Stacey Abrams joins statewide Democratic candidates at campaign stop in Merrifield

Terry McAuliffe and Stacy Abrams.

Candidate for governor Terry McAuliffe “will stand up for justice, for women’s rights, for human rights,” voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams told the crowd at a Democratic rally in Merrifield Oct. 17. 

Candidate for lieutenant governor Hala Ayala and Mark Herring, the state’s attorney general who’s running for re-election, also spoke, as well as McAuliffe, Sen. Mark Warner, and Rep. Don Beyer. 

Just 16 days before what is expected to be a close election, Abrams urged Democrats to make sure they vote, vote early, and bring like-minded people to the polls. 

“I come from a state where I was not entitled to become governor,” Abrams said, alluding to her loss in 2018 in Georgia amid accusations of voter suppression by Georgia’s secretary of state, who was also her Republican opponent. Abrams subsequently founded Fair Fight to promote fair elections across the nation. 

Related story: Early in-person voting underway

McAuliffe’s Republican opponent, Glenn Youngkin “has shown you he will cut jobs, that he will steal votes, that he does not believe in the integrity of elections – or integrity at all, it seems,” Abrams said. Youngkin has used the Jan. 6 insurrection “as a rallying cry for his election.” 

“Do we go toward the future? Or do we regress to a past that is dark and bitter and mean and does not believe in all of us?” she said. 

At a recent Youngkin rally, “they actually pledged allegiance to a flag that was used in the Jan. 6 insurrection,” McAuliffe said. Youngkin’s response was to call it “weird.” 

“If that had happened at one of my rallies,” McAuliffe said, “I would have called it disgraceful, despicable, and not be tolerated in this country. That’s what Glenn Youngkin should have said.” 

While Youngkin’s education plan will result in cutting 43,000 teachers, McAuliffe said, “Education is my main initiative.” He promised to raise teacher pay, provide preschool for all at-risk 3 and 4-year-olds, and ensure every child will have access to broadband at home. 

Stacey Abrams, Terry McAuliffe, and Mark Herring.

He would also raise the minimum wage to $15 by January 2024 and provide paid sick days and paid family medical leave.

Donald Trump said “Glenn Youngkin will do whatever we want him to do,” McAuliffe told the crowd. “And what does he want to do? He has pledged he will ban abortions here in the commonwealth of Virginia. He says the most important issue facing Virginia is – not jobs, not education, not healthcare – but election integrity. That’s the big, bold lie of 2020.”

“He will destroy our economy,” McAuliffe said of Youngkin. “He is against gay marriage. He is against a woman’s right to choose.”

Touting his success in attracting investments to Virginia, he said, “No business is coming to a state that discriminates against anybody.” 

Related story: McAuliffe, Youngkin clash on COVID, abortion, taxes

“We’ve come too far to let extreme Republicans take us backward,” said Ayala, who represents Prince William County in the House of Delegates. 

“My Trumpian opponent [Winsome Sears] and her running mates would take Virginia backward by criminalizing our bodies and ending our individual rights to choose,” Ayala said. “Virginia has rejected Trump twice and his unhinged, anti-science, anti-choice rhetoric.”

“There are times when we can have legitimate differences of opinion with our Republican opponents,” said Sen. Mark Warner. But the Republican Party of today “has fallen in as henchmen and followers of the greatest loser of all time, Donald Trump.” 

“All he is obsessed with is ‘the big lie’ – his willingness to undermine our democracy, his willingness to go further and further from the truth on every item,” Warner said. “Now that in itself should terrify us. But what terrifies me even more is I see virtually every Republican senator and congressman and this statewide ticket march in complete lockstep to those falsehoods.” 

The election in Virginia will be closely watched across the country, Abrams said. “We have to show America who we are, and it starts here in Virginia.”