'Our democracy is at stake': Watch Obama return to the campaign trail to rally voters in Virginia

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'Our democracy is at stake': Watch Obama return to the campaign trail to rally voters in Virginia

President Barack Obama returned to the campaign trail to support Ralph Northam in his run for Governor of Virginia, warning voters that "our democracy is at stake" if they sit out off year and midterm elections. Following is a transcript of the video.

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Barack Obama: Folks don't feel good right now about what they see. They don't feel as if our public life reflects our best. Instead of our politics reflecting our values, we've got politics infecting our communities. Instead of looking for ways to work together and get things done in a practical way, we've got folks who are deliberately trying to make folks angry. To demonize people who have different ideas.

Off year elections, mid-term elections, Democrats sometimes ... y'all get a little sleepy. You get a little complacent. Now this is not my opinion, this is the data. This is the data. During presidential elections everybody gets all excited. And then when it's an off year election, suddenly, everybody, "What there's an election going on?" And so as a consequence folks wake up and they're surprised. "How come we can't get things through Congress? How come we can't get things through the State House?" Because you slept through the election. But the stakes now don't allow you to sleep, because it's going to come down to how bad you want it. I don't want to hear folks complaining and not doing something about it. All the young people out here, you know, I think that it's great that you "hashtag" and "meme," but I need you to vote."

Ralph Northam wants progress, he wants to take us forward, not backward, he wants to reach out for hope, not fear. That's where Justin Fairfax wants to take us. That's where you should want to take us. We need you to take this seriously, because our democracy is at stake.