Terry McAuliffe is remarkably dishonest, even by politician standards. As he wheezes toward the finish line in next week's Virginia gubernatorial election, the Democratic nominee and longtime Clintonite can't or won't stop spreading false information on issues ranging from COVID to election integrity to his friend's blackface scandal. And when he's not serially lying and distorting, McAuliffe is blathering endlessly about the former president, prompting jokes that his entire closing message is 'noun, verb, Donald Trump.' Does anyone actually believe Glenn Youngkin is a Trump clone? C'mon:
"Glenn Youngkin is not a reasonable Republican," McAuliffe says at his rally in Richmond. "I call him Donald Trump in khakis. Do we want a lapdog to Donald Trump to be our governor here in the commonwealth? No we don’t."
— Henry J. Gomez (@HenryJGomez) October 23, 2021
Sharp political analyst Josh Kraushaar suspects the Democrats may be overplaying the so-called Trump card:
“It’s striking to see a sea of red Youngkin campaign signs in some of the bluest precincts in northern Virginia, where it was rare to see any Trump campaign material for miles during the last two presidential elections”https://t.co/ttVfYb1Fuz
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) October 24, 2021
By leaning heavily into the Trump connections so late in the election, McAuliffe is also indicating that he’s still concerned about the enthusiasm of Democratic voters in the final week of the campaign. Typically, candidates rally their base early on and focus the final stretch on closing the deal with persuadable voters. Yet even at this late hour, McAuliffe is bringing in progressive national Democratic figures like Stacey Abrams to generate excitement. Early voting data suggests lagging Democratic turnout in the heavily Democratic inner Northern Virginia suburbs, where Democratic engagement was at historic levels during the Trump administration. Polls show that Youngkin, focusing his campaign message on education, has closed McAuliffe’s early advantage.
McAuliffe is talking about Trump; Glenn Youngkin is talking about issues – issues that McAuliffe wrongly dismisses as made-up and racist. Barack Obama sounded a similar theme at his weekend rally for Virginia Democrats (where masks were required outdoors, which is anti-science), suggesting that areas of major concern are "culture war" distractions manufactured by right-wingers. But right-wingers didn't force McAuliffe to repeatedly demean the role of parents in their kids' education, or cover-up an bathroom sexual assault at a suburban high school, or induce the Biden Justice Department to coordinate a creepy and heavy-handed intervention with a special interest group that framed frustrated parents as domestic terrorists worthy of investigation under the Patriot Act (leading to a partial apology, which again underscores that the matter wasn't invented by conservatives). It's rather telling that I couldn't immediately tell whether this is GOP trolling or an actual Democratic campaign placard:
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Meanwhile, in Arlington... pic.twitter.com/xFll3qoCQC
— The Virginia Project (@ProjectVirginia) October 24, 2021
Back to the lying. We've established that McAuliffe is a norms-attacking, conspiratorial election truther. He's still at it, repeating a debunked lie – totally false – that the Democratic Party has almost universally embraced:
BREAKING: @TerryMcAuliffe claims that @staceyabrams should be governor of Georgia, claims @BrianKempGA "disenfranchised" 1.4M Georgia voters. https://t.co/sllyOESEjt
— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) October 24, 2021
He is also continually lying about COVID, fabricating wildly inaccurate statistics designed to scare the hell out of people. He already got caught inflating case counts and child hospitalizations in Virginia, and he continues to do so. He's also taken to claiming that current Democratic Governor Ralph Northam wasn't pictured in the infamous KKK/blackface photograph, which is not true:
McAuliffe says here neither of the people in the photo were Ralph Northam. Ralph Northam admitted that he was in the photograph and McAuliffe himself stated Northam needed to resign over it.
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) October 22, 2021
Hello fact checkers. You're welcome. https://t.co/JwNd8nsY7L
In fairness, it's tricky for McAuliffe to take a hard-line stance against white people wearing blackface because he's actively campaigning with two white people who've worn blackface – including one of the men on his ticket. I often think about how this dynamic would be covered in the press if the parties were reversed:
Virginia GOP ticket: Black woman
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) October 22, 2021
Virginia Dem ticket: Black face pic.twitter.com/CXzNzpPbvN
One wonders if any of this may have contributed to this decision:
America’s first democratically elected Black governor withholds his support for McAuliffe. Tacit endorsement, just like with McDonnell in 09. https://t.co/zm13d6DFhV
— Dr. Benjamin Braddock (@GraduatedBen) October 24, 2021
I'll leave you with yet another poll (which had McAuliffe up four a few weeks ago) showing a very tight race – as well as a reminder that even though Youngkin is undoubtedly closing strong, he still has an uphill battle that will require strong GOP turnout to win:
New @KellyannePolls #VAGov poll:
— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) October 24, 2021
Youngkin 43
McAuliffe 41https://t.co/a00gTjhFtI
This is the problem Youngkin has in #VAgov
— Reuben Rodriguez (@ReubenR80027912) October 24, 2021
His breakeven:
NoVA: 20% of vote, 30% R
RoS: 80% of vote, 55% R
That’s asking for
1) 13% drop in NoVA voting vs RoS *and*
2) Flipping 4% of NoVA voters R *and*
3) Getting 55% of RoS voting R
Possible sure. But that’s a huge ask https://t.co/WX3vDvpvNI
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