youngkin’s well-publicized rhetoric on K-12 education, is a winning approach (per a recent Roanoke College poll, 59% of Virginians approve of the job Gov. Youngkin is doing.)

And notice what Youngkin has not done - uncritically adopt proposals from the left for massive expansions of child care subsidies to middle class parents (he voted a payroll-tax funded paid leave approach on those same philosophical grounds). The principles of the Governor’s “Building Blocks” - streamlining regulations, improving the user experience and prioritizing parental choice, expanding supply - all fit squarely into a center-right approach to the issue. And what’s more, he has been fairly reliable on other social conservative priorities that might be expected to be a political albatross in a state that has increasingly voted blue in presidential elections.

He vetoed a bill that would have repealed the state's ban on advertising surrogacy services. He vetoed legislation to legalize slots-like gaming machines in convenience stores (though is open to a rewrite). He vetoed a bill that would have prohibited state regulators from discipling doctors that provide abortion, even in the case of unsafe care, as well as a bill that would have sought to override providers' religious objections to providing contraception. He signed a bill codifying same-sex marriage into law in Virginia, but only on the condition it included explicit language about protecting religious freedom for clergy and churches. Famously, he sought to use his political capital to pursue a "compromise" position on abortion that came within a couple of Senate and House of Delegate seats of paying off.

None of this is to say that Gov. Youngkin’s brand of pro-family politics is a national winner, or that it would have single-handedly turned things around if the ticket were Trump-Youngkin instead of Trump-Vance. Leaving aside some of the ham-fisted comments, Vance’s full-throated calls for more focus on support for working-class families and the perils of low birth rates are sorely needed in D.C. (not to mention that V.P. picks rarely move the needle much in either direction.)

But Youngkin’s apparent appeal in a state politically stacked against him is evidence that Republican governors who take the political constraints of their state seriously, and avoid the temptation of being too online, can rack up political success. See also the case of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who has sufficient respect in the state to sign a six-week abortion ban, win re-election, and stand up to his party’s presidential nominee.

The purple-state version of conservative popularism that delivers material benefits for families without breaking the bank, and uses popular successes and appealing rhetoric as ballast when defending socially conservative principles that poll less well, may not be the ticket for everywhere. But at least in some cases, especially when trying to attract suburban parents, it seems to be paying dividends.

Et Cetera

Reports: The general fertility rate for the United States decreased 3% in 2023 to 54.5 births per 1,000 females ages 15–44 from 56.0 in 2022 (CDC)

Articles: US fertility rate dropped to record low (Deidre McPhillips, CNN)…Kathy Hochul’s ‘Big’ Plan to Ban Phones in Schools (Kevin T. Dugan, New York)…The 2025 tax war starts early as Harris and Trump vie over child credit (Joseph Zeballos-Roig, Semafor)…Free Vasectomies and an Inflatable IUD: Abortion Rights Advocates Hit the D.N.C. (Jess Bidgood, New York Times)…Why Hungary’s lavish family subsidies failed to spur a baby boom (Marton Dunai and Valentina Romei, Financial Times)…Beyond ‘childless cat ladies,’ JD Vance has long been on a quest to encourage more births (Associated Press)…How Much Does It Actually Cost to Give Birth? (Charlotte Cowles, The Cut)…More Americans don’t want kids, and it’s not just because of the money (Kamaron McNair, CNBC)…DNC centers abortion rights as women tell personal stories (Kathryn Watson, CBS)

Takes: Of Course Schools Are Day Care (Jerusalem Demsas, The Atlantic)…Young Men Are Turning to Trump. Why? (Scott Howard, The Dispatch)…Having a lot of children made me less Republican (Brendan Greeley, Washington Post)…Child Tax Credits When Families Need Them Most (Chuck Donovan, Washington Stand)…Quick Reaction to Harris Policy Proposals (Matt Bruenig, People’s Policy Project)…Can Education and Fertility Be Friends? (Robert VerBruggen, Family Studies)…How to Expand the Child Tax Credit (The Editors, National Review)…Why Harris’s Proposed Baby Bonus Just Might Work (Sophie Moullin, American Prospect)…Active Fathers Are Exacerbating the Two-Parent Privilege (Daniel Cox, Family Studies)

Roundup: Idaho: State child care program pauses signups due to funding crunch…Kentucky: Vote on amendment to allow public dollars to go to charter or private schools scheduled for this fall…New Mexico: More than half of state’s infants are served by WIC…Montana: Health Department holds hearing on contested regulations of abortion clinics…West Virginia: Advocates worry about state child care funding cliff…California: Lawmakers try to provide teachers paid leave despite prior Newsom veto…Arkansas: Abortion referendum will not be on fall ballot due to signature requirement challenges

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