‘How To Play Hardball’: Lincoln Project Defends Tiki Torch Stunt At Youngkin Event

Despite a stinging national backlash and a general consensus that the stunt backfired, the Lincoln Project has defended its decision to have a group of activists dressed as tiki-torch-bearing white nationalists proclaim their support for Republican Glenn Youngkin, the frontrunner in the Virginia governor’s race.

On Friday, CNN’s Chris Cuomo asked Stuart Stevens, an adviser to the ‘Never Trump’ organization, if the move was a dirty trick or hypocritical.

“No,” said Stevens. “Every day, I hear people pleading with the Lincoln Project to help show Democrats how to win, how to play hardball.”

In fact, a 2020 study conducted by the left-wing PAC Priorities USA found that the Lincoln Project’s ads did virtually nothing to convince swing state voters to support Joe Biden.

In its latest controversial move, young people wearing clothes similar to those worn by Alt-Right activists at the “Unite the Right” rally showed up at a Youngkin campaign event in Charlottesville and said, “We’re all in for Glenn!” The 2017 rally ended in the death of 32-year-old Heather Heyer. As The Daily Wire reported:

The image sparked an immediate condemnation from the campaign of former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, Youngkin’s Democratic opponent. “This is disgusting and disqualifying,” McAuliffe spokeswoman Jen Goodman said. …

“I think they work for Terry McAuliffe, and I’m sure he sent them,” Youngkin said, according to NBC 29. “They’ll do anything to win, and he’s doing anything to win, and so he’s paying people to show up and act silly at our rallies.”

The Lincoln Project, which began as a group of Never Trump Republicans declaring themselves true conservatives, admitted responsibility later in the day.

Although the action did not appear to help McAuliffe, the Lincoln Project threatened to repeat it again before Tuesday’s gubernatorial election.

“Today’s demonstration was our way of reminding Virginians what happened in Charlottesville four years ago, the Republican Party’s embrace of those values, and Glenn Youngkin’s failure to condemn it,” the organization said in a statement released on Friday. “If [Youngkin] will denounce Trump’s assertion that the Charlottesville rioters possessed ‘very fine’ qualities, we’ll withdraw the tiki torches. Until then, we’ll be back.”

On Friday night, Stevens deflected questions about the propriety of the action, and failed to address whether he intended to mislead Virginia voters into thinking that Charlottesville activists actually back Youngkin.

“The question here is it’s not about some guys who showed up at a rally,” Stevens told Cuomo. “It’s, ‘Why hasn’t Glenn Youngkin denounced Donald Trump,