RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia Republicans stepped up their grievance this week of the rhetoric being utilized by their Democratic warring parties in abortion-focused messaging on this 12 months’s vital legislative elections.
A contemporary flurry of Democratic-sponsored advertisements and mailers in battleground districts anticipated to decide political keep an eye on of the General Assembly have warned that Republicans would use a newfound legislative majority to ban abortion, together with in instances the place the being pregnant resulted from rape or a mom’s existence used to be in danger. Virginia, lately beneath divided political keep an eye on, now permits non-obligatory abortions within the first and 2nd trimesters and is the one Southern state that has now not carried out new restrictions because the finish of Roe v. Wade.
In their messaging, Democrats have cited contemporary strict bans enacted in different GOP-led states, together with Republican applicants’ legislative information, previous public statements and news articles, to reinforce their claims. Republicans, who’re in large part campaigning on GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s proposed ban on abortions after 15 weeks with exceptions for rape, incest and the lifetime of the mum, say their warring parties are misrepresenting the ones resources or applicants’ previous statements in an exploitative effort to pressure turnout.
“With no vision to offer the Commonwealth in this election and nothing to inspire Virginians to vote for their extreme candidates, Virginia Democrats are reverting to their tired tactics of overt falsehoods and flagrant fearmongering,” Youngkin’s political motion committee mentioned in a news unencumber Tuesday.
Every General Assembly seat is at the poll this 12 months, with early balloting already underway, in an election cycle that will decide partisan keep an eye on of the House of Delegates, now GOP-led, and the Democratic-controlled Senate. Virginia’s slender political divide and odd off-year agenda imply the contests generally draw oversized nationwide consideration and are ceaselessly considered as a conceivable bellwether for the approaching 12 months’s federal elections.
Republican staffers and marketing campaign operatives in Virginia had been arguing for weeks that Democrats are overreaching or outright mendacity in their messaging. But the dialog escalated Tuesday after Joel Griffin, the Democratic nominee in a aggressive Fredericksburg-area Senate race, publicized a brand new advert criticizing his Republican opponent, Tara Durant.
“Tara Durant supports letting Virginia ban abortions with no exceptions. … She supports letting Virginia force a 10-year-old rape victim carry to term,” feminine audio system warned within the video.
Included as citations for each statements used to be a 2022 Facebook post from Durant praising the U.S. Supreme Court’s determination to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Durant, a present member of the state House who has mentioned she backs the governor’s 15-week proposal, replied via pronouncing Griffin had “crossed a line” with the brand new advert.
The advert “smears Tara Durant — a mother of two young women — as wanting to force a 10-year-old victim of rape to carry a child. Such an unnerving, unfounded charge warrants nothing but clear-cut condemnation,” her marketing campaign mentioned in a commentary.
Griffin then replied partly via declaring a flier from Durant’s aggressive number one that known as Durant “a proven champion for the unborn” and “100% pro-life.”
Republicans are all at once moderating their rhetoric and long-standing opposition to abortion get admission to on the recommendation of pollsters, House Democratic Leader Don Scott argued in an interview Wednesday. Anti-abortion teams have observed a string of losses in statewide poll fights because the U.S. Supreme Court ended constitutional protections for abortion final 12 months.
Scott and different Democrats additionally say they’re skeptical {that a} Republican majority would now not search to move additional than Youngkin’s 15-week proposal — which might nonetheless accommodate maximum abortions, in keeping with the most recent to be had federal information. They continuously invoke The Washington Post’s reporting final 12 months that Youngkin informed a conservative target market he would “happily and gleefully” signal “any bill … to protect life.”
Youngkin’s press administrative center did indirectly solution questions Wednesday from The Associated Press about whether or not the governor would signal a stricter ban, or law that didn’t include exceptions. But House Speaker Todd Gilbert mentioned he didn’t consider a measure extra restrictive than the governor’s present proposal may transparent the Legislature.
“Let’s use me as an example. I am no less a pro-life member of the Legislature than I’ve ever been. But I understand that that’s not where the majority of Virginians are on this issue,” he mentioned in an interview, calling the governor’s proposal an try to in finding consensus.
He added that if Republicans retain their House majority, “there will be no deviating” from the marketing campaign platform. Democrats lately have proven they’re the extremists at the factor, Gilbert mentioned, each for their beef up for the removing of limits on abortion later in being pregnant and their advocacy for an offer that known as for enshrining “a fundamental right to reproductive freedom” in the state constitution.
In other swing districts around the state, debates like the Griffin-Durant exchange have also played out.
In a competitive suburban Richmond state Senate race, Democratic nominee Schuyler VanValkenburg’s campaign ran an ad featuring a woman who said his Republican opponent, Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant “wants to ban abortion, take away a woman’s choice.”
Dunnavant, a practicing OB-GYN, carried legislation this session that would have added limits on third-trimester abortions and has since said she supports legal abortion through 15 weeks and afterward only in cases of rape, incest, to save the mother’s life and in cases of severe fetal anomalies.
“I don’t support an abortion ban. Period,” Dunnavant mentioned in an advert that aired quickly after.
post credit to Source link