Former president Donald Trump urged Virginia voters on the eve of Election Day to cast ballots for Republican gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin, releasing multiple statements praising the first-time candidate, who has been walking a fine line between pursuing the pro-Trump base and appealing to moderates who probably will decide the outcome of the election.
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In one statement, emailed to supporters and subsequently posted on Twitter by Trump’s spokesman, the former president appeared to be responding to ads funded by the Lincoln Project, a Republican anti-Trump group, that suggested Youngkin was “ashamed of Trump.”
“I say to all of our millions of followers, don’t listen to the Fake News and misleading advertisements,” Trump wrote. “… Get out and vote for a man who will be a great governor, Glenn Youngkin!”
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Later in the afternoon, Trump released a second statement that said, “Everything is on the line in this election, and every MAGA voter should strongly support Glenn Youngkin.”
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Youngkin has been careful to avoid explicit association with Trump in the race against Democratic former governor Terry McAuliffe as he aims to win over suburban and independent voters in a state Trump lost by 10 points last year. At the same time, Youngkin has pursued the conservative base by campaigning on culture-war issues that often animate Trump supporters, including opposition to critical race theory, an academic framework for studying race that is not actually part of Virginia’s K-12 curriculum.
The neck-and-neck race between Youngkin and McAuliffe has gained national interest as a bellwether for the 2022 congressional midterms and an indication of how Democrats will perform in a post-Trump era, as they compete to hold on to all three statewide seats and their 55-to-45 majority in the state House. The Democratic National Committee has invested nearly $6 million in cash and direct contributions in this year’s cycle, the DNC’s largest investment in the commonwealth in history, according to a DNC spokesperson.
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Trump, who endorsed Youngkin after he won the Republican nomination in May, hasn’t been as eager to let Youngkin distance himself.
In September, Trump said Youngkin risked losing the race by not fully embracing the Make America Great Again movement. In his Monday morning statement, he said the effort to separate the two was designed so that his “great and unprecedented Make America Great Again base will not show up to vote.”
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In another attempt to inject himself into the race, the former president teased the idea of coming to Virginia to campaign on behalf of Youngkin last week. Instead, Trump is scheduled to participate in a tele-rally Monday night intended to bolster support for Youngkin and the rest of the Republican ticket.
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On Saturday, when asked about the tele-rally by reporters, Youngkin said he would not be engaged in the event as he would be traveling around the state for final campaign stops.
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Trump did not respond to questions about the statements or tele-rally.
The virtual rally is expected to be a big teleconference, with Trump on the line along with Virginia supporters. McAuliffe, who has tried to tie Youngkin to Trump as a key strategy in the race, is expected to denounce the tele-rally during his own closing rally in Northern Virginia on Monday evening.
Two weeks ago, Trump called into a Richmond-area rally headlined by his former chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon. Youngkin did not attend the rally, which was hosted by John Fredericks, a talk radio host and Trump’s former Virginia chairman, saying he had a conflict. He initially thanked Fredericks for planning the rally but later said it was “weird and wrong” for participants to have pledged allegiance to an American flag that was said to have flown in Washington ahead of the Jan. 6 insurrection.
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Along with encouraging votes for Youngkin, both of Trump’s statements on election eve laid the groundwork for unfounded claims of election fraud in the race. In one statement, Trump said that he was “not a believer in the integrity of Virginia’s elections,” and in the other that the Republican ticket must win by a margin larger than the “margin of fraud.”
Youngkin has repeatedly said that he does not believe there was election interference in 2020 in Virginia or that there would be in this year’s race, but he also spent the early days of the race building his campaign on “election integrity” issues.
No evidence of fraud in the 2020 election has been found in Virginia.
Michael Scherer contributed to this report.