RICHMOND, Virginia — Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe will head to New England Sunday to campaign for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
He’ll headline the Maine Democratic Party’s Muskie Lobster Bake in Freeport and travel to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to attend a Clinton campaign open house.
A longtime friend of, and surrogate for, the former secretary of state, McAuliffe was co-chairman of her 2008 presidential bid, spending much of the time on the road.
Although he has said his gubernatorial duties will mostly keep him in Virginia this time around, McAuliffe has made several fundraising swings for her.
The Clinton campaign tapped staffers who helped McAuliffe defeat former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, a Republican, in the 2013 gubernatorial race, and they have lots of donors in common.
And this week, the Democratic Governors Association said McAuliffe will co-chair an effort to take back statehouses ahead of the 2020 Census in hopes of influencing redistricting across the country. New maps could lead to more Democrats in the U.S. House, which could only help Clinton should she take the White House.
The effort pits McAuliffe against former U.S. Senate candidate Ed Gillespie, who will help plan a similar campaign for the Republican State Leadership Committee, it announced earlier this year.
The pair have been friendly rivals since their tenures as chairmen overlapped at the national parties.