Biden ties Republican in race for Va. governor to Trump

President Joe Biden framed the Virginia governor’s race as a repudiation of his predecessor, tying the Republican candidate to former President Donald Trump as he campaigned Tuesday night for Democrat Terry McAuliffe in what's become a tight and increasingly bitter campaign.

U.S. President Joe Biden speaks at a rally for Democratic gubernatorial candidate, former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, Oct. 26, 2021, in Arlington, Va. [Photo: AP/Alex Brandon]

No Republican has won statewide office in Virginia since 2009, and Biden carried it by a comfortable 10 percentage points in 2020. Yet polls have shown McAuliffe tied with Republican former business executive Glenn Youngkin with the election a week away — and the president's own popularity is on the decline.

In the final days of the race, both candidates are focused on turning out their base supporters, with Republicans pressing culture war issues — prompting a debate over banning books in high school classrooms — and McAuliffe, who previously served as governor from 2014 to 2018, hammering Youngkin for his ties to Trump.

Biden drove that theme home during a rally in Arlington, just across the Potomac River from Washington, mentioning the former president by name more frequently than Youngkin and drawing a direct line from last year's presidential race to next Tuesday's election.

“I ran against Donald Trump and Terry is running against an acolyte of Donald Trump," Biden said.

He charged that Youngkin “not only embraces some of the essential lack of character, he endorses Donald Trump's bad ideas and bad record."

McAuliffe, meanwhile, told the same gathering that Youngkin “is ending his campaign the way he started it: With divisive dog whistles."

“We have a choice: A path that promotes conspiracies, hate, division, or a path focused on lifting up every single Virginian,” McAuliffe said.

A loss by McAuliffe — or perhaps even a narrow victory — would be an ominous sign for Democrats already likely facing stiff political headwinds in next year's midterm elections, when their narrow control of the House and Senate will be on the line. The party that wins the White House historically losses congressional seats in the next election, and Virginia, this cycle's top off-year race, is seen as a key test of whether Democrats can head into 2022 with momentum.

How much help Biden will offer McAuliffe is unclear, though. The president has seen the percentage of Americans approving of his job performance fall after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and amid an economy that remains far from fully healed as the nation continues to struggle with the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden defended his record Tuesday night, rehashing some of his old arguments with Trump. He said that while Trump presided over a loss of American jobs, the Biden administration has overseen a surge in job creation, and also touted the strength of the stock market on his watch — a nod to one of Trump's favored metrics for success.

And Biden touted aspects of his infrastructure and social services spending proposals, tying his plans to the need to win next week's elections.

“We're on the right track, but we've got more to do," Biden said.

Youngkin's campaign released an ad featuring a mother who years ago sought to have the book “Beloved” banned from classrooms in suburban Washington. The acclaimed 1987 novel by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison is about an escaped slave who kills her infant daughter rather than allowing the girl to be returned to the plantation.

The mother's advocacy led to state legislation McAuliffe vetoed in 2016 and 2017 that would have let parents opt out of having their children study classroom materials with sexually explicit content.

McAuliffe’s campaign and fellow Democrats blasted Youngkin’s ad and accused him of trying to “silence” Black authors.