The Virginia gubernatorial race between Democratic former Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Republican businessman Glenn Youngkin is on a knife edge, and some election forecasters now even give the Republicans a slight edge in a state that hasn't voted GOP at the top level in over a decade.
But according to Mother Jones, despite this, Republicans are already trying to lay the groundwork to claim the election was rigged, in case they lose.
"The strategy is simple: repeat the phony charge over and over to block full public acceptance of an unfavorable result," reported David Corn. "And this attack has come from multiple directions. Steve Bannon, the once-indicted-and-Trump-pardoned strategist has inserted himself into the race, and appearing on a Virginia-based talk show on October 29 to discuss the election, warned, 'They're Democrats. They're going to try to steal it. They can't win elections they don't steal, right? They understand this. This is what they did in '20. It's time now to start calling them out.'"
Other GOP allies who have repeated this baseless charge include country singer John Rich, who suggested of voting rights icon Stacey Abrams' trip to Virginia, "She's working on it… Do you really think California voted for Gavin Newsom again? I don't think so. Stacey Abrams was probably out there, too."
And right-wing talk radio host John Fredricks recently told his listeners that there's "a lot of people fear that this is going to get stolen, they're gonna try and cheat."
Former President Donald Trump normalized this conspiracy theory by pushing the "big lie" after losing the 2020 election, filing over 60 failed lawsuits to overturn the results in certain states.
"With all these claims, Trump and the Republicans are looking to get a head-start on undermining election results if they end up being good for McAuliffe," wrote Corn. "And these baseless accusations have also been used to motivate right-wing poll-watchers for the Virginia election."
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