Daily Archives: September 8, 2021

The North Carolina Republican Senate primary is set to be an early barometer of the power of former President TrumpDonald TrumpTrump to offer commentary at heavyweight fight on 9/11 Trump schedules rallies in Iowa, Georgia USDA to provide 0M in COVID-19 relief for farm and food workers MOREs endorsement as he seeks to be a difference-maker in a marquee Senate race.

Trump issued a surprise endorsement of Rep. Ted BuddTheodore (Ted) Paul BuddPeter Thiel flexes financial muscle ahead of 2022 Trump takes two punches from GOP Schumer, Tim Scott lead as Senate fundraising pace heats up MORE in June, giving the third-term conservative lawmaker a boost with grassroots voters in a three-way GOP primary with former Gov. Pat McCrory and former Rep. Mark WalkerBradley (Mark) Mark WalkerFirst hearing set for lawsuit over Florida's new anti-riot bill NRA appealing Florida ban on gun sales to people under 21 Trump's biggest political obstacle is Trump MORE. But it is largely McCrorys time as the governor of North Carolina from 2013 to 2017 that makes the primary to replace retiring Sen. Richard BurrRichard Mauze BurrThe 19 GOP senators who voted for the T infrastructure bill Senate votes to end debate on T infrastructure bill In praise of Susan Collins' persistent bipartisanship MORE (R-N.C.) such a crucial gauge of Trumps sway.

The former president has issued endorsements in a handful of other high-profile Senate races, but most partisan primaries are packed with Trump-aligned candidates, meaning an endorsement for one candidate inherently narrows the paths for the others. But in North Carolina, Trumps endorsement is seeking to elevate a House backbencher with low statewide name recognition over a former governor who is less ideologically affiliated with Trump and more broadly known.

I think Trumps endorsement is a factor in this primary. Others include who can raise the most money day by day, and ideology is a factor. But Trumps endorsement is also a factor, and the outcome could well tell us some facts about the strength of Trumps endorsement and clarify how much that matters, said North Carolina GOP strategist Carter Wrenn.

Trumps endorsement, which he issued at the North Carolina GOP convention, set off celebrations in Budds campaign and recriminations among his rivals, who were surprised by the early support.

It also had an immediate impact for Budd, with his campaign flaunting the subsequent slew of headlines and gush of donations.

We saw an immediate uptick in low-dollar donations starting 90 seconds after President Trump endorsed Ted from the stage of the N.C. GOP convention, said Jonathan Felts, a senior adviser to Budd. We already had a campaign plan with multiple lanes to victory for Ted prior to the endorsement, and President Trumps endorsement has widened those lanes and opened up other pathways to victory as well.

But Budd has not seen a consistent rise in the polls in the months since, and many surveys still show him with stubbornly low name recognition among voters, fueling speculation the endorsement came too early.

That the Trump endorsement did not push anyone out of the race and still hasnt provided a real name ID boost for Budd makes the early timing of the endorsement baffling, said Republican strategist Doug Heye.

Still, the endorsement is anticipated to be the centerpiece of Budds primary campaign.

The GOP grassroots remains largely enthralled with the former president, and with a primary electorate that is made up largely of hard-line conservatives rather than those from all corners of the Republican Party, Trumps endorsement is still expected to be a key tool to boosting name recognition.

He still has over, what is it, 90 percent approval within the Republican Party? And those are the voters that vote in the Republican primary, said a former Trump administration official. Getting his endorsement, I would think thats a goal of any Republican candidate running for any office if they hope to be viable.

A recent poll from the anti-tax Club for Growth, which endorsed Budd, shows the power of the former presidents endorsement. The survey, released last week and conducted in June, showed Budd trailing McCrory by a 45-21 margin among likely primary voters but jumping ahead to a 52-28 lead once those voters are informed of the endorsement.

Those results underscore that Budd maintains a path to a primary victory if he wields the endorsement effectively.

