2021 election results: Youngkin wins Virginia, mayor-elects make history

In what many considered to be the biggest of the 2021 election results, Republican Glenn Youngkin was declared the winner of the Virginia gubernatorial election early Wednesday morning. He defeated Democrat and former Gov. Terry McAuliffe. The video above shows clips from Youngkin’s victory speech.

“Together, we will change the trajectory of this Commonwealth,” Gov.-elect Youngkin said in his victory speech. “And friends, we are going to start that transformation on day one.”

Youngkin’s victory marks a sharp turnaround in the state, which had shifted left throughout the 2010s. President Biden won Virginia by 10 points in the 2020 presidential election, and there hasn’t been a Republican governor of Virginia since 2009.

In another concerning sign for Democrats, the only other governor race in the 2021 election was too close for many to call as of early Wednesday afternoon. That race is between New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli. Dave Wasserman with the nonpartisan Cook Political Report was among the first call the race for Gov. Murphy in a tweet. The Associated Press called it later in the day.

Murphy had been leading in the polls, with a 1 million-voter registration advantage and more campaign donations than Ciattarelli in the final days of the race. However, Cittarelli has far surpassed the previous Republican nominee in fundraising and has seen the gap in public polls move in his favor.

Other notable 2021 election results:

• Former police captain Eric Adams won the race for New York City mayor, following a ranked-choice Democratic primary that had some issues over the summer.
• Michelle Wu became the first woman and Asian American to be elected the mayor of Boston.
• Ed Gainey became Pittsburgh’s first black mayor.
• The race for Buffalo mayor between incumbent Byron Brown and democratic socialist India Walton remained too early to call as of Wednesday morning. Despite this, Brown declaring victory Tuesday, and Walton conceded Wednesday. Brown was running as a write-in candidate after Walton beat him in the Democratic primary back in June.
• Voters in Minneapolis voted to keep the city’s police department intact. The vote came in response to calls to replace the department with a Department of Public Safety following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin.