GOP strives to sink Dems with Pelosi
Candidates insist they’re not liberal extremists
CHESTERFIELD, Va. – Republican Rep. Dave Brat is running against a farleft Democrat, an all-out liberal. Trouble is, that caricature bears little resemblance to the candidate actually opposing him.
Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer, campaigns as a centrist willing to work across the aisle. In her campaign office in Henrico County, Spanberger rattled off to USA TODAY the list of Democratic policies she’s against: a government-run single-payer health care system, an open border and shuttering U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. If Democrats take back the House, Spanberger said, she doesn’t think House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi should become speaker again.
To hear Brat tell it, if Spanberger is elected to replace him in Virginia’s heavily Republican 7th Congressional District, she’ll vote with the far-left of her party – even if on the campaign trail, she says she won’t.
As Brat drove through suburban Richmond with a USA TODAY reporter this month, he said Democrats have moved hard left. “They’re way off what the American people want, and they’re going to find that out this election,” he said.
Republicans such as Brat, who face competitive races across the country, are trying to tie all Democrats to the most liberal wing of the party, a faction that pushes Medicare for All and advocates abolishing ICE.
GOP candidates have accepted they’re linked to President Donald Trump’s polarizing record, regardless of how they campaign, so to offset that, they try to saddle Democrats with their own bogeyman. In this case, a bogeywoman – Nancy Pelosi.
In New York state, GOP Rep. Claudia Tenney released a TV ad that said her opponent “supports Pelosi’s (Medicare for All) plan” and would be a “rubber stamp” on her agenda. Democratic candidate Anthony Brindisi, a New York state assemblyman, said in a phone interview with USA TODAY that he does not support Pelosi for speaker.
In Kentucky, a TV ad paid for by the Congressional Leadership Fund targets retired Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath as someone “backed by liberal extremists who want to eliminate the law enforcement agency that enforces our immigration laws” and who supports “open borders.”
McGrath campaign manager Mark Nickolas called the ad “ridiculous” and said the Kentucky Democrat may not want a wall but is for “very strong borders,” and “she doesn’t think ICE is the problem.”
Courtney Alexander, a spokeswoman for the Paul Ryan-aligned super-PAC Congressional Leadership Fund, defended the ads on McGrath. She noted that some of the high-profile Democratic senators who raised money for McGrath’s campaign – including Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York – voiced support for abolishing ICE.
Republicans have stuck with their midterm playbook, even starting to press Democrats to specify how far their lack of support for Pelosi extends. They said Democrats might oppose Pelosi in a private caucus vote but back her in the bright light of a House chamber vote.