Glenn Youngkin won the Republican nomination for the Virginia governor’s race on Monday, earning him a coveted spot in the upcoming gubernatorial election. His path to victory, however, comes after misleading and even deliberately false coverage from the New York Times, which began lying about him weeks ago.
Not long after President Joe Biden assumed office, Youngkin released a five-point election integrity plan dedicated to rooting out partisanship and secrecy in the Virginia Department of Elections, reinforcing voter identification, updating voter rolls, vetting mail-in ballots, and using observers and audits to ensure proper vote counting.
“This is not a Democrat issue or a Republican issue, it’s a democracy issue,” Youngkin said in a statement. “Both parties have long raised concerns, and we must restore Americans’ faith in the integrity of our elections.”
Youngkin’s plan was not a radical one. In fact, Republicans around the nation were evaluating their next steps after realizing the 2020 election not only damaged trust in the voting process but was severely influenced by Democrat citadels such as Big Tech companies and leftist corporations.
Despite rising support among the national GOP to enact or strengthen voting integrity measures, Democrats wrote off the Virginia candidate as a conspiracy theorist.
Glenn – Donald Trump and Amanda Chase are so proud of you for bringing up this conspiracy theory so important to Virginia voters. https://t.co/C4SCLWErGw
— Terry McAuliffe (@TerryMcAuliffe) February 15, 2021
With the framing set up by Democrat mouthpieces such as McAuliffe, one of the New York Times’ political reporters used his position covering the Virginia race to create and spread falsehoods about Youngkin’s election integrity plan.
During the Virginia GOP’s governor forum, NYT political reporter Trip Gabriel live-tweeted that Youngkin said Dominion voting machines are “the most important issue we’re going to talk about.”
Ok, so first q for GOP candidates is about what you’ll do if Dominion voting machines are used in November general election. “Will you immediately puruse an independent audit?”@GlennYoungkin says, “Ladies & gentlemen, this is the most important issue we’re going to talk about”
— Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) April 27, 2021
Youngkin, however, was actually referring to election integrity and his five-point plan, not Dominion voting machines specifically, which are not named in his platform. That didn’t stop Gabriel from including the same quote lacking context in his article headlined “Virginia G.O.P.’s Choices for Governor: ‘Trumpy, Trumpier, Trumpiest.’”
“In response to the Dominion question, Mr. Youngkin said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most important issue we’re going to talk about right now.’ He laid out ‘five steps to restore our trust’ in elections,” Gabriel wrote.
Gabriel’s misleading claims were quickly picked up by Democrats in Virginia, who echoed the lie that Youngkin was a conspiracy theorist and that the GOP candidates are “extremists” for wanting valid voting processes.
“Asked about Dominion voting machines, Glenn Youngkin responds, ‘Ladies & gentlemen, this is the most important issue we’re going to talk about.’ In fact, this ‘issue’ is complete horses***; as Trip Gabriel explains, ‘Dominion has sued Fox, others for defamation for spreading conspiracies about its machines,’” Blue Virginia, an organization dedicated to boosting Democrats in state elections, wrote in a blog post.
After Youngkin won the nomination this week, the same NYT reporter reiterated the false narrative in his most recent coverage of the gubernatorial race but took his commentary even further.
“At the recent candidates’ forum, Mr. Youngkin aligned himself with Mr. Trump’s lies about a rigged 2020 election, declaring ‘voter integrity’ a top issue and referring to Dominion voting machines — the subject of conspiracy theories on the far right — as ‘the most important issue’ of the campaign,” Gabriel wrote.
Trump endorsed Youngkin on Tuesday but did not mention anything about the rigged 2020 election.
“Glenn is pro-Business, pro-Second Amendment, pro-Veterans, pro-America, he knows how to make Virginia’s economy rip-roaring, and he has my Complete and Total Endorsement!” Trump said in a statement. “Glenn is running against Bill Clinton’s longtime enabler, Terry McAuliffe. Terry McAuliffe was the Clintons’ bagman in more ways than one, from the cover-ups to the get-rich-quick schemes, and his deals with Communist China look suspicious. He was responsible for many of the problems Virginia currently has. Virginia doesn’t need the Clintons or the Communist Chinese running the state, so say no to Terry McAuliffe, and yes to Patriot Glenn Youngkin!”
