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Biden is Coming to Virginia on Tuesday to Campaign with McAuliffe After Weak Campaign Visit from Kamala Harris

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  October 21, 2021 5:45 PM

Update:

Will Weissert reported for the Associated Press that Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe spoke to a crowd of "hundreds."

Republican gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin on Tuesday was able to draw a crowd close to 1,000 with a filled room and overflow crowd outside, as he called for an investigation into the Loudoun County School Board.

The vice president warned of a "tight" race and ranted about a Democratic talking point of "don't Texas Virginia." McAuliffe has claimed, multiple times, that Virginia could become like Texas on abortion if Youngkin is elected governor, despite the Republican nominee indicating during the first debate last month that he would not sign Texas' abortion law banning almost all abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which is at around six weeks, if it came across his desk. 

While Harris claimed that abortion is "one of the biggest issues in this race," a Monmouth University poll released on Wednesday indicated that just 17 percent of registered Virginia voters consider it a top issue. McAuliffe's edge over Youngkin on the issue is 35 to 33 percent. 

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McAuliffe himself also repeated another misleading tactic about his opponent. As Weissert reported:

McAuliffe chided Youngkin for making pledges to protect election integrity a top priority if he wins the governorship, saying that kind of promise fed conspiracy theories advanced by former President Donald Trump.

“We’ll have no illusions here. In 2020, Kamala Harris was elected vice president and Joe Biden was elected president,” McAuliffe said.

No such "illusions" exist for Youngkin, either, who has repeatedly affirmed, including during an interview with Guy on his radio show, that Harris and Biden were legitimately elected in 2020.

McAuliffe, however, is an election denier, when it comes to questioning the legitimacy of the 2000 presidential election resulting in George W. Bush becoming president. 

Original Post:

Last Tuesday, Townhall was present at an event where Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe was asked by a reporter about President Joe Biden, with McAuliffe responding with "he'll be coming back." On Thursday, Laura Vozzella reported for The Washington Post that the president will be coming next Tuesday, just one week away from the election.

Reporting from Vozzella and from the Associated Press focuses heavily on former President Donald Trump. The former president lost Virginia by over 10 points in 2020, where the Democratic presidential candidate has won every time since Barack Obama. 

Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin has made clear he is not turning to the same outside help McAuliffe is because he is the one campaigning for himself leading up to the election. Youngkin emphasized a particularly strong contrast in that regard when speaking with Townhall last weekend at a campaign event.

"Down this stretch, what you're going to see is Glenn Youngkin running for Virginians, you're going to see me traveling everywhere, speaking to Virginians, and listening to Virginians, and you're going to see Terry McAuliffe trying to bring in every single person outside of Virginia that he possibly can, to try to garner some support," Youngkin said.  

It was also revealed on Wednesday that a majority of Youngkin's financial contributions come from inside Virginia, at 59 percent, according to reporting from Alayna Treene and Lachlan Markay with Axios. A majority of McAuliffe's contributions, on the other hand, at 64 percent, come from outside of Virginia. 

The reports from Vozzella and AP don't focus nearly enough on how unpopular the president is in Virginia, something even McAuliffe has admitted, when he said that Biden "is unpopular today unfortunately here in Virginia."

According to a Monmouth poll released on Wednesday, President Biden has a 43 percent approval rating and a 52 percent disapproval rating in the commonwealth. That same poll shows the race to be a dead even heat, with each candidate enjoying 46 percent support from registered voters. McAuliffe had been up by 5 in earlier polls from Monmouth.

Vice President Kamala Harris is appearing with McAuliffe tonight, though according to Matthew Foldi with the Washington Free Beacon, attendance is looking sparse. 

Meanwhile, on Tuesday night, Youngkin, who appeared beside Winsome Sears and Jason Miyares, the Republican candidates for lieutenant governor and attorney general, respectively, drew a crowd of nearly 1,000 attendees in Burke. Youngkin was there to call for an investigation into the Loudoun County school board, and to announce that his administration will do so on his first day in office. The school district has come under fire after a biological boy allegedly raped female students. 

The vice president's other campaign tactics also appear to be a dud, from a legal perspective. Recorded messages from Harris were played in churches on Sunday and will continue to be played leading up to the election, calling on parishioners to vote for McAuliffe. Such partisan campaigning inside of a church is in clear  violation of IRS rules.