President Trump used Twitter on Tuesday to weigh in on the high profile, heavily contested governor’s race in Virginia, touting the Republican candidate’s crime-fighting and job-creation abilities and urging people to hit the polls.
“@EdWGillespie will totally turn around the high crime and poor economic performance of VA. MS-13 and crime will be gone. Vote today, ASAP!,” Trump wrote from Seoul, South Korea, where he’s on a tour of five Asian nations.
At the same time, he slammed the Democratic candidate, Ralph Northam.
”Ralph Northam will allow crime to be rampant in Virginia,” the president posted. “He’s weak on crime, weak on our GREAT VETS, Anti-Second Amendment and has been horrible on Virginia economy. Vote @EdWGillespie today!”
The race is considered an early test of the Trump administration’s political influence that could have repercussions in next year’s midterm elections.
Most polls show Northam, the state’s lieutenant governor, with a slight edge over Gillespie – although many of them fall within the margin of error.
Gillespie, a one-time Washington lobbyist and former chairman of the Republican National Committee, and Northam clashed over hot-button issues like immigration, violent gangs like MS-13, and the controversy surrounding the removal of Confederate statues in a state Hillary Clinton defeated Trump by 5 percentage points last year.
