ROANOKE, Va. – Virginia’s candidates for governor are still working out the details for their first debate ahead of the November election.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin opened up his Roanoke office to a big crowd Thursday night as he’s still yet to agree to a debate with Democratic challenger Terry McAuliffe.
Youngkin amped up the crowd as he arrived in the Star City, officially opening up his Roanoke campaign office with a who’s who of conservative lawmakers in attendance.
“At the end of the day, I’m a pretty straightforward person, I say what I mean and I’ve met tens of thousands of Virginians now and that’s why so many people are excited about what we’re doing,” Youngkin said.
Youngkin and the rest of his ticket talked policy, denounced critical race theory and outlined support for law enforcement. But as debate season approaches, Youngkin has still not agreed to the traditional first debate hosted by the Virginia Bar Association.
”The teams are working on that right now, they’re working on that right now so it will get sorted out, it will get sorted out. I’m ready to debate Terry McAullife because there is such a different view of how we’re going to march forward when I’m serving Virginians,” Youngkin said.
“We were both invited to five debates, I’ve accepted all five, he has not, I clearly don’t understand why but I guess he’s scared to answer questions. I think if you’re running for governor you need to be able to answer the tough questions,” McAuliffe said.
While Youngkin and others repeated Thursday McAuliffe is nothing more than an extension of the current governor, McAuliffe said there’s nothing wrong with that.
“First off I have my own reasons for running, I have my own policy proposals but I’ll say this, we had four great years, I inherited a record deficit and left a big surplus,” McAuliffe said.
Both candidates said they are the right choice and feel confident about victory, but there’s still a long way to go before a clear winner emerges. Initial polling shows McAuliffe with a slight lead, but only by a few points.
Both candidates said they’ll be making more visits to our area in the coming months.