The impact of the Trump endorsement, in sort of its simplest form, gives Budd a path where one otherwise would not have existed for him in this kind of a race, said a GOP strategist involved in the Senate race. Well see what the impact of it is moving forward, well see how the Budd campaign can capitalize on it from a fundraising perspective. They didnt do a good job the first time.

In any other normal year, the source added, Pat McCrory would already have this primary sewn up.

Republicans universally say the endorsement remains a huge boost but that its on Budd and his allies to raise and spend money to publicize it to voters.

That effort is already underway. The Club for Growth is expected to drop at least $10 million to boost Budd, and it put out an ad earlier this month focusing solely on Trumps speech in June announcing his support.

The fact that theyre spending that much money right now just to let people know that Trump and Budd are connected shows you that they really are concerned that that is not getting across, said one prominent North Carolina political observer.

You will see Trump flags flying in the yards, you will see Trump signs along the road to this very day. The Trump factor alone is so huge in the state, but if they dont know Ted Budd and that hes connected, its a huge problem against somebody with as much standing and name recognition as a former governor like Pat McCrory.

To be sure, publicizing the endorsement is not a panacea for Budds bid, but Trumps support is a message hell be able to stump on for the entirety of the primary against his opponents.

I dont think its a silver bullet. I think if it was a silver bullet, when it happened, Congressman Budd would have taken a 40-point jump in the polls. But its a bullet that no one else in the race has, said Michele Woodhouse, the chair of the North Carolina 11th Congressional District GOP.

McCrory has looked to offset Budds Trump advantage by seizing on concerns that the congressman could face headwinds in a general election.

Republicans worry that leaning on Trump alone will not be enough in a swing state like North Carolina, where appealing to moderates in urban and suburban centers is paramount.

Youre not going to elect a candidate in a purple state whose only argument for voting for him is that hes endorsed by Donald Trump, the strategist working in the race said. You got to have candidates who can stand on their own two feet and not be totally dependent on the political support of Donald Trump in order to get elected. Ted Budd seems totally complacent that thats his existence.

Those concerns were only exacerbated last week after The Washington Post published a story detailing the Budd familys involvement in the bankruptcy of a company called AgriBioTech, which cost farmers millions of dollars.

Still, just as touting Trumps endorsement is not a silver bullet for Budd, neither is pouncing on general election concerns one for McCrory.

The problem is that our primary politics are so one-sided, either super liberal or super conservative, that I dont know if that argument has enough to make it, said the prominent observer.

Beyond the contenders in the race, the primary also holds significance for Trump, who is known to wield his endorsement as an example of his power in the party. The former president has an overwhelmingly successful, if not perfect, record in his endorsements, but his announcement for Budd is one of his first since leaving office and being deplatformed from social media, potentially heightening its importance for his brand.

Trumps tried to create a fiction, which is that I rule the Republican Party, I control the Republican Party, said Wrenn. I think if Budd doesnt win the primary, its a problem for Trump. If Budd does win, then Trump will try to use it to promote his fiction.

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NC Republican primary key test of Trump's sway | TheHill - The Hill

After robust job growth in the early summer, expectations were high that August's totals would show continued momentum. That's not quite what happened: The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported late last week that the economy added 235,000 jobs in August, far short of projections.

Under normal circumstances, if the U.S. economy were to add 235,000 new jobs in a month, it'd be considered great news, but the current circumstances are anything but normal: The economy is still digging itself out of the hole it fell into last year as the pandemic took its toll. August's job numbers weren't terrible on their own, but it was a small step in the right direction when Americans wanted a big step.

To be sure, there was no great mystery behind the disappointing data: The Delta variant of the coronavirus, which was far less evident when July's job numbers were tallied, very likely contributed to August's tepid growth. We've known for a year and a half that there's a direct connection between the pandemic and the economy, and Friday's report was a timely reminder.

