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Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe continues to attack his Republican opponent Glenn Youngkin after the state of Texas initiated much tighter restrictions on abortion. Republicans, on the other hand, continue to bring up the 2019 bill and radio interview that has followed Virginia Democrats ever since.
McAullife has been attacking Youngkin for two days by linking him to the Texas Republicans that just banned abortions when a fetal heartbeat is present – typically six weeks into the pregnancy. The United States Supreme Court declined to stop the new law from going into effect.
“This should be a warning to all states,” McAuliffe said during a press call Thursday afternoon. “If Glenn Youngkin is elected and he gets the House here, there is a good chance we will see Virginia go the way of Texas.”
The Youngkin campaign has been on the defense with this topic since a secretly recorded video was released of him saying he cannot win in Virginia by campaigning strongly on abortion.
Filmed during an event earlier this summer, someone in the video asked Youngkin if will “take it to the abortionists.” Youngkin then replied: “I’m going to be really honest with you. The short answer is in this campaign, I can’t. When I’m governor and I have a majority in the House, we can start going on offense. But as a campaign topic, sadly, that, in fact, won’t win my Independent votes that I have to get.”
McAuliffe mentions that video every chance he gets.
The national headlines from Texas have inevitably already had direct implications on this gubernatorial race. If recent years are any reflection of Virginia’s electorate, that is good news for Democrats.
In 2019, Virginia Republicans tried to use Democratic Del. Kathy Tran’s presentation of her bill – one that would have eased some restrictions for late-term abortion in Virginia – as a key political talking point for elections that year. Tran said she misspoke when she replied “yes” on the House floor to a question on whether her bill would allow an abortion while the mother is in labor about to give birth. “I should have said: ‘Clearly, no, because infanticide is not allowed in Virginia, and what would have happened in that moment would be a live birth,’” Tran said during a Washington Post interview at the time.
Tran received death threats after an edited video of the exchange went viral.
In the days after Tran’s presentation, Governor Ralph Northam continued the conversation around her bill in a failed attempt to explain what it really did on a radio show. When describing how Tran’s bill involved third-trimester abortions, Northam said that they are done in cases “where there may be severe deformities. There may be a fetus that’s non viable.” He then continued: “If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
A Northam spokesperson later said in a 2019 interview with Vox that the “governor had ‘absolutely not’ been referring to the euthanasia of infants born after a failed abortion” and that he was talking about a “tragic and extremely rare case in which a woman with a nonviable pregnancy or severe fetal abnormalities went into labor.”
McAuliffe faced the question of his support on the bill multiple times during an interview with conservative radio host John Fredericks in 2019 after his first term as Governor. ”I would not have vetoed the bill,” McAuliffe said to Fredericks. “And listen, I have not read the whole bill, John, but from what I read in the newspaper, if the one thing in the bill was to go from three to one (doctors) to help with rural communities…I would support that. Sure I would.”
McAuliffe is correct that Tran’s bill would have dropped the requirement from three doctors to one for late-term abortions when the mother’s life is in jeopardy. It also would have allowed for second-trimester abortions to be performed in a clinic, instead of a hospital.
Virginia voters later rejected the Republican platform in 2019. Democrats flipped six House and two Senate seats and have had control of both chambers in the General Assembly for the last two years.
Throughout his campaign this cycle, however, Youngkin has been accusing McAuliffe of supporting those extreme abortion policies. “I am most focused on making sure that Terry McAuliffe’s extreme agenda, which promotes abortion all the way through and including birth is not part of Virginia’s future,” Youngkin said Wednesday after a forum.
McAuliffe reiterated his response to that talking point Thursday. “In rural parts of Virginia many communities don’t have one doctor let alone three doctors, and that is what that issue was about – when a woman’s life was in danger…we need to do everything we possibly can to save the life of that mother.”
McAuliffe said during the call Thursday that he supports the laws that are currently on the books in Virginia. He nor his campaign provided no response as to if he would support or veto new legislation now.
Youngkin has not responded directly to questions as to whether he supports the new restrictions in Texas. “I am pro-life as I have said since the beginning of this campaign,” Youngkin said Wednesday in an audio recording provided to Virginia Scope by his campaign. “I believe in exceptions, in the case of rape, in the case of incest, and in the case when the mother’s life is in jeopardy.” The laws in Texas do not permit those exceptions.
During Thursday’s press call, McAuliffe mentioned that he is trying to get his advisors to reach out to big companies that are headquartered in Texas to try and convince them to move to Virginia. “I’ve already made calls yesterday to all of our economic development people in the state, saying we should call Dell, we should call HP, we should call American Airlines and tell them to come to Virginia.”
McAuliffe is leading slightly in the latest polls that were conducted prior to the news in Texas spreading across the country. Democrats currently have a 55-45 majority with all 100 House seats up for election again this year. Republicans have not won a statewide election since 2009.
Early voting begins Sept. 17 for the Nov. 2 election.
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So, Democrats are taking about something Youngkin actually said and that he wanted to keep secret from voters, and Republicans are trying to somehow connect McAuliffe to a controversy they manufactured by deliberately misinterpreting statements to gin up outrage. Got it.