Former US president Barack Obama urges voters to back the Democrat in the neck-and-neck Virginia gubernatorial election touted as a test of the party's prospects in next year's midterm elections. Campaigning in the state capital Richmond for Democrat Terry McAuliffe -- a former Virginia governor vying for his second term -- Obama casts the Republican as a threat to democracy and criticizes McAuliffe's opponent, Republican Glenn Youngkin, for backing Donald Trump's fraudulent claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. "I believe you right here in Virginia are going to show the rest of the country, and the world, that we’re not going to indulge in our worst instinct," Obama says. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES