Who said parents shoild be the sole entity? Here’s what McCauliffe said:
"I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”
In a later interview he was gven an opportinity to clarify. He responded, “Listen, we have a board of ed working with the local school boards to determine the curriculum for our schools. You don’t want parents coming in in every different school jurisdiction saying, ‘This is what should be taught here’ and, ‘This is what should be taught here.’”
This in the context of parents being enraged about the curriculum. You can fine-parse that any way you want, but it’s pretty clear that McCauliffe was on the side of the school board and Youngkin on the side of the parents.
And that’s when the race started to flip. Before McCauliffe’s first comment he was up by 10 points, if I recall. He began to slide immediately thereafter.
Biden won the state by 10 points. Youngkin shouldn’t have had a chance. I don’t think Democrats realize just how unpopular their social agenda is outside of large Democratic cities, and maybe not even those. Eric Adams won in New York City by repudiating ‘Defund the Police’ and promising to crack down on crime.