State Sen. Amanda Chase, an ally of GOP nominee Glenn Youngkin, is pushing new lies about election fraud ahead of November's gubernatorial election.
Virginia GOP state Sen. Amanda Chase used a Tuesday radio interview to baselessly claim that Democrats are trying to “steal” the state’s looming gubernatorial election, the first major race to occur in the wake of President Donald Trump’s continued lies that the 2020 presidential contest was stolen from him.
“I know how they’re stealing elections, and we’re not gonna let that happen this year,” Chase said of Democrats during a Tuesday interview, before launching into a series of absurd claims about next month’s election. The interview was conducted by John Fredericks, a conservative radio host whose show Trump used last month to claim Democrats would try to steal the election.
Chase, who attended the Jan. 6 rally during which Trump called on his supporters to “stop the steal” before the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, has spent recent weeks campaigning for Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin.
Youngkin has flirted with Trump’s election-related conspiracies throughout the race without explicitly endorsing them, as he attempts to appeal to moderate voters without alienating Trump devotees who have bought into the lies the party has told about the 2020 election. But Chase’s comments, and her increasingly prominent role in the late stages of the race, suggest parts of the GOP have decided to stake the contest largely on the ability of election-related conspiracies to motivate conservative voters.
During the interview, Chase said she had “cleared her schedule” and planned to spend the last 10 days of the campaign stumping with and for Youngkin ahead of the Nov. 2 election. She is also scheduled to appear at a Wednesday event alongside the GOP’s lieutenant governor candidate, Winsome Sears, and former Trump confidant Steve Bannon, who has also spread the lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
During election debates, Youngkin has said he believes the 2020 election was “certifiably fair” and that he expects to “have a clean, fair election” in Virginia this year. Youngkin campaign spokesperson Macaulay Porter argued that former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, Youngkin’s Democratic opponent, “is the only candidate in this race who has falsely claimed an election was stolen,” pointing to McAuliffe’s previous claims that the 2000 presidential election had been stolen from Al Gore.
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