re: What makes this VA Gov. race so meaningful?

It means Donald Trump is coming back to take what was rightfully his in 2020.

This campaign was all about unforced errors and finding the winning issue.

Basically, McAuliffe thought the election was in the bag (it still might be, tbh), so he thought that he had a free hand to announce very radical policy for his platform. He took the side that parents should have no say in school curriculums, endorsed vax mandates, backed critical race theory, demanded all confederate monuments be taken down, etc. He assumed that he could just skate past his opponent, and if things got even a little dicey, paint his opponent as a racist and coast to an easy victory on the backs of suburban women, poor blacks, and government/government contractor employees.

On the flip side, Youngkin found the issue. He figured out a simple issue that he could base his campaign around which would reach across every goddamn demographic. When he started attacking McAuliffe on it, rather than try to walk back previous statements, McAuliffe doubled-and tripled down. He even tried to attack Youngkin and his base on that issue. What this did was make it THE principle issue of the campaign and caused a massive revolt among those same suburban mothers he needed to win. Suburban moms will accept a lot of stupid things if they think it will protect their children, but you can be damn sure they won't accept being told they won't have a say in some facet of their child's life. The best part was this allowed Youngkin to make his campaign one completely devoid of his personality. It was no longer about him at all, it was about this one issue that united a huge percentage of the electorate. By not having this election be about Youngkin, people weren't paying attention to any potential skeletons, playing "no true Scotsman" with his moderate views, or worrying about whether he was too MAGA verses not enough.

When McAuliffe got desperate, he got sloppy and got caught making some of the most lame, desperate, and obviously fraudulent attempts to paint his opponent as a racist. These attempts backfired wiley-cayote style, turning McAuliffe into a punchline overnight. The fact that the campaign had been so grounded in one particular issue, and not about Youngkin's past, political affiliations, or personality helped to ensure that the attacks fizzled because no messaging had prepared the public to accept Youngkin as a radical person or personality. He was simply a milquetoast figurehead for one issue.

Short short version is McAullife chose the wrong issues and Youngkin chose the right one.