At least, that's how the job numbers were seen in reality. Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel issued a statement late last week pushing a very different kind of argument:

The latest jobs report is a huge miss and shows Joe Biden continues to squander the economic recovery he inherited. Because of Biden's failed policies and reckless spending, there are fewer jobs and rising prices for everything from gas to groceries.

Congressional Republicans also pushed the line that August's job totals reflect the president's "failed economic policies."

At a certain level, all of this was quite predictable. There's a Democratic president, so it stands to reason that his Republican detractors will make every effort to blame him in response to disappointing news.

But what I find amazing is the selectivity of the GOP arguments.

In May, when job totals fell short of expectations, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy insisted that President Biden's economic policies had "stalled our recovery." Around the same time, Republican Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana argued that the White House's agenda was sending the economy into a "tailspin."

The rhetoric appeared pretty foolish soon after, when the economy added over 2 million jobs across June and July, at which point Republicans literally found themselves at a loss for words.

Now, however, they've brought back the talking points from the spring.

So let's recap. In May, Biden was to blame for job growth that fell short of expectations. In June and July, robust job growth wasn't worth paying any attention to. And in August, Biden's "failed policies" the ones that Republicans conveniently overlooked in the early summer were once again to blame for a subpar jobs report.

This obviously doesn't work. For one thing, the president obviously isn't responsible for the pandemic's effect on the economy. For another, if the president's economic policies are so awful, how does the RNC and its allies explain what happened in June and July?

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The biggest problem with Republican arguments about job growth - MSNBC

Media top headlines September 7

In media news today, Rachel Maddow and other liberal media figures get slammed for 'taking the bait' on false ivermectin overdose story, CNN gets blasted for an article that claims 'Whiteness' will be expanded to 'tan' in a more diverse America, and The New York Times gets mocked for a piece that appeared to defend Biden's Afghanistan exit

A columnist for the Washington Post bemoaned how the rise of the publication Politico led to a media to be too tough on Democrats and too lenient towards Republicans.

On Tuesday, columnist Perry Bacon, Jr. published "How the rise of Politico shifted political journalism off course" where he wrote about the the news publications influence on the media. He noted that while Politico has risen to the likes of the New York Times and the Washington Post, its popularity led to "a troubling development for consumers of American political news."

More specifically, Bacon claimed that the Politico method was "obsessed with not offending Republican readers."

WSJ COLUMNIST CALLS OUT AOC, LIBERALS FOR IGNORING REAL STRUCTURAL RACISM IN SCHOOLS

"Politico largely embraced those prevailing orthodoxies of political journalism, particularly in its early days it was Beltway-focused, obsessed with not offending Republican readers, sometimes resembled sports coverage and its leading reporters were nearly all White. It was in many ways just a faster, more interesting version of how politics had long been covered. And that really worked," Bacon wrote.

Bacon elaborated that the media led by Politico "refused" to frame the GOP in unflattering lights when covering ongoing political struggles. For example, he claimed that mainstream press, "wary of angering Republican readers," chose to ignore the "radical and racist behavior" of the GOP during the Obama years.

"So the press spent much of the Obama years acting as if the opposition to him was solely because he had liberal policy ideas on issues such as health care and not because Obama had become both the leader and a symbol of a multicultural America whose values are opposed by many on the right. Wary of angering Republican readers, much of the mainstream press refused to cast the GOP as drifting into radical and racist behavior, even when prominent Republicans would not acknowledge that Obama was born in the United States," Bacon wrote.

Bacon also complained that coverage of the 2016 election was "abysmal."

He wrote, "The focus on Hillary Clintons emails stemmed from the medias reflexive both sides-ism, and an obsession with feuds among Donald Trump's staffers reflected an insider-focused approach to politics gone too far."

Bacon concluded while the media "is doing a much better job describing the high stakes of governing and policy than it did a decade ago," there are still "many bad practices" that remain.

