The momentum has shifted so dramatically against Terry McAuliffe in Tuesday’s Virginia governor’s race that numerous establishment media outlets — including CNN and Politico — have called out the Democrat for closing out his campaign with “a lie.”
“Guess how Glenn Youngkin is finishing his campaign?” Terry McAuliffe asked the attendees of his final campaign rally at a Fairfax brewery Monday night. “Glenn Youngkin is doing an event with Donald Trump here in Virginia, where he brought the hatred, the divisiveness that Donald Trump brought to this country. We’re going to put an end to Donald Trump’s future plans right here in Virginia.”
It’s true that President Donald Trump held an 11-minute “tele-rally” by phone on Monday evening, where the 45th president called Youngkin a “fantastic guy.” But Youngkin announced last Saturday that “I’m not going to be engaged in the tele-town hall.”
Surprisingly, a number of legacy media outlets corrected McAuliffe, who has spent weeks trying to regain lost momentum by tying the outsider Republican to Trump.
“TERRY MCAULIFFE wanted GLENN YOUNGKIN and DONALD TRUMP to campaign together so badly that when it didn’t happen, McAuliffe simply invented a Youngkin-Trump event that didn’t exist,” said the Politico Playbook this morning. “That was a lie. Trump wasn’t in Virginia and he never campaigned with Youngkin.”
“McAuliffe was desperate to manufacture the fake Trump event,” Politico added, since falling behind in an election many considered a formality in the increasingly blue state.
CNN also fact-checked the McAuliffe claim twice in less than 12 hours. “This is just not true from McAuliffe in Fairfax,’” wrote CNN national political reporter Dan Merica tweeted on Monday evening. “Youngkin is not ‘doing an event’ with Trump. The former president is calling into a closed press tele-rally.”
“To be clear here, the distinction is that Youngkin did not call into the tele-rally,” Merica specified.
To be clear here, the distinction is that Youngkin did not call into the tele-rally.
— Dan Merica (@merica) November 2, 2021
On Tuesday morning’s episode of CNN’s “New Day,” Washington correspondent Sunlen Serfaty noted that McAuliffe “falsely” placed Youngkin at the Trump event.
“Now, we did see Democrat Terry McAuliffe, last night in his closing pitch, not deviate whatsoever from the central part of his campaign strategy, which is to tie Republican Glenn Youngkin to the former president,” she said. “And he argued, falsely — claimed last night in his campaign event — he said that Glenn Youngkin was doing an event with the former president,” she said.
“Now, notably, Terry McAuliffe was wrong with his claims there,” Serfaty continued. “The former president did call into this tele-rally in support of Youngkin, but that was a call that Youngkin himself did not participate in, the campaign confirmed to CNN last night.”
Youngkin spent his final night on the campaign trail in Loudoun County, giving an impassioned speech that covered a panoply of local issues. His team also chided McAuliffe for allegedly peppering his media appearances with as many as 15 lies and grasping at straws to tie Youngkin to Donald Trump.
Live look at Terry McAuliffe's desperate campaign! #VAgov pic.twitter.com/yglPgK1eM8
— Team Youngkin (@TeamYoungkin) October 31, 2021
McAuliffe, who left the governor’s mansion due to term limits, had been the heavy favorite to win today’s gubernatorial race until a debate in which McAuliffe said, “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” After a year in which teachers unions had refused to teach children in person, demanded mask mandates for children, and foisted controversial and ideologically driver curricula based on Critical Race Theory, the remark left the Democrat sinking with voters.
Larry Sabato, who has lashed out at Youngkin for an alleged sub rosa racial appeal, changed his projection for the race from “leans Democratic” to “leans Republican.” FiveThirtyEight.com places Youngkin ahead in the polls by a razor-thin one percentage point, while RealClear Politics gives the Republican a two-point lead, still within the margin of error.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.