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Ed Gillespie Caught on Tape Calling Northern Virginia ‘Enemy Territory’

Posted on
November 6, 2017
by Andrew Cullen
The 2017 Virginia Gubernatorial Election has been an ugly one. Republican Ed Gillespie faced a primary challenge from a pro-Trump populist who did much better than anyone expected. As a result, he’s was forced to move far to the right just to keep up.

As a result, the campaign has become depressingly divisive – in public and in private. On September 14 – in a moment surprisingly reminiscent of Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” comment ­– Gillespie referred to Northern Virginia as “a bit of enemy territory.”

Unfortunately for Gillespie that quote was recorded, and it found its way to the Democratic super PAC American Bridge 21st Century.

2017 Virginia Gubernatorial Election Pits North Against South

The 2017 Virginia Gubernatorial election has already been dredging up weird throwbacks to the Civil War, especially after Charlottesville when Republican Ed Gillespie – looking for a wedge issue against his Democratic opponent Ralph Northam – took a hard stance in support of preserving Confederate monuments.

That’s created a back and forth, where pro-Northam groups tied Gillespie to Trump, calling them “two racist, bigoted peas in a pod.” A couple weeks later, the same group – the Latino Victory Project – released an ad that showed a black, lifted truck with a Confederate flag and a TRUMP bumper sticker, trying to run-down young kids of color. That ad was ultimately taken down after a terrorist attack in New York City, where the attacker used a truck.

Meanwhile, Gillespie has been making hay out of the state’s division on immigration, releasing racially-charged, terrifying ads about MS-13, a violent street gang, and sanctuary cities. As icing on the cake, team Gillespie also cut an ad tying Northam to a child molester.

But the incredibly close race has exposed a deeper division than between just Republicans and Democrats in Virginia – it’s pitted urban voters against rural voters, black voters against white voters, and ultimately Northern Virginia against Southern Virginia – figuratively and literally.

Is the Virginia Governor’s Race a ‘Bellwether’ or a ‘Bad Political Barometer’?

Since Gillespie tacked himself so closely to Donald Trump, the Virginia Gubernatorial Election has been called a “bellwether” election – meaning it may give good insight into how voters are feeling about Donald Trump and his policies.

But FiveThirtyEight’s Harry Enten urges “not to read too much into Virginia’s governor’s race.”

He argues that “Virginia’s gubernatorial races haven’t predicted midterms,” and gives plenty examples where that’s been true.

On the other hand, the Virginia Gubernatorial Race has been one of the dirtiest, and most aggressive races we have seen in a while – arguably even nastier than the Georgia 6th Congressional District race between Jon Ossoff and Karen Handel (and that’s saying something).

Either way the strange Civil War-esque “North vs. South” themes certainly aren’t comforting – but it’s hard to see those parallels ending in Virginia.
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