Virginia GOP Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin cracked the code. The consensus of multiple election analysis pieces is that Youngkin entertained the fringe views of Trump voters just enough while also managing to stay palatable to more mainstream voters in the suburbs. He did this in large part by barring Trump from the Commonwealth and assiduously avoiding most overt connections between himself and the wildly unpopular two-time popular vote loser. Now, the thinking goes, all Republicans have to do next year is recreate Youngkin's playbook. In fact, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy—among the GOP's biggest Trump bootlickers—was crowing Wednesday morning about House Republicans potentially netting more seats next year than they did in 2010 when they lost 63 seats in a red wave. But replicating Youngkin's playbook requires three fundamental elements to remain constant in 2022, which will be a nearly impossible task for congressional Republicans in the House and particularly the Senate. Read more