Tipsheet

Virginia Dems Take Credit After Youngkin Delivers on Key Campaign Promise

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  January 03, 2023 2:30 PM

During the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial campaign, Republican Glenn Youngkin, who ultimately emerged victorious, made it a major campaign promise to get rid of the grocery tax. On Sunday, January 1, the elimination of such a tax went into effect, but it was Virginia Democrats who stunningly took credit for the move in a tweet from that day which didn't even mention Gov. Youngkin, or any Republican.

This is not the first time that Virginia Democrats have jumped on board with Youngkin's idea. In December of 2021, just a few weeks before Youngkin was to be inaugurated, his predecessor, Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, expressed support for repealing the grocery tax as well as part of his outgoing proposals. 

Not long after he took office, Youngkin toured a Northern Virginia grocery store on February 3 of last year to meet with families about high costs and discuss eliminating the tax. 

On December 29, shortly before the plan went into effect, Youngkin tweeted out a video referencing how eliminating the tax was "delivering on promises made" and was "what Virginians elected us to do." The video clip is of a news segment from local outlet 13 ABC News Now, which points out that "providing relief at the supermarket is an initiative Gov. Youngkin has spoken about since his campaign trail." 

It's part of a larger plan, the clip mentions, to cut taxes in the commonwealth, which was another major part of Youngkin's campaign. "And now we gotta go to work to get rates down for people," the governor told the outlet in an interview, "and we're going to finish the work on our standard deduction and get that up to a double."

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"Youngkin" was trending on Monday night as a result of people calling out the Virginia Democrats for such a shameless tweet. 

The tweet garnered nearly 250 replies, far more than the Virginia Democrats' account usually gets. 

Further, the 48 quoted retweets also called out Democrats for lying, including the Virginia GOP's account, which also tweeted about Youngkin's proposal on Monday night.