"Stories in the Times and Politico about Republican Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida have downplayed their terrible handling of covid-19. While there were problems with the Biden administrations withdrawal from Afghanistan, the wall-to-wall, highly negative reporting on it also reflects the presss eagerness to demonstrate it will cover him as critically as it did Trump," Bacon wrote.

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Critics hit Bacon's assertion that reporters were only interested in the Clinton email story because of "both sides-ism."

National Review writer David Harsanyi wrote "Reflexive both sides-ism? Clinton engaged in criminal behavior. Most other Americans would be on parole right now."

Wall Street Journal reporter Byron Tau tweeted "Actually stemmed from the fact that the Democratic nominee for president was under criminal investigation by the government for mishandling classified information for a large swath of the campaign."

Founded in 2007, Politico was sold last month to the German media company Axel Springer for about $1 billion.

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WaPo columnist complains media is 'obsessed with not offending Republican readers' - Fox News

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Last week, during a 51-minute interview on The John Fredericks Show, a radio program syndicated across Virginia, former President Donald J. Trump dodged a half-dozen opportunities to say whether he is planning to run for president once again in 2024.

Mr. Fredericks, who alongside his radio gig also served as a chairman of Mr. Trumps campaigns in Virginia, began questions with If youre inaugurated as president again in 2025, and I think youre going to run and win in 2024. He asked, How many seats do the Republicans have to win in 2022 to inspire you to run in 2024?

Hard-hitting journalism this was not.

Still, it did cut to the heart of the biggest question in Republican politics: When will Mr. Trump announce his plans for 2024?

For months the best working theory had been that he would wait as long as possible, both to freeze the rest of the potential 2024 Republican field and to keep as much attention as possible on himself, his endorsements and political proclamations.

In the meantime the former president has not found any new outlet for his political attention. Theres no library in the works or legacy project like President Barack Obamas nonprofit group Organizing for Action (which itself shuttered in 2018 after fading into obsolescence). Mr. Trump is still very much invested in his own false claims about the 2020 election, pushing local Republican officials to audit their ballots and voting machines while trumpeting the phony idea that any election that Democrats win is a fraud.

All of that puts him on the same page as much of todays Republican electorate.

If Donald Trump runs in 24, I think hell clear the field, be the nominee and I think he wins handily against Biden or Harris, said Representative Jim Banks of Indiana, who as the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee has hosted almost every potential non-Trump candidate to speak to his group of more than 150 Republican House members this year.

Mr. Banks is hardly agnostic on the subject of Mr. Trump. His Capitol Hill office is filled with Trump memorabilia, including a framed front page of The Washington Post from the day after the former presidents first Senate acquittal on impeachment charges, autographed by Mr. Trump himself. In January he voted against accepting the results of election, and in July he was one of two Republicans whom Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to seat on the commission investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. He has on his staff the son of Tucker Carlson, one of the most vocal pro-Trump hosts on Fox News.

In our conversation on Monday afternoon, Mr. Banks, who said he was in weekly contact with Mr. Trump, said he hadnt directly discussed if or when the former president might begin a 2024 campaign. He hadnt been told by Mr. Trump, as Representative Jim Jordan said last week in an exchange recorded by a hidden camera, that the former president was about ready to announce another campaign.

All that leaves the field of would-be Republican presidential candidates frozen. Those taking steps that could lead to a 2024 run include Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Kristi Noem of South Dakota; Senators Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio; and the former Trump cabinet members Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley. They each owe varying levels of political allegiance to Mr. Trump; polling shows none of them would be much of a threat to dent Mr. Trumps hold on the party even if they tried.

At the same time, Democrats, fretting about President Bidens sagging standing in public opinion polls after the messy withdrawal from Afghanistan, would generally be thrilled to make what is shaping up to be a challenging midterm election next year a referendum on Mr. Trump. The presidents party almost always loses dozens of seats in the House during the midterms; Democrats picked up 41 seats in 2018 and Republicans flipped 63 in 2010.

