McAuliffe Falsely Claimed Youngkin Holding Event With Trump Night Before Election

Democratic Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe claimed his Republican opponent, Glenn Youngkin, was campaigning with former President Donald Trump. “That was a lie,” Politico reported.

Reporters told McAuliffe Sunday that Trump was not in Virginia and Youngkin was not involved in Trump’s event. McAuliffe responded that it was “killing” Trump to not be in Virginia. “Trump is very unpopular here in the state, everybody knows it, and that’s probably why Youngkin doesn’t want him,” McAuliffe said.

“Guess how Glenn Youngkin is finishing his campaign?” McAuliffe asked a small crowd outside a brewery, according to Politico. “He is doing an event with Donald Trump here in Virginia.”

The claim is false, Politico said, reporting that former President Donald Trump held his own “tele-rally” Monday wich Youngkin did not attend. Trump and Youngkin have not campaigned together at all, according to the Youngkin campaign.

Trump lost Virginia by 10 points in 2020, and unlike many republican candidates for office, Youngkin has focused primarily on local issues such as education and declined to focus on the former president in his campaign.

Opponents of Youngkin have attempted to link him to Trump. Reporters shared photos of individuals with tiki torches in front of a Youngkin bus Friday in an apparent reference to the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville in 2018.

McAuliffe campaign staffer Jen Goodman shared the photos minutes after the initial reports in a since-deleted tweet, calling the incident “disgusting and disqualifying” for Youngkin. The campaign did not distance itself from the smear until several hours after the story had circulated, Fox reported.

The Virginia race is too close to call, according to CNN, but a Thursday Fox News poll found Youngkin ahead by eight points.

The McAuliffe campaign did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.