VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — The candidates in Virginia’s high-stakes, closely watched race for governor are in a final sprint before Election Day.
Republican Ed Gillespie and Democrat Ralph Northam crisscrossed Virginia on Saturday and Sunday trying to rally supporters while allied groups and political parties on both sides touted unprecedented get-out-the-vote efforts.
A New York Times/Siena College poll released Sunday found that Northam holds a modest 3-point lead over Gillespie, 43 percent to 40 percent.
Virginia is one of only two states electing a new governor this year, and the contest is viewed by many as an early referendum on President Trump’s political popularity.
Democrats are eager to prove they can harness anti-Trump energy into success at the polls, while Republicans are looking to show they have a winning blueprint in a blue-leaning state. Most public polls have shown a close race to succeed Governor Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat who is term-limited.
Northam, a pediatric neurologist and the state’s lieutenant governor, spent Saturday in voter-rich northern Virginia, where Democrats have run up huge leads in recent statewide elections. He attended rallies with union members, immigrant groups, and others where he sought to use anti-Trump energy as a motivating factor.
Northam said he felt strong enthusiasm from his supporters and said he was heartened by the high number of absentee votes that had been cast so far compared with four years ago, particularly in Democratic-leaning areas.
Northam predicted overall turnout Tuesday could surpass 50 percent, which would be a significant increase from previous gubernatorial contests.
In a separate development, Northam’s campaign said it has evidence that automated social media accounts — or bots — were used to inflame online chatter about a controversial TV ad launched by a progressive group that’s backing Northam.
That ad, which depicted a white Gillespie supporter in a pickup truck bedecked with a Confederate flag chasing children of different ethnicities, was sponsored by the Latino Victory Fund and ran for just two days last week on Spanish language stations.
But it generated howls of outrage from the campaign of Republican rival Ed Gillespie and his surrogates and supporters.
They denounced the spot as being ‘‘disdainful of millions of Virginians,’’ called on Northam to disavow it, and then condemned him when he declined. Gillespie appeared on ‘‘Fox and Friends’’ and called the ad ‘‘an attack on all Virginians.’’
The Latino advocacy group stood by the ad as a response to a series of ads from Gillespie that began airing in September and seemed to link illegal immigrants with the violent Latino street gang MS-13. Those ads also have drawn widespread condemnation for being racially insensitive and for seeking to whip up fear about immigrants.
Associated Press