For the moment, there are signs that Republicans are more energized across the country. Theyre inundating school board meetings to talk about how race is taught in classrooms, and in some parts of the country theyre filling candidate training rooms at a pace not seen since 2009.

A potential third Trump campaign, started more than three years before the next presidential election, could refocus all of his partys energy onto himself and away from the right-wing cultural issues other Republicans see as political winners.

He brings excitement among the Republican Party base that is unmatched by anybody else, Mr. Banks said.

Yet Mr. Banks had no public advice for Mr. Trump about when, or if, to begin another campaign. Mr. Trump would help Republicans in the midterms equally as a candidate or a noncandidate, Mr. Banks said, before adding that Republicans odds of winning back the White House would not be diminished whether Mr. Trump, or anyone else, was the nominee.

Hes savvy enough to know the right timing better than I do, Mr. Banks said of a potential Trump campaign launch. Im watching all the same news and watching all the rallies that you are. Im speculating that hes moving in that direction.

California is down to the final week of voting before the Sept. 14 recall election of Gov. Gavin Newsom. Youll surely see a lot of California political news between now and next Tuesday: President Biden is planning a campaign stop for Mr. Newsom, a fellow Democrat, White House officials said, part of a party-wide rush to encourage Californians to return the ballots every registered voter in the state has received in the mail.

In a state Mr. Biden carried by 29 percentage points last year, even a narrow victory for Mr. Newsom would send shock waves through Democratic politics. If Mr. Newsom is recalled and replaced with a Republican, expect an unending rending of garments and blame-casting among liberals comparable in recent memory only to the reaction to Mr. Trumps victory of 2016.

Should a Republican take control of the governors office in Americas largest state home to its largest population of Democratic voters that person would still face Democratic supermajorities in the State Legislature but would be in a position to appoint state judges, control the bully pulpit and potentially name a replacement for a United States senator, potentially shifting control of the 50-50 chamber.

Whatever happens for Republicans, the California recall is the equivalent of found money. They either win a stunning upset, come close and spook Democrats into a period of soul searching, or lose by a comfortable margin, in which case they will still have forced Mr. Newsom into running for his political life a year before an expected re-election campaign in 2022.

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When Will Trump Answer the Big 2024 Question? - The New York Times

McCarthy has been vocal in his opposition to the move, threatening that a Republican majority will not forget which telecom companies comply with the committees request. The panel has also asked for McCarthys phone records to be preserved as part of the investigation.

Kinzinger said on CNN's "State of the Union" that the committee has the legal authority to go through the process of requesting these kinds of things. Right now, all we've said is we want these records preserved.

To turn around then, he said, and make ominous talk to these telecom companies that, when we take over it's going to be different or we'll have payback, that's not frankly the Republican Party I remember and the Republican Party I ever joined.

Kinzinger said McCarthys comment was bad politics.

Is it obstruction? I don't know what is considered obstruction of a congressional investigation, but I would certainly recommend he never go there again, he added.

He said that if lawmakers take issue with what the committee's doing, there is a process for your lawyers and your people to push back against it. But it's not to go on TV and tell these companies that they're going to regret it. That, to me, is a pretty scary place to go in this world."

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Republican on Jan. 6 committee: McCarthy warning is 'really bad politics' - POLITICO

KANSAS CITY, Mo. One of Missouris leading anti-abortion legislators plans to offer a bill similar to the Texas law the U.S. Supreme Court allowed to go into effect last week, which empowers citizens to enforce the states near-total abortion ban by suing providers and others who assist women in getting the procedure.

Republican state Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, who chairs the House Children and Families Committee, has promised to introduce a version of the legislation. The commitment, coming from an influential lawmaker, signals that Republicans see a possible new route to effectively ending legal abortion in Missouri.

We are absolutely going to do everything we have in power to try to eliminate abortion in Missouri, Coleman said. And not just eliminate it, but make it unthinkable.

