Old Dominion News

Virginia’s former Democratic governor, Terry McAuliffe, facing a tough re-election bid, is receiving a big boost from one of the country’s most politically active public sector unions, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), writes Hayden Ludwig, a senior investigative researcher with the Capital Research Center (CRC).

The center describes itself as supporting "the principles of individual liberty, free-market economy and limited constitutional government."

SEIU has donated $40,000 to a liberal, vote-by-mail advocacy group, The Center for Voter Information, which has been part of an effort to send out more than 2 million mailers, urging Virginia voters to apply for mail-in ballots ahead of the Nov. 2 election.

“Higher voter turnout driven by mail-in ballots may prove crucial to former governor Terry McAuliffe's re-election campaign, particularly in populous Fairfax County, a Democratic stronghold that the Center for Voter Information plans to flood with nearly 420,000 mailers,” Ludwig wrote in an article published in the Free Beacon. “Mail-in ballots have typically favored Democrats, with Biden voters twice as likely as Trump voters to vote by mail in the 2020 election. A Republican victory in Virginia would be a sign of trouble for Democrats ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.”

The Center for Voter Information is officially nonpartisan for tax purposes, Ludwig reports, but it spent $583,000 in outside expenditures that directly aided 2020 Democratic candidates, including President Joe Biden.

Ludwig earlier reported that the center and another progressive activist group, the Voter Participation Center, plan to flood Virginia with absentee-ballot mailers ahead of the Nov. 2 election where races for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general and control of the House of Delegates are all up for grabs. CRC reports that both groups are little more than left-of-center get-out-the-vote operations.

Polls show a tight race between McAuliffe and Republican businessman Glenn Youngkin.

The race could come down to fundamental differences over the direction of the public schools. In a debate with Youngkin last week, McAuliffe said, “I’m not going to let parents come into schools and take books out and make their own decision. I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach."

The comment gave Youngkin ammunition for a campaign ad: “Are you a parent who wants to have a say in your child’s education? Too bad. Terry McAuliffe says you have to sit down and shut up.”