Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie was soundly beaten in the state of Virginia on Tuesday night by Ralph Northam, and President Donald Trump wasted no time throwing Gillespie under the bus on the same day he had urged voters to turn out for him.
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RELATED: Trump scolds GOP Senator, claims he “begged” for his endorsement
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/928074747316928513
“Ed Gillespie worked hard but did not embrace me or what I stand for,” Trump tweeted, distancing himself from a failed candidate.
That same morning, Trump tweeted that “MS-13 and crime will be gone” because of Gillespie and said, “Vote today, ASAP!”
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/927852358209622016
But major salt in the wound for Gillespie came from an unlikely source, as a seemingly innocuous photo of a father and son at a watch party for the Republican was summarily mocked by the internet.
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An hour after Trump’s tweet last night, Politico tweeted a photo of a father “consol[ing]” his cheese-eating, MAGA-hat-wearing, Gillespie-campaign-stickered son by patting him on his shoulders.
A father consoles his son at a watch party for Ed Gillespie, who lost the Virginia governor's race to Ralph Northam https://t.co/H4k2nkcyMr pic.twitter.com/XLQlDnvIwL
— POLITICO (@politico) November 8, 2017
The internet response to this was not very nice.
https://twitter.com/ksquyres/status/928090328489271296
❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️
— Renegade Cowboy🐾🐾 🌊⚓️🌊🐾🐾 (@Rene_gadeCowboy) November 8, 2017
Let it snow …let it snow
— Renegade Cowboy🐾🐾 🌊⚓️🌊🐾🐾 (@Rene_gadeCowboy) November 8, 2017
https://twitter.com/yourmomSarita/status/928090063271006209
Fixed the photo for you! pic.twitter.com/KpexoOPCPq
— Abed A. Ayoub #DebtJubilee (@aayoub) November 8, 2017
https://twitter.com/Bill_Coffin/status/928093271607431168
Creepy. And hilarious.
— Mame of Team Human 🇺🇦 (@icterid) November 8, 2017
“It’ll be alright son, we’ll just have to find someone else to transfer all of our wealth into the hands of the 1%.”
— Comrade Dipshit (@comrade_dipshit) November 8, 2017
Cheer up Billy, there’s a Klan rally we can go to this weekend.
— Kenneth Jimenez (@MrKennyJimenez) November 8, 2017
"First lesson of politics son, sometimes you get the covfefe, sometimes the covfefe gets you".
— How We Beat Trump (@HBeale23) November 8, 2017
Who knows what he's been told. Probably thinks Dems are going to force him to have a sex change and join MS-13.
— felinecannonball (@feline_cannon) November 8, 2017
Northam’s victory set off overnight recriminations and finger-pointing among Trump’s hardcore supporters. The pro-Trump website Breitbart News, which had earlier praised Gillespie as a “culture warrior,” derided him as a “Republican swamp thing.” Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, said Northern Virginia’s voter-rich liberal suburbs should be annexed by the District of Columbia, “to return the governance of [Virginia] to Virginians.”
Democrats also scored victories in the race for New Jersey governor and in Maine, where voters slapped the state’s Republican governor, a Trump ally, by backing a measure to expand Medicaid coverage under former President Barack Obama’s health care law. The Democratic mayors of New York and Boston, both vocal Trump critics, also won re-election easily.
“The Democratic Party is back, my friends,” claimed Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.