This article was reprinted with permission from Virginia Mercury.
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump called into an early voting rally in Chesterfield Saturday hosted by Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s PAC to boost congressional candidates in Virginia and excite the state’s GOP base.
Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee and Trump’s daughter-in-law, was one of several speakers at the event, including Youngkin, Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears, U.S. Senate hopeful Hung Cao and 1st Congressional District incumbent U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman.
“November 5 is going to be the biggest, most important day in the history of our country,” Trump said on his phone call to Youngkin and rally-goers. “We win Virginia, it’s over.”
While he and his opponent Vice President Kamala Harris have spent a lot of time campaigning in battleground states seen as key to winning the presidency like Pennsylvania, Arizona and North Carolina, Trump said he thinks “Virginia is still in play.”
Democratic Party of Virginia chairwoman Susan Swecker disagreed, saying in a statement “Donald Trump knows he can’t win Virginia, so he is trying to exploit Glenn Youngkin’s illegal voter purge to satisfy his own sick obsessions.”
Trump announced in his call that his campaign has a rally planned for Nov. 2 in Salem, Virginia. He also stressed his goals to build a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border and enhance funding for border security measures in his phoned-in comments, sentiments echoed by the day’s other speakers. He repeated false allegations that other countries are releasing people from prisons and mental institutions to illegally enter the U.S., highlighting immigration reform as a priority issue of his campaign.
