Campaign

Democratic super PAC targets Youngkin over voting rights

by Julia Manchester - 06/08/21 8:47 PM ET

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Carlyle Group President and Chief Operating Officer Glenn Youngkin participates in a panel discussion during the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s ‘Infrastructure Week’ program May 15, 2017 in Washington, DC. The panel, titled ‘Collaboration, Compromise, Consensus: Building A Blueprint for National Infrastructure Investment,’ highlighed national and local plans that emphasized public-private partnerships.

A new Democratic super PAC released one of the first ads of the general election in Virginia’s gubernatorial race Tuesday, targeting GOP nominee Glenn Youngkin over voting rights.

The 30-second spot from Strike Pac, dubbed “Steal” and released exclusively to The Hill, looks to tie the Republican nominee to GOP-backed bills in other states that seek to tighten voting laws.

“If Trump ally Glenn Youngkin and Republicans win here in Virginia, they’ll come for your vote too,” the ad says.

The ad comes after former Gov. Terry McAuliffe won the state’s Democratic gubernatorial primary on Tuesday, kicking off the general election.

It also follows a number of GOP-led legislatures in states such as Texas and Georgia that passed legislation aimed at tightening voting laws at the state level.

Youngkin launched an “Election Integrity Task Force” in February prior to winning to the Republican nomination. The Republican candidate said the task force is designed to establish legal voting standards in election processes.

McAuliffe and Virginia Democrats have argued the task force works to boost former President Trump’s baseless claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him. McAuliffe on his website accused Youngkin of “parroting Trump’s conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.”

Youngkin said earlier this month that “of course” President Biden was the legitimate president.

“I’m saying, of course! He’s [Biden’s] our president. He slept in the White House last night. He’s addressed a joint session of Congress. He’s signing executive orders that I wish he wasn’t signing,” Youngkin told Bloomberg Radio.

Youngkin’s allies have highlighted 2001 comments from McAuliffe about the highly contested 2000 presidential election in which he said Democrats won the election. Former Vice President Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College and thus the presidency to former President George W. Bush. The 2000 contest is considered to be one of the closest in U.S. history and culminated in the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court decision.

Tags Al Gore Donald Trump Joe Biden