GOP Candidates for Governor Desperately Try to “Distract From Their Anti-Abortion Records”

GOP Candidates for Governor Desperately Try to “Distract From Their Anti-Abortion Records”

With two weeks until Election Day, a new report from Jezebel highlights how GOP candidates for governor in states like New Hampshire, Washington, and North Carolina are now airing “personal ads amid scrutiny over their past support for national abortion bans,” in order to mislead voters, writing:

• “Across the country, GOP candidates have been working overtime to conceal or embellish their anti-abortion records. But they’re not changing their positions—they’re just trying to run from them.”

Despite spending their careers attacking abortion rights and undermining reproductive freedom, Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, Dave Reichert in Washington, and Mark Robinson in North Carolina have all spent heavily in their campaigns for governor running ads trying to rewrite their records and mislead voters about their extreme and unpopular positions.

“Across the country, GOP candidates for governor are spending heavily trying to deceive voters about their records of attacking reproductive freedom, after spending their careers working to deny and restrict the same care that they and their families were able to receive,” said DGA National Press Secretary Devon Cruz. “Voters see right through these shameless election-year lies, and know that these anti-choice extremists cannot be trusted anywhere near their governor’s office.”

Read More About GOP Candidates for Governor Trying to “Distract From Their Anti-Abortion Records”:

• “Across the country, GOP candidates have been working overtime to conceal or embellish their anti-abortion records. But they’re not changing their positions—they’re just trying to run from them.”
• “And in the final stretch before Election Day, two Republican candidates for governor—Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, and Dave Reichert in Washington state—are the latest GOP’ers to spotlight their personal connection with abortion as they face growing scrutiny over their past support for national abortion bans.”
• “In New Hampshire, Ayotte, a former U.S. senator who’s performatively flip-flopped on both where she stands on reproductive rights and on sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump, faces one of the tightest gubernatorial races in the country against Democrat Joyce Craig, who has a solid record of supporting abortion rights.”
• “In Ayotte’s new ad, released Friday, Ayotte [states]….’So I would never deny any woman or family of treatment like IVF.’”
• “Except…Ayotte has legislated against IVF. While she served in the Senate from 2011 to 2017, Ayotte backed two different policies—the Blunt amendment and the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act—to allow insurance companies and employers to deny coverage of birth control and IVF.”
• “Ayotte also quite literally spearheaded legislation for a national abortion ban at 20 weeks. Bans on later abortion target patients facing particularly desperate circumstances—including conditions like what Ayotte recalled facing in her ad.”
• “Also, also, Ayotte worked closely with Trump (months after calling him a sexual predator who she couldn’t endorse out of respect for her young daughter) to serve as a personal liaison, or the official ‘sherpa,’ for then-Supreme Court Justice nominee Neil Gorsuch, who went on to overturn Roe v. Wade. As sherpa, Ayotte not only guided Gorsuch between meetings with different senators ahead of his confirmation but also personally coached him on how to give non-answers on Roe.”
• “New Hampshire Democrats have—rightfully—hammered Ayotte on her anti-abortion record, prompting her to release a series of ads obfuscating and claiming that she won’t legislate on abortion in the state.”
• “Similarly, in Washington, Reichert is running on a promise of not touching abortion rights. On Friday, he, too, released an ad detailing a personal story about supporting his sister through her abortion.”
• “…we know how Reichert would legislate on abortion because of his own Congressional record—he voted three times for a national 20-week abortion ban while he served in Congress from 2005 to 2019.”
• “He also voted against amendments to add exceptions for medical emergencies to these bans, and repeatedly attacked access to contraception, voting against bills to protect employees from discrimination for using birth control.”
• “Reichert, who knows he can’t win on an anti-abortion record in a state like Washington, has attempted to spin his record, framing his support for a 20-week ban as ‘providing women with abortion options up to 20 weeks,’ and even comparing abortion bans to driver’s licenses and hunting regulations.”
• “This is a growing trend among Republican candidates up and down the ballot, whether it’s JD Vance denying he supports a national abortion ban and merely supports a ‘national minimum standard,’ or self-identified‘Black Nazi’ Mark Robison rolling out an ad sharing his wife’s abortion story.”
• “Robinson, who has a history of slut-shaming abortion patients and calling abortion ‘Black genocide,’ used his August ad to pretend he supports a ‘reasonable’ abortion ban (there’s no such thing) at around 12 weeks.”

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