Trump Says Youngkin’s Win Proves Virginia Had an Election Fraud Problem

Republican former President Donald Trump has claimed that the Tuesday night victory of Republican Virginia Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin proves that the state had an election fraud problem during the 2020 presidential election.

Youngkin won the hotly contested governor’s race by 79,796 votes, representing a 2.5 percent voter margin. During the 2020 election, now-President Joe Biden beat Trump by 451,138 votes, representing a 10.1 percent voter margin.

After losing the 2020 election, Trump claimed that he had only lost due to an unprecedented nationwide conspiracy of voter fraud.

Trump’s former attorney general, his former head of U.S. cybersecurity infrastructure, over 60 court cases filed by Republicans, as well as numerous statewide audits all concluded that there’s no real evidence that the 2020 election was stolen.

Nevertheless, Trump told right-wing radio host John Fredericks on Wednesday, “We have a very corrupt election process in this country, and I’ve exposed that.”

Fredericks served as Trump’s former campaign chairman in Virginia for 2016 and 2020. In his Wednesday broadcast, Fredericks asked Trump how Youngkin could have won Virginia by over 2 percent when Trump lost the state by 10 percent.

“Yeah, I don’t believe that we lost there. I don’t believe we lost Virginia,” Trump said, “What a mess, what a mess, this election process. Now I don’t believe it. They said Virginia’s blue. I never believed it was blue.”

In other words, Trump implied that last night’s gubernatorial election in Virginia wasn’t plagued by election fraud because the Republican candidate won. This tracks with his former comments claiming that election fraud had only occurred in the blue states where Trump had lost.

In actuality, Virginia alternates between being red and blue. Between 1900 and 2020, Virginia voters have chosen Democratic presidential candidates 17 times and Republicans 14 times, according to Ballotpedia. Virginia has voted blue for the four most recent presidential elections.

Trump then told Fredericks that Youngkin would’ve lost if Trump supporters—a group that Trump refers to as MAGA (an initialism of his 2016 campaign slogan “Make America Great Again”)—hadn’t come out to vote on Tuesday.

“All these people that turned out last night. Look, without MAGA, (Youngkin) would have lost by 15 points,” Trump added. “More, I think more than that.”

Trump is correct that a record number of Virginian gubernatorial voters helped Youngkin win. However, Youngkin’s victory occurred partly because he outperformed Trump among independent and suburban voters, according to the data journalism website FiveThirtyEight.

In fact, Youngkin took great pains to distance himself from Trump during his campaign, despite sharing some of Trump’s same policy positions. Youngkin never appeared with the former president in public appearances.

In a September 28 debate, Youngkin chided his Democratic opponent Terry McAuliffe for repeatedly comparing him to Trump.

“You’re running against me. It’s Terry McAuliffe against Glenn Youngkin,” Youngkin said. “The only person invoking Trump is you.”

Youngkin also benefitted from his successful use of parental opposition to “critical race theory,” mask mandates and “objectionable” reading materials in public schools.

Numerous political commentators have said that McAuliffe may have also suffered because of his campaign’s embrace of Biden, who currently has a poor approval rating.

Newsweek contacted Trump’s office for comment.

*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from Newsweek can be found here ***