Worried that Democrat Ralph Northam is losing steam in the Virginia governor’s race, his political allies have flooded into the Old Dominion in the final days of the campaign with sharpened attacks, including attempts to tie Republican Ed Gillespie to neo-Nazis.
One ad shows Hispanic, black and Muslim children running from a Confederate-flag-flying pickup truck sporting a Gillespie campaign sticker and a tea party bumper sticker, and pleading with voters to “reject hate” in next week’s election.
The Gillespie campaign said the ad, sponsored by the Latino Victory Project, was vile and would turn voters against Democrats while Mr. Gillespie pushes for an upset victory in an increasingly blue state.
Liberal groups’ money has flowed into the race to try to bolster Mr. Northam, the sitting lieutenant governor, with the League of Conservation Voters, Planned Parenthood Virginia, NextGen Climate Action and Everytown for Gun Safety, a prominent gun control group, leading the pack, according to figures from the Virginia Public Access Project.
Quentin Kidd, director of the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University, said the Latino Action Fund’s ad reflects the emergence of a “muscular left” after Donald Trump’s election victory last year.
“We have seen a muscular right politics for years, but I think we are seeing a more muscular progressive politics,” he said, adding that the tone of the campaign changed last week after Virginia Democrats started linking Mr. Gillespie and Mr. Trump with white nationalists.
SEE ALSO: Ed Gillespie slams Latino Victory ad as a ‘new low’
“It sort of signaled a new stage in the last couple weeks of the election that this was going to be a knife fight in the cage and it will be a cage fight to the death,” Mr. Kidd said.
Former U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, a favorite of progressives who lost to Mr. Northam in the primary, campaigned Monday alongside him. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, meanwhile, headlined an event for Mr. Gillespie.
But that sort of run-of-the-mill campaigning is overshadowed by the ad wars. In recent weeks, Mr. Gillespie has accused Mr. Northam of enabling the violent MS-13 transnational criminal gang, and now Mr. Northam’s allies call Mr. Gillespie an enabler of racial violence.
Mr. Kidd said the increasingly intensified attacks appear to be aimed at winning over a small pool of undecided voters who could swing the election.
“Gillespie is trying to say to them, ’You should worry about crime, illegal immigrants and drugs,’ and Northam has said to those moderate, independent voters that ’You should worry about neo-Nazis and Confederates,’” Mr. Kidd said.
The Latino Victory Fund ad released Monday accuses the Republican of making misleading statements about immigration that have stoked fears in minority communities.
In the minutelong “American Nightmare” spot, the children of minorities wake up rattled after dreaming about being chased through the streets by the Confederate-flag-toting, Gillespie bumper-stickered truck.
“Is this what Donald Trump and Ed Gillespie mean by the American Dream?” the narrator says over television footage from this summer’s Charlottesville protests that attracted tiki-torch-toting neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members.
The ad follows the campaign mailers sent by the state Democratic Party with photos of Mr. Gillespie and Mr. Trump imposed over a photo of the Charlottesville white nationalist rally, telling voters to “stand up to hate.”
Chris Leavitt, head of the Gillespie campaign, said the television ad was sickening.
“Sadly, the Northam campaign and its allies have launched a desperate smear campaign against Ed in the closing days of this election,” Mr. Leavitt said. “The lieutenant governor was roundly rebuked for exploiting imagery from the tragedy of Charlottesville for political points. Now his allies have reached a new low with a disgusting, vile television ad seeking to instill fear in our children with that same imagery.”
It marks a U-turn from recent weeks in which it was the Northam campaign complaining that Mr. Gillespie’s MS-13 ads were misleading and were attempting to scare Trump supporters into turning out to vote.
Mr. Trump has endorsed Mr. Gillespie but has not campaigned with him.
Polls in the Virginia race are all over the place.
The Real Clear Politics average of polls over the past two weeks gives Mr. Northam a 3-percentage-point lead over Mr. Gillespie, but each man has led in three of the past six surveys.
Mr. Gillespie’s best showing was an 8-point lead in a Hampton University poll completed on Oct. 22.
On Monday, the Quinnipiac University Poll went the other way, finding Mr. Northam with a whopping 17-point lead among likely voters.
The survey found Mr. Northam is running even among white voters and holds a 57-point lead among nonwhite voters. He is up double digits among both men and women.
The survey also showed Mr. Trump’s approval rating is in the tank, with 6 in 10 likely voters disapproving of the president.
“In 2014, Republican Ed Gillespie came oh so close to upsetting Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, at least in part because 2014 was a Republican year and Gillespie benefited from the national pro-GOP mood,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. “But with President Donald Trump’s approval ratings in the dumpster in Virginia and in the nation, this year the shoe is on the other foot for Gillespie.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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