Youngkin (R) needs the GOP to hold onto the House of Delegates and flip the narrowly divided state Senate to have any chance of wresting big wins out of the General Assembly — or of keeping the buzz alive about his potential 2024 presidential bid, political analysts said.

“The stakes couldn’t be higher,” said Bob Holsworth, a veteran Richmond political analyst.

If Youngkin’s party doesn’t get control of both chambers, he can expect more of what he’s endured so far in a divided Capitol: “Democrats killing or watering down most of his biggest agenda items,” said Larry J. Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “His legacy could become threadbare.”

But GOP wins would grease the legislative skids for the governor at the midpoint of his four-year term and restore some shine to his political star, dimmed a bit after his vigorous cross-country stumping largely failed to bear fruit in the midterms.

Youngkin’s signature red vest didn’t deliver big wins for GOP nominees

“He’d planned to sweep Republicans off their feet and get a bunch of GOP candidates elected in 2022, but that prelude to a White House run went bust,” Sabato said. “A takeover of the General Assembly could revive his hopes.”

The fall elections will play out on new maps that thoroughly scrambled district lines in both chambers, leading to a wave of retirements and creating uncertainty for both parties.

Youngkin has been upbeat about his party’s prospects, welcoming the contests as a referendum on his performance.

“I think that we have a chance to not just hold our House and take our Senate,” he told reporters earlier this month while announcing record-high agricultural and forestry exports at Richmond Marine Terminal, according to a transcript provided by his office.

“I think this is a moment for Virginians to reflect on the work that we’ve been doing,” he continued. “I’m so pleased with the progress we’ve made to cut $4 billion in taxes and make record investments in education and invest in law enforcement and to get government really working for folks. This is our moment.”

Officials with Youngkin’s political action committee, the Spirit of Virginia PAC, declined to comment but announced on Wednesday that he was beefing up his political organization for the legislative races.

“The Governor’s political team has a singular obsession — win the House and Senate,” Matt Moran, the PAC’s executive director, said in a news release. “This team is best in class and we’re already hard at work.”

The PAC announced a handful of new hires with “expertise in finance, political, field, data and analytics, and communications,” including Brian Barrett, who will lead early and absentee voting as he did last year for Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R).

The hires were rolled out about a month after Youngkin’s top strategist, Jeff Roe of Axiom Strategies, joined a super PAC aligned with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), an all-but-declared presidential candidate who has been running second to former president Donald Trump in recent polls of potential GOP primary voters.

Youngkin barely registers in national surveys, but some strategists see a path for him given his business background and connections to the donor class, his appeal to evangelicals as the founder of a nondenominational church, and his ability to exude a sunny, suburban-dad vibe even as he delivers red meat to the MAGA base.

A multimillionaire private equity chief who poured $20 million of his fortune into his 2021 gubernatorial bid, Youngkin has been mentioned as a possible White House contender since the moment he flipped blue-trending Virginia red. But since then, the political newcomer who claims to have inspired a movement has largely struck out at the ballot box.

Youngkin campaigned in 15 states last year for Republican gubernatorial candidates; only five won, and those were in solid red states. Even in Virginia, only one of three competitive congressional races went Youngkin’s way, and in a special election in Virginia Beach that followed, Democrats flipped a competitive state Senate seat.

Some fellow Virginia Republicans griped last year that Youngkin spent too much time outside Virginia stumping for candidates and raising his national profile. The governor insisted he never took his eye off his day job but is promising to be deeply involved in this year’s legislative races.

On the road for politics, Va. Gov. Youngkin skips travel for trade

Youngkin has weighed in with endorsements in both of the May 6 nominating contests, opting to back incumbent legislators in each — one a sitting senator, the other a delegate seeking to move up to an open Senate seat.

All of the Republican candidates in the 10th and 28th Senate District contests bill themselves as staunch conservatives, with a number of them stressing their allegiance to Trump. Youngkin, who has walked a tightrope with Trump and his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen, did not seem to base his endorsements on whether the candidates align themselves closely with Trump.

Youngkin’s tricky dance with ‘election integrity’ complicates run for Virginia governor

In the 10th, Youngkin endorsed Del. John J. McGuire III (Goochland) over Duane Adams, chairman of the Louisa County Board of Supervisors, Sandy Brindley, a community activist, and Jack Dyer, chairman of the Hanover County Republican Committee.

McGuire is a former Navy SEAL and avid Trump supporter who attended the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally (but says he did not storm the Capitol) and last summer promoted a local showing of the film “2000 Mules,” which purports to show voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

But in the 28th, the governor is backing Sen. Bryce E. Reeves (R-Spotsylvania) over challenger Mike Allers Sr., who refers to himself as “MAGA Mike” and faults Reeves for not publicly denouncing Trump’s indictment on criminal charges in New York related to hush money payments to an adult-film actress.

Reeves, an insurance agent, former Army Ranger and Prince William County narcotics detective, is seeking a fourth term. Generally considered one of the more conservative members of the Senate, Reeves has earned top ratings from the National Rifle Association and low ones from abortion rights groups.

“He’s trying to run to the right of me, which is pretty hard to do,” Reeves said. “And yet I still get a bunch of stuff done … like the largest tax cut for our veterans, fixing foster care and getting our gun rights back.”

In 2016, Reeves struck a deal with then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) to expand the rights of concealed-carry handgun permit holders in Virginia in exchange for tighter restrictions on gun ownership by domestic abusers and voluntary background checks at gun shows.

Allers, a former teacher and school administrator who favors term limits, contends that after dozen years in Richmond, Reeves has become an “establishment” figure. In a mailer, Allers blasts the senator for taking a political contribution from “a Communist Chinese-owned company,” a reference to a $500 donation Reeves accepted in 2015 from Smithfield Foods. The company had been acquired two years earlier by Hong Kong-based conglomerate WH Group. It is not owned by the Chinese government, which has become a potent rallying cry for the GOP thanks in part to its spy balloons and saber-rattling toward self-governing Taiwan.

“Say no to Beijing Bryce Reeves,” the mailer says.

“Yes, it seems like a small amount, but … to me, 500 bucks is a lot of money,” said Allers, who has raised about $46,000 to Reeves’s $644,000. “If people give me 25 bucks, I write them a beautiful letter. That’s where they’ve lost touch — politicians no longer think things like that are a big deal.”

China fuels debate in Richmond after Youngkin slams door on battery plant

Smithfield has given about $768,000 to Virginia politicians in the decade since the iconic Virginia ham company changed hands. More than half of that went to Republicans, including Youngkin, who accepted a $30,000 Smithfield donation in January 2022 for his inaugural committee. The governor, who made a politically charged trade mission to Taiwan this week, has leaned into anti-China rhetoric this year, raising alarms about Chinese purchases of American farmland — much of that based on land Smithfield acquired a decade ago.