Former Virginia Gov. James Gilmore told Newsmax on Tuesday that voting in the 2024 presidential election should not begin before the Sept. 10 debate between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
In North Carolina, paper absentee ballots will be mailed out on Sept. 6 and must be completed and returned by 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 5. A copy of a photo ID must be included with returned ballots.
During an appearance on Newsmax’s “Wake Up America,” Gilmore said the Democrats “deliberately” changed the rules of election “over the last number of years” in an effort to “try to create an advantage.”
“Personally, I think that we ought not to be doing that kind of early voting, because, after all, the debate is going to occur, there are going to be a lot of events that occur in this month of October,” he said. “But, at the end of the day, I think that the debate is going to be a scene setter, if you will, for this election.
“If we come back to the issues that are confronting the people of the United States, people are going to be assessing Kamala Harris for the very first time,” he continued.
“I think she's the one that's really under pressure. [Former] President [Donald] Trump has already demonstrated he's a good debater. He knocked the president of the United States clean out of the race. Now [Vice President] Kamala Harris, with no votes of any kind, and she never stood in any of the primaries, is suddenly right there. She's introducing herself. It's a pretty key issue for her.”
Gilmore said that the American people “really don't know Kamala Harris very well” because “she was very, very silent and unseen as vice president."
“President [Joe] Biden really only asked her to do one thing, and that was to take over his policy on the border,” he continued.
“It didn't work, and he never held her accountable for it. So, on all these other issues that are before the people of the United States right now — crime, especially inflation, the international crisis that we're seeing both in Israel and Ukraine — these are all compelling issues and the people of the United States are really going to see Kamala Harris for the very first time, really, in this debate.”
The former Virginia governor also commented on whether his state is in play for Trump and Republicans this election cycle.
“I think that Virginia and these other states you’re talking about very well might be on the agenda and the reason is because of the environment, politically and economically, in the United States,” Gilmore said.
“People understand that the inflation is a serious problem,” he added. “They also understand that this was a Democratic program to create inflation. The big spending that occurred at the beginning of the Biden administration was going to create inflation, it did create inflation, and regular people, working people, are suffering under it. And that's true in real swing states, it's true in Virginia. So, it could be that a lot of these states are now in play because of the issues.”
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Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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