Missouri law already includes a ban on abortion after eight weeks, but the state cannot enforce it while a legal challenge to the restriction makes it way through federal court. Judges are set to review an injunction against the law later this month. The ban, if it ever goes into effect, would be among the toughest abortion limits in the nation.

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue a major abortion rights ruling next spring that could significantly weaken or even overturn the courts 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which made abortion legal nationwide. That outcome would give state lawmakers in Missouri and elsewhere a freer hand to restrict or potentially outright ban the procedure in the years to come.

But the Texas law may provide Missouri abortion rights opponents a quicker path. The Texas measure prohibits abortion after six weeks of pregnancy but blocks government agents from enforcing it. Instead, Texas residents are authorized to sue abortion providers who break the law and others who aid women seeking abortions.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott spoke to the restrictive law, which doesnt allow exceptions for rape or incest. Lets make something very clear. Rape is a crime. And Texas will work tirelessly to make sure we eliminate all rapists from the streets of Texas by aggressively going out and arresting them, and prosecuting them, and getting them off the streets. Research shows that rapes are often committed by someone known to the victim.

The law was designed to thwart court challenges by making it difficult to sue the government to block it. The decision paid off: The Supreme Court voted 5-4 last week to allow the Texas law to go into effect.

If Missouri Republican lawmakers unite around the idea, the General Assembly could pass and Gov. Mike Parson could sign similar legislation in the first part of 2022 months before the Supreme Court hands down its anticipated abortion decision.

In addition to limiting abortion access for Missouri residents, a Missouri law modeled after Texas would likely have the effect of making abortion access more difficult for Texas women who may now be traveling to other states for the procedure. In the wake of the Supreme Court decision, Missouris sole abortion provider is preparing to offer services to patients from Texas.

When politicians in other states have failed people in need of abortion, we have answered the call. RHS will do it again because abortion is health care and health care is a human right, Yamelsie Rodrguez, president and CEO of Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, said in a statement.

However, despite our best efforts, the injustice here is that for far too many patients, traveling out of state will push access out of reach altogether, Rodrguez said. This is the reality weve long been warning about.

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'Make it unthinkable': Missouri Republican will push anti-abortion bill similar to Texas law - pressherald.com

Republican Glenn Youngkin has had to entertain some far-fetched ideas from supporters as he seeks to become the next governor of Virginia.

During one campaign event in late July, a voter suggested that Donald Trump could be reinstated as the president due to fraud in the 2020 election and potentially help elevate Virginia Republicans who lost their seats as well.

Youngkin could have pointed out the obvious truth: that there is no constitutional mechanism for Trump to return to office and the former president has presented no valid evidence of widespread fraud in the election. Instead, he said this: I dont know the particulars about how that can happen, because whats happening in the court system is moving slowly, and its unclear. And we all know the courts move slowly.

The bizarre exchange, first reported by HuffPost, underscores the very fine line Youngkin is trying to walk in Virginias gubernatorial election, which will be held on 2 November. The self-described political outsider and former investment firm executive is attempting to appeal to Virginias independent voters without angering a Republican base that remains loyal to Trump.

It is a tough needle to thread and one that is being replicated in many areas of the US where Republicans must hold on to their Trumpist base while also seeking to court the suburban voters many see as the key to winning close races. As the Republican party has shifted further and further to the right, it has become an increasingly difficult task.

Youngkin especially has his work cut out for him in Virginia, which has been trending toward Democrats in recent years. No Republican presidential candidate has carried the state since 2004, and Trump, who has already endorsed Youngkin, lost Virginia by 10 points in last Novembers presidential election.

And yet, a Monmouth University poll released on Tuesday showed Youngkin trailing Democratic candidate and former governor Terry McAuliffe by just five points, 47% to 42%, indicating the race remains competitive. The race for control of the Virginia house of delegates, where all members are up for re-election this year, is similarly close. Democrats, who control the Virginia House, have a three-point advantage over Republicans in the states legislative races, according to Monmouth.

