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But now he doesn’t want to talk about Trump any more. “It was price he had to pay for the nomination and he paid it. Youngkin had begun his campaign calling for “election integrity” to ally himself with Trump’s “big lie”, the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen, Biden said. He also noted how Youngkin has been walking a fine line between accepting Trump’s endorsement and barely mentioning him in speeches, a sign that the former president is toxic to most Virginians.
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Biden ran through McAuliffe’s accomplishments as governor, for example on gun safety, and his own presidential record on issues such as the coronavirus pandemic. He went on to confirm that the state-level race has taken on a national significance. Photograph: Tasos Katopodis/UPI/Rex/Shutterstockīiden, speaking at a McAuliffe rally for the second time, was greeted by enthusiastic cheers but also heckled by climate activists during his remarks. The close Virginia race has taken on national signficance. But Youngkin has been closing the gap, hammering away at “culture war” issues in schools as part of an effort to peel off suburban votes. Polls once gave McAuliffe a clear lead in a state where no Republican has won statewide office since 2009, and where Biden beat Trump by 10 percentage points last year. Youngkin, by contrast, is a business executive who has never held elected office. McAuliffe, a former governor seeking to return to the post, is a career politician and establishment Democrat long associated with Bill and Hillary Clinton. The election in Virginia is seen as the most important of the year, offering a window on to public sentiment about Biden’s first nine months in office and a preview of what to expect in next year’s midterm elections for Congress. “And Terry is running against an acolyte of Donald Trump.” “Just remember this: I ran against Donald Trump,” he told an estimated 2,500 people gathered in a park on a chilly Tuesday night. Biden had made the short journey from Washington to speak in support of the Democrat Terry McAuliffe, who faces a tight election against the Republican Glenn Youngkin next week.