Virginia GOP gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin made a pitch to strengthen election integrity in the state, but stopped short of making claims that voter fraud is a major problem.
Mr. Youngkin advocated for voter IDs and clean voter rolls in his bid for governor during Thursday night’s debate against former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic nominee. The debate was held at Appalachian School of Law in Grundy, Virginia.
“I do not believe there’s been significant fraud in Virginia elections, but I believe this is a democracy issue we’re talking about, not a Republican issue, not a Democrat issue,” Mr. Youngkin said.
The candidate added that he has acknowledged President Biden’s victory in the 2020 election several times and signaled that he wanted to invest in state elections in a similar manner to what Florida did after the disputed 2000 presidential election there.
“That’s the kind of investment I’ll make when I’m governor,” Mr. Youngkin said. “I’ll invest in making sure our voter rolls are updated. I’ll ask everyone to show up to vote with a photo ID.”
Mr. Youngkin, who received the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, also denied that Democrats would cheat their way to victory in the November election.
“I think we’re going to have a clean, fair election that I fully expect to win,” he said.
Mr. Youngkin slightly trails Mr. McAuliffe, according to a new 8News/Emerson College poll that came out Thursday ahead of the debate.
The poll had Mr. McAuliffe with 49% of voter support compared to Mr. Youngkin’s 45%. The poll surveyed 778 likely Virginia voters between Sept. 13-14 and had an error margin of 3.4 percentage points.
• Mica Soellner can be reached at msoellner@washingtontimes.com.
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