If Youngkin can pull off a victory in Virginia, his success could provide a roadmap for Republican candidates running in the 2022 midterm elections. Republicans hopes of capturing the House next year may hinge on their ability to appeal to the sort of voters Youngkin is trying to win over in northern Virginias rapidly growing suburbs.

There are lots of places like northern Virginia where Democrats have really done better than they used to across the country, said Kyle Kondik, the managing editor of Sabatos Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. So if theres softness for them in those kinds of places, you think that might translate to softness in, say, suburban Philadelphia and the Twin City suburbs.

But the northern Virginia suburbs have become Democratic strongholds, especially in recent years. Youngkin has the advantage of running in an off-year election with a Democratic president in office: the party that lost the White House usually wins the Virginia gubernatorial race. However, the states Democratic drift in the past decade presents a significant challenge for Youngkin.

The tradeoffs in the electorate in recent years have just been really good for Democrats in Virginia, Kondik said. That doesnt mean that Glenn Youngkin cant win. Its just that there are big-picture factors that are working against him.

Youngkin has tried to appeal to more moderate voters by focusing on kitchen table issues since winning the gubernatorial nomination in May. On Monday, Youngkin rolled out his day one game plan that included cutting state taxes and overhauling broken government agencies.

We need a whole new approach to absolutely uproot the liberal bureaucracy that has taken hold of Richmond and to make government accountable to the people again, Youngkin said at his rollout event in northern Virginia. (The Youngkin campaign did not return the Guardians request for comment.)

But within days, Youngkins policy announcement was overshadowed by the supreme courts decision to allow a Texas law banning most abortions to remain in effect. The controversial ruling gave McAuliffes campaign another opportunity to attack Youngkin over his views on reproductive rights.

Time and time again, Glenn Youngkin has shown he is too dangerous and too extreme for Virginia, said Manuel Bonder, a spokesperson for the Democratic Party of Virginia. From his far-right plans to ban abortion and decimate essential services, to his constant peddling of anti-vaccine rhetoric and Trumpian election lies, Youngkin has made it clear: he is a threat to the health and safety of Virginians.

The supreme court news demonstrated the challenges that Youngkin will face as he tries to keep voters attention on his economic agenda.

Youngkin himself has acknowledged that abortion is an issue where he needs to tread carefully in order to stay in the good graces of more moderate voters. At a June campaign event, Youngkin was recorded saying he was staunchly, unabashedly pro-life but was hesitant to make the issue a focus of his campaign.

When Im governor, and I have a majority in the House, we can start going on offense, Youngkin said in a clip shared with the American Independent. But as a campaign topic, sadly, that in fact wont win my independent votes that I have to get.

At times, Youngkins strategy for appealing to a wide swath of the Virginia electorate seems to come down to saying as little as possible about the issues that fire up the Republican partys pro-Trump base. But his silence has led to attacks fromright and left.

Youngkins calls for election integrity epitomize this dynamic. Youngkins initial refusal to explicitly say Trump could not be reinstated in July led to the McAuliffe campaign accusing him of endorsing dangerous conspiracy theories. Youngkins campaign later said he was trying to politely correct the voters misperceptions about the 2020 election.

But some far-right Republicans have simultaneously criticized Youngkin for not coming out in favor of conducting an audit of the 2020 election results, a tool that has been gaining popularity among Trumps most ardent supporters.

To be honest, what evidence is there that hes trying to walk the line to appeal to non-Trump supporters? said the conservative commentator Bill Kristol, who has endorsed McAuliffe.

His idea of walking the line is to be quiet, and I suppose thats politically understandable. I can see why his consultants would tell him that, but I think its weak, and it doesnt give me any confidence that he could make any tough decisions as governor.

As Virginia voters consider who to support in the gubernatorial race, they will need to decide whether Youngkins silence, in fact, speaks volumes.

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Virginia's Republican candidate for governor treads a slippery political path - The Guardian