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ARLINGTON, Va – President Joe Biden stumped for Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe in Northern Virginia Tuesday night. After winning the commonwealth by 10 points last year, Democrats hope that the president and other big names will help drive enough Democrats to the polls next week to help McAuliffe.
“Virginia, show up like you did for Barack and me,” President Biden said to the crowd with McAuliffe sitting right behind him.
Recent polling shows a dead heat in the final week of the race to be the next governor and national Democrats are now flooding into the commonwealth to try and keep Republicans out of the Executive Mansion for a third straight term.
Nationalizing a race in Virginia a few months ago would have been a no-brainer for the Democrats, but Biden’s approval rating has dropped to 43%, making this a complicated campaign decision. Since the start of this race, however, McAuliffe has been tying his Republican opponent, Glenn Youngkin, to Donald Trump to try and inspire his base. There might not be anyone better to do that than the man who defeated Trump at the polls last year.
“I ran against Donald Trump and Terry is running against an acolyte of Donald Trump,” Biden said.
The president talked about Youngkin’s embrace of Trump and election integrity during the nomination process. “Now he doesn’t want to talk about Donald Trump anymore, well I do,” Biden continued.
Biden’s visit also comes just two weeks after Virginia Republicans pledged allegiance to a flag that was present at the Jan. 6 rally in Washington D.C. “Even after the deadly attacks on Jan. 6, Glenn Youngkin launched his campaign promoting conspiracy theories. Let me be clear, Joe Biden won the 2020 election,” McAuliffe said to the crowd on Tuesday, receiving a loud roar in response from the crowd of approximately 2,500 people.
In addition to Biden — President Barack Obama, Vice President Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison, Stacey Abrams, Dave Matthews, and Pharelll are stumping across Virginia to inspire Democrats to vote for McAuliffe.
Youngkin’s campaign has focused on hitting McAuliffe for the low enthusiasm across the Democratic Party with each of the big names who have stopped by the commonwealth recently.
“Forty-year politician Terry McAuliffe doesn’t excite the Democratic party, so he’s desperately calling in other politicians to plead for votes,” said Macaulay Porter, a spokesperson for Youngkin. “Virginians are seeing the ramifications of a Biden administration with rising costs at the gas pump and a pricey thanksgiving meal on the horizon. Glenn Youngkin is winning on his message of lowering costs and running against politics as usual, so it’s no surprise that desperation has set in for the ruling class that sees their power slipping away.”
Election day in Virginia is Nov. 2.
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