See below for video and a few highlights from today’s”Three Weeks to Go” virtual press call with key Virginia Senate Democratic campaign leaders (Sen. Mamie Locke, Sen. Scott Surovell, Sen. Jennifer Boysko, Sen. Monty Mason, Sen. Aaron Rouse) and candidates (Joel Griffin, Clint Jenkins).
Sen. Mamie Locke: “We are three weeks out from this election…Make no mistake, Glenn Youngkin wants to buy this election, he wants to buy an abortion ban he wants to buy a rollback of voting rights, he wants to buy the ability to erase our history from our schools. But we are fighting back and let me tell you, our democracy is at stake in this election…Since taking power, House Republicans have introduced and passed bills to roll back voting rights. It is because of Democrats in the Senate that we have stopped them, and we will spend every waking moment between now and election day doing the work, raising the money, knocking on the doors and communicating with voters to save our
democracy.”
Sen. Jennifer Boysko: “We are three weeks out from election day; we
want to stress the importance of elections in Virginia for Democrats. You all have seen that Glenn Youngkin has been using his PAC to raise massive amounts of money in order to call attention to his lies about Virginia Democrats across Virginia. Folks understand that he is using our elections as his calling card to get national attention for himself, as opposed to focusing on good government. So in order to preserve the policies that we value, we’re working to fully fund our very highly qualified candidates on this call who will become the next generation of leaders in Virginia. Democrats from around the entire nation realize that Virginia’s elections are the belwether for 2024’s presidential election. And since the Dobbs decision, which eliminated the fundamental right to an abortion, people from all parts of the United States are taking note and watching Virginia closely, and because of that they’re also coming to our aid…”
Sen. Monty Mason: “…so we got a 50/50 seat, which we’ve known from the day it
was drawn, and have been working super hard…It’s been very gratifying the Senate Democrats held out for a budget that we had focused on to heavily invest in
education…that has been a number one priority, properly funding our schools, properly
paying our teachers, making sure our students and children are safe when they
go to schools…Obviously abortion, women’s right to choose is front and center…My
race has also talked a lot about of course taxes…and me being a tax and spend liberal, which has given us a chance to talk about the incredible transportation projects and the work we’ve done on the peninsula – widening 64 on the peninsula has been transformational, the two new tubes that are going to Norfolk are going to make life much more efficient for our visitors, tourists and guests…very importantly for the commerce and trade that flows through our ports…Ttoday we had a monumental announcement that the Department of Energy announced that we are getting the next high-performance data facility at Jefferson labs…I’m proud of the work that we’ve done, but there’s more work to be done. And we’re looking forward to focusing on winning this election for the next 22 days and getting back to work and continuing the progress that we’ve made.”
Senator Aaron Rouse: “As you all know, we won a a district that was held by
Republicans, in a special election back in January. And you know one of the most prominent issues up front was women’s right to make their own health care decision. And we believe and understand that again that issue is alive and well on the ballot again this year come November…in the Senate we were able to uh do some great things…protect women’s rights, applying tax relief for families as well as support public education. And right now, the next three weeks left in this election, we are laser focused on knocking on these doors, making sure we get the votes out and ensuring that people understand that this is an historical election. If we give this governor and the administration both
houses, the House [of Delegates] and the Senate, we will be in a world of trouble, very
similar to what Florida is going through right now. And so again we cannot allow that to happen. We have our our hands full, but we’re on the right side of the issues here in Virginia, we’re on the right side of history here and making sure that we don’t go back in in time, making sure that we are going forward…”
Sen. Clint Jenkins: “I am running in Senate District 17…It is a battleground District. I’m excited about it, though. We are…one of the targeted districts and we are turning out the vote. Currently, I would say that we’re in the top five as far as early voting turnout, which is good, and we are continuing to to push that…While in the General Assembly, we were very strong and very forceful on making sure that…over 400,000 Virginians had health care and we’re going to continue to push…We’re going to continue to push for school funding, not just for teachers pay but also for…support staff and we’ve been strong
on that and we continue to work to make sure that our school districts in the Commonwealth are fully funded. Also…we’ve been working supporting mental
health and getting behind that…We’re going to continue to do more in that area…We’re in a real hard race, but I will say that we’re going to stay positive and we’re going to stay on target and we’re going to do what’s right and maintain our integrity and win this race.”
Joel Griffin: “I am Joel Griffin, Senate District 27, which represents Stafford, Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania. I think unfortunately in the press, our region is known for the worst traffic in the nation and book bans. So we are going to be focusing on changing that. And I believe that what we should be known for is that we’re in the fastest growing region in the Commonwealth…We have one of the most affluent African-American communities here in the entire nation, we have access to some of the great resources in this region…I’m a veteran myself, representing one of the largest veteran
populations in the Commonwealth…I’m also a small-business owner…all of that experience I hope to bring to bear in Richmond….to work across the aisle and get
things done now…We are in the thick of a battle…for the future of Virginia to represent to the rest of the nation that women’s choice, equality under the law, public schools, these are things that matter, these are things that we are going to continue to invest in. We’re going to defend our public schools, we are going to defend a woman’s right to choose and
we’re going to be doing that every single day between now and November 7th…Every vote’s going to matter; we’re going to be spending the next 22 days getting the word out and I look forward to serving as the next state senator here in District 27.”
Sen. Scott Surovell: “…hearing from our folks today, you can see why
we’re really excited about the future. We have a couple veterans that are coming in to replace the three veterans that are going to be leaving us…We’ve got Monty Mason, he’s
coming back to join us in the Senate with his 12 years of experience; Aaron Rouse brings a lot of local government experience and…he also brings some athletic talent to our basketball team, which we really need badly if you all have ever seen us play basketball…[Rouse] flipped the first Republican seat in a special election in probably over 20 years. So we have a lot of excitement on our side and and we’re looking forward to having them with us…our caucus over the last four years has had a wonderful set of accomplishments when it comes to issues like voting, employee rights, women’s healthcare, criminal justice reform, clean energy, education, transportation and infrastructure…broadband…minimum wage…we’ve now spent the last two years fighting to prevent Virginia from backsliding…Virginians really respect and appreciate that…people continue to rally behind us and our agenda, so we’re going to have a lot of success in about three weeks. From our perspective, the GOP, the governor and his Republican colleagues and their candidates are on the ropes. We have been resisting their efforts to turn Virginia into some Florida-style MAGA paradise for the last two years. And we’re going to continue to resist that;
we’re not going to surrender on women’s health care rights, we’re not going to
put law enforcement into the women’s exam room. They now realize they’ve
overreached on abortion and now they’re trying to reframe…the argument…they’ve realized they’ve now overstepped. And from our perspective, the governor and the millions of dollars he’s raised from his billionaire presidential wannabe friends or whatever you want to call them is not going to make a difference, because the Republicans in this state are out of step, and the voters are telling us that every single door we knock.”
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