The stunt was supposed to hurt Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin by tying him to the deadly 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Images of five young people wearing white shirts and carrying tiki torches beside Youngkin’s bus in Charlottesville on Friday did go viral, but not, it seems, in the way organizers intended, as they were mistaken by some as actual white supremacists aligning themselves with the campaign.
The actors, who were operatives working with the Lincoln Project, were instructed to tell anyone who asked that they were working for the never-Trump group, according to emails obtained by the Intercept.
LINCOLN PROJECT TAKES CREDIT FOR TIKI TORCH STUNT MCAULIFFE CAMPAIGN PASSED OFF AS GENUINE YOUNGKIN SUPPORTERS
Emails shown to the news outlet by Lauren Windsor, a left-wing operative working with the Lincoln Project, indicate the group was instructed to be transparent to reporters.
A spokesman was supposed to answer, “We’re here with the Lincoln Project,” when bystanders asked who they were with. If asked why, he was supposed to respond, “We’re here to remind Virginians what an endorsement from Donald Trump really means.”
But the situation began to get out of hand when local news reporter Elizabeth Holmes tweeted that the group approached Youngkin’s campaign bus as it pulled up to an event at Guadalajara restaurant in Charlottesville, saying, “We’re all in for Glenn.” That was a preapproved chant, according to the emails, but the image went viral, with people taking the actors as genuine supporters of Youngkin.
Holmes, an NBC29 reporter, told the Washington Examiner she did not interact with the torchbearers because her colleague was the person assigned to cover Youngkin’s event and she was only quickly delivering something to her team.
These men approached @GlennYoungkin’s bus as it pulled up saying what sounded like, “We’re all in for Glenn.” Here they are standing in front of the bus as his campaign event at Guadalajara started.@NBC29 pic.twitter.com/l681ejyBjc
— Elizabeth Holmes (@holmes_reports) October 29, 2021
The report from the Intercept claimed the problem was that no one in the media asked questions of the actors to find out their affiliation with the Lincoln Project. Pete Callahan, another Democratic operative associated with the stunt, was mentioned as speculating reporters were scared off by the drizzle that day.
However, at least one journalist, a Reuters editor, disputed the assertion, saying reporters asked the group their names and if they were with a group but got no reply.
Except this is simply not true. We repeatedly asked them individually their names, who they were with and what group if any they represented and they would not say anything at all.
— Jim Bourg (@jimbourg) November 3, 2021
Though Windsor said they wanted to be transparent, their lawyer shared several scenarios they could go about the demonstration, which included saying nothing.
“If they’re asked who sent them, there’s no legal requirement that they identify TLP,” a lawyer said in one of the emails. “But it’s also fine if they do. More of a press/optics question for you. If you wanted to be more generic, they could say something like, ‘A group that thinks that Glenn Youngkin would bring Donald Trump’s politics to Virginia’ or something like that. They could also just not say anything.”
Some staffers on the campaign for Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe portrayed the group as genuine supporters of his Republican opponent. But the McAuliffe campaign workers’ tweets were deleted Friday night after the Lincoln Project issued its statement claiming to be behind the stunt, and then the campaign condemned the stunt.
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“I was surprised people bit on it, thinking it wasn’t a stunt,” Callahan said. “It didn’t make sense to me that it wouldn’t be a stunt. I just assumed nobody would think it’s real.”
Youngkin went on to defeat McAuliffe in the election to be Virginia’s next governor.
