Today, a new report from HuffPost details Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin’s continued role in spreading Donald Trump’s crazed conspiracy theories about a stolen election – despite the former president losing the Commonwealth by 10 points and only “one instance of criminal election fraud.”
Youngkin, who is set to hold a two day “election integrity rally” next week, pandered to a group of Trump supporters by refusing to refute the claim that there is a possible “path for Trump’s reinstatement” and used the lie to brag about his election integrity task force, which will push “new [voting] restrictions through the state.”
According to HuffPost:
His refusal to clearly refute the conspiracies Trump peddled offers a particularly sharp lens into the depth of GOP adherence to those lies: Even in Virginia, where candidates like Youngkin seem to sense that they need to moderate in order to score victories that have eluded the GOP for a decade, they routinely face questions from voters about election-related conspiracies that are now orthodoxy among the party’s base.
This isn’t the first time Youngkin has been recorded telling a MAGA crowd something he hopes Virginia voters won’t hear and it surely won’t be the last.
HuffPost: GOP’s ‘Moderate’ Candidate For Virginia Governor Keeps Feeding Election Conspiracies
By: Travis Waldron | August 2, 2021
Key Points:
- “Glenn Youngkin, the Republican candidate in Virginia’s looming gubernatorial election, twice refused to shut down GOP voters’ wild conspiracy theories about former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss at a campaign event last week, even balking at the chance to correct a voter who posited that Trump could be reinstated to the presidency as soon as this month.”
- “But instead of directly refuting the voter’s claim, which is based on another conspiracy Trump has apparently circulated, or others made during a question-and-answer session at the opening of a new campaign office in Fredericksburg, Virginia, last Thursday, Youngkin chose to promote the so-called ‘election integrity’ aspects of his platform, according to an audio recording obtained by HuffPost.”
- “‘Sir, I wish I had a magic wand, because we’ve got these same rules going into 2021,’ Youngkin said in response to another voter who claimed to have knowledge of dead people casting ballots in last year’s elections, a favorite Trump conspiracy theory for which he has offered no proof. ‘And by the way, when I’m governor, we’ll be able to make some reforms.’”
- “Youngkin has made ‘election integrity’ — the misnomer Republicans have used to create a slew of new voting restrictions nationwide — a centerpiece of his campaign. He formed an election integrity task force and has said he would seek to push a voter ID bill and other new restrictions through the state legislature, which is currently controlled by Democrats.”
- “[…] during a general election in which he has secured Trump’s endorsement, Youngkin has embraced the core message behind the claims: that the elections lacked sufficient protections to ensure their integrity ― if not in reality at least in the minds of Republican voters.”
Read the full report here.
Published: Aug 2, 2021