Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) on Thursday decried Laura Ingraham’s “racist kind of talk” after the Fox News host attributed some of the historic gains Democrats made in Virginia elections to an increase in the “foreign-born” population.
“She oughta take her racist policies, go sit with Donald Trump and have a good afternoon talking to each other,” McAuliffe, who served as Virginia governor from 2014-2018, said on CNN when asked about Ingraham’s remarks from the night before.
“We don’t want that in the Commonwealth in Virginia,” he added. “We are a strong state because of our diversity.”
Fox News did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Hill.
“It’s the diversity that makes us the strong country we are. It makes Virginia strong. We love our diversity [and] we don’t want that racist kind of talk in our state,” he said, arguing Democrats won control of the General Assembly because they “focused on issues that matter to people.”
“We are inclusive, open, welcoming, we’re booming,” he added.
{mosads}The Virginia Democratic Party on Tuesday won control of Virginia’s government for the first time since 1994. Democrats won at least 21 of 40 seats in the state Senate and 51 seats in the 100-member House of Delegates. The wins led Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) to declare that the “ground has shifted in Virginia government.”
Northam has already vowed to put forth legislation addressing gun control, climate change and the LGBTQ community, issues that Democrats campaigned on in the run-up to the elections.
Commenting on the results, Ingraham noted on her nightly Fox News program Wednesday “that demographic changes throughout the state, but especially in Northern Virginia, have altered what was once a moderate to right-of-center state.”
“And it made it really a petri dish for radical left-wing ideas,” she added. “Virginia’s foreign-born population nearly doubled from 2000 and 2017, and these immigrants are mostly concentrated in Northern Virginia. Fairfax County, Loudoun County, Prince William County, outside of D.C., and they are altering the demographic makeup of the state — and, as The Washington Post and others have pointed out, the electorate.”
She later said Virginia’s electorate has been “dragged” to the left “since immigrants are more likely to vote Democrat.”
“That’s just a fact of life,” she argued, before asserting that the shift has also come from suburban women.
Ingraham, a vocal Trump supporter, has sparked controversy in recent years with her rhetoric on immigration. In June 2018, she argued that the “America we know and love doesn’t exist anymore” because of demographic changes largely due to illegal and legal immigration.
The foreign-born population in Virginia increased 78 percent between 2000 and 2017, The Washington Post reported.
The newspaper also noted that several states with faster rates of foreign-born population growth, including North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee and South Carolina, went for President Trump in 2016.