(TheLibertyRevolution.com)- Former President Barack Obama is taking to the campaign trail to support Democrats who are running for prominent positions next month.
On October 23, Obama is set to appear in Richmond with Terry McAuliffe, Virginia’s Democratic candidate for governor. McAuliffe, who served as Virginia’s governor between 2014 and 2018, is in a projected tight election race with the Republican candidate, Glenn Youngkin.
Because of this, the Democratic Party is calling on the big guns to rally behind him. In addition to Obama, First Lady Jill Biden is set to campaign with McAuliffe this coming weekend. She’ll also be joined by Stacey Abrams, the former gubernatorial candidate in Georgia who has since served a role of getting the vote out among Democrats.
McAuliffe made all these campaign partners public while appearing on the “Morning Joe” show on MSNBC this week as a seemingly desperation move to get people on his side. The deadline for voters in Virginia to register before November’s election was Tuesday.
After the McAuliffe campaign made those announcements earlier in the week, the campaign for Youngkin responded by saying their opponent was starting to get nervous as the election draws nearer.
Macaulay Porter, a spokesperson for Youngkin’s campaign, said in a statement:
“Terry McAuliffe is scared because Virginians are roundly rejecting 40-year politician Terry McAuliffe’s plans to defund the police, strip parents of their rights to have a say in their children’s education, and to fire people who don’t follow his authoritarian vaccine mandates, so his response is to bring in more politicians to help draw a crowd larger than 12 people.
“Glenn Youngkin is an outsider focused on delivering for the people of Virginia and making the state the best place to live, work, and raise a family.”
The two major party candidates are in a very tight race for Virginia’s governor, which means the result of the election could come down to which party is able to get out the vote better. Since 2008, Virginians have voted Democrat in every presidential race. That year was the first time Obama ran.
The Cook Political Report, which is a nonpartisan group, has said the race is as good as a “toss-up.” A poll released just last week by the Christopher Newport University said McAuliffe was ahead by 4 points, but that was within the university’s 4.2% margin of error.
In other words, it’s too close to call as of now, so every little move could matter.
It’s not often that a gubernatorial election would attract so much attention on the national level, but many are seeing this race as a bellwether for the midterm elections that will be held next year.
The White House is particularly interested in the outcome of Virginia’s election, as McAuliffe is one of the closest allies President Joe Biden has. Despite that strong relationship, McAuliffe did admit recently that Biden isn’t as popular in Virginia as he once was.
A clip that surfaced last week caught McAuliffe saying:
“We got to get Democrats out to vote. We are facing a lot of headwinds from Washington, as you know. The president is unpopular today unfortunately here in Virginia. So, we have got to plow through.”
