Last week, one of the Virginia House GOP’s nominees did what you’re never supposed to do if you’re a right-wing nutjob, which is to “say the quiet part out loud.” Whether it’s their desire to destroy democracy, their complete scorn for science, their racism and misogyny, etc., Republicans are – at most, per Lee Atwater’s old “Southern Strategy” – supposed to use “dog whistles” regarding their noxious views, but not to actually state those noxious views in a straightforward way, out loud.
Unfortunately for Virginia Republicans’ electoral prospects, sometimes their candidates simply can’t help themselves, as we heard with their nominee for House of Delegates District 21, John Stirrup, who point-blank stated:
“I would support a 100 percent ban...It seems like the kind of acceptable … position has been about 15 weeks, but that really doesn’t save that many lives. It’s a start, you know, and I know the left gets really, you know, animated about this, ‘Oh you’re banning abortion.’ Abortion will always be legal in the District of Columbia and Maryland. Women will always have that option….we’ve dehumanized life for 60 years in this country, and over 60 million children are getting eliminated. It’s just crazy. Like, what point – how many do we have to do? You know it’s crazy. We have the craziest most liberal abortion laws in the world. I mean, like, same as North Korea and China, and it’s just, you know, we’re barbarian.”
BTW, note how Stirrup admitted that a 15-week abortion ban isn’t the end goal for Virginia Republicans, but simply a place to “start,” on the way to a total abortion ban in Virginia? That’s the dead giveaway here, really, about what Virginia Republicans are really up to…no matter what lying liars like Youngkin *claim* their goals are.
The good news for Democrats is that, as we’ve seen across the country – including in “red” states like Kansas, Ohio, Kentucky and Montana, plus “purple” states like Wisconsin and Michigan – voters most definitively are NOT on the same page as Republicans on this crucially important issue. Yet for Virginia Republicans, it’s a conundrum, as despite the politically disastrous nature of their (extreme) position on women’s reproductive freedom, pretty much ALL of their nominees for State Senate and House of Delegates this year would almost certainly agree with John Stirrup, if they were being honest and “saying the quiet part out loud.” Of course, many of these candidates are attempting to hide their (extreme) views on this issue, but it’s actually very simple: if they refuse to talk about it, that means that they almost certainly want to ban abortion but don’t want to say so because they know it will hurt them politically. So make sure you always keep that in mind and don’t let them fool you.
Anyway, the bottom line – and much to Republicans’ conternation – is that this November’s elections for all 140 seats in the Virginia General Assembly will, with almost 100% certainty, feature women’s reproductive freedom as one of the central issues, if not THE central issue – effectivelyly a referendum on the future of abortion in Virginia. And on that issue, Virginia Republicans are really, really NOT in the majority. Check out what a WaPo poll in April found:
The Post-Schar School poll finds that most Virginia voters oppose the idea of tightening access to abortions. Overall, 34 percent say abortion laws should “remain as they are” and 41 percent say they should be “less strict,” while 17 percent say abortion laws should be made “more strict.”
That’s right: only 17% of Virginians want abortion laws to be made “more strict,” with 41% wanting them to be “less strict” and 34% want them to “remain as they are.” Which means that the problem for Republicans’ prospects in the General Assembly races this November is that most if not all of their candidates are in the tiny 17% minority that want abortion laws to be “more strict.” And this isn’t some minor issue, either; it’s a very high-salience one that has shown tremendous ability to motivate voters across the country to turn out at the polls to PROTECT abortion rights. So…if that happens this fall in Virginia, Republicans are highly unlikely to win back the State Senate, and could very well lose the House of Delegates.
For more on the political implications of Virginia Republican House of Delegates and State Senate nominees being WILDLY out of touch with Virginia voters when it comes to women’s reproductive health and freedom, check out the following video, in which a political science professor (Richard Meagher of Randolph-Macon College) says, “This is a big disaster for Republicans not just in [John Stirrup’s] district, but across the state.” Of course, that won’t happen automatically, but as long as Democrats do our jobs, get out our vote, and make crystal clear what’s at stake, it’s not unreasonable to expect similar results to what we’ve seen in Ohio, Wisconsin, etc. Let’s “make it so!”
A disaster for Republicans and a bigger disaster for the Commonwealth if he’s elected. John Stirrup’s extreme views are out of touch with most Virginians. https://t.co/OJ1N8gwAMa
— Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia (@PPAVirginia) August 14, 2023
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