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“When she was 17 years old, Elaine Luria raised her right hand and took an oath to support and defend this country and our Constitution — and she has lived that commitment ever since. First as a commander in the Navy, and now as a member of Congress, Elaine Luria brings her sense of duty and tireless work ethic with her every day to fight on behalf of Virginia families. The same can’t be said for Jen Kiggans, a craven political opportunist who will do or say anything to get elected. Virginians know they can trust Elaine to do what’s right, and it’s why they’ll proudly send her back to Congress this November.” – DCCC Chairman Sean Patrick Maloney
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To: Interested Parties
From: Monica Robinson, DCCC Regional Press Secretary
Date: June 21, 2022
Subject: The Case Against Jen Kiggans
Elaine Luria is a retired Navy commander, nuclear engineer, former small business owner, and the independent fighter Virginians need in Washington. She’s hard-working, no B.S., and can always be counted on to do the right thing — because she knows there is nothing more important than the oath she took to this country, many times over.
Married to a naval officer who raised their daughter with her, Elaine Luria served twenty years as a commander in the Navy, and started a family business in Norfolk and Virginia Beach that created local jobs and donated thousands of dollars to local charities. Elaine has served this area in Congress since 2018 and ranks among the most bipartisan members.
Elaine is laser-focused on the issues that matter most to Virginia families, and she delivers. She is one of the leading voices in Congress for veterans and their families, passing legislation that provided a critical pay raise for disabled veterans and to ensure that all veterans have access to all the benefits they earned by their service. She also knows that costs are rising, and families are struggling to pay their bills. That’s why she voted to tackle inflation by standing up to China and securing America’s supply chain, boosting US manufacturing, and reducing our dependence on foreign oil. As Congresswoman for Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, Elaine brought good-paying jobs to Virginia, invested in critical infrastructure investments for ports and highways, and delivered relief to small businesses and families during the worst of the global pandemic.
The contrast couldn’t be sharper between Elaine Luria and Jen Kiggans, the new Republican nominee voters nominated to lose to Elaine this November.
Jen Kiggans is a self-serving, craven political opportunist who will do or say anything to get in power. Kiggans never met a conviction she didn’t abandon when it served her best interests: Faced with a bruising primary with “American First” candidate Jarome Bell, Kiggans quickly dropped all pretense of being a “middle-of-the-road” candidate and sprinted as far to the extreme right as she could go. When she wasn’t staking out radical positions on issues like reproductive rights or spewing conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being stolen, Kiggans was hiding from voters and the press alike, refusing to answer the tough questions if she thought they might hurt her chances of winning. Copy Cat Kiggans is so eager to be a rubber stamp that she even plagiarized Elaine Luria herself: “Kiggans, in the attempt to pillory her political rival […] appears to have stolen language directly from a Wall Street Journal op-ed Luria published four days prior to the email blast.” According to a statistical linguistic analysis expert, “analysis pegged the probability that one of the phrases in question was accidental at one in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000.” Of course, Kiggans’ campaign did not answer “repeated questions” about the apparent plagiarism.
Virginians need sound, commonsense leadership now more than ever — but Jen Kiggans moves further to the extreme right every day, and she can’t be trusted to stand up for what is right. We’ve seen what Kiggans is willing to do to get elected — it’s downright frightening to imagine the agenda she would push in DC with Kevin McCarthy pulling the puppet strings.
WHAT THEY’RE SAYING:
“In a political messaging machine where Republicans have sought to paint Democrats as weak on China, Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District might be one of the hardest places for the GOP to grease those wheels.” [Washington Post, 06/24/21]
“Ms. Luria, who served as a naval officer for 20 years, is by no means making her service on the committee her calling card for re-election. She said she was most likely the only Democratic incumbent campaigning on her fight to increase the budgets of the Navy and the Air Force, while hitting Mr. Biden on foreign policy. On the campaign trail, she is more likely to be talking about flood mitigation in Hampton Roads, the deepening of commercial shipping channels around Norfolk Harbor or the renaming of a post office in Virginia Beach than her work on the Jan. 6 committee.” [New York Times, 06/07/22]
HEADLINE: Congresswoman Luria Holds Town Hall Meeting at ESCC [Shore Daily News, 05/05/22]
HEADLINE: Virginia Democrat in Tight District Pushes Defense Policy, Not Biden’s $2 Trillion Build Back Better [Wall Street Journal, 12/01/21]
“It says much about the looming June 21 Republican primary that Ms. Kiggans would not say that Mr. Biden was the lawfully elected president.” [New York Times, 06/07/22]
“Their conservative priorities take center stage. And one candidate called for election fraud executions. All of the candidates are running on priorities that have made headlines recently, including opposition to critical race theory (CRT) and abortion rights, as well as support for gun rights.” [13 News, 05/31/22]
HEADLINE: Luria to visit Eastern Shore today to present $11.2 million in CPF awards [Shore Daily News, 04/18/22]
“But if voters regard their ballots as a choice between two political parties — one trying but failing, the other veering dangerously toward extremism — those losses could be mitigated. In the coming weeks — with the Jan. 6 hearings, an expected overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court and the new focus on gun violence — Democrats are hoping that choice will be crystallized.” [New York Times, 06/07/22]
“During the last year, [Kiggans] has been moving to the right – especially on election issues – by being one of four state Senators to support Amanda Chase in her efforts to audit the 2020 election results.” [Virginia Scope, 06/14/22]
HEADLINE: VA-02’s nomination process is a race to the right [Virginia Scope, 06/14/22]
HEADLINE: GOP Candidate Lifts Language From Dem Opponent’s Op-Ed [Daily Beast, 07/16/21]
“It is, by all measurements, one thing to knock your political opponent on a policy you disagree with. It’s another to criticize them even when you agree. But it may be an entirely different universe of hypocrisy to misrepresent your opponent’s position and […] actually taking their words and presenting them as your own.” [Daily Beast, 07/16/21]
JEN KIGGANS: AN EMPTY SUIT WHO WILL DO ANYTHING TO GET ELECTED
JEN KIGGANS WOULD TOSS OUT YOUR VOTE
To Jen Kiggans, democracy, law, and order are merely suggestions to be thrown away if they get in between her and her political ambitions. Kiggans was one of only four state Senate Republicans to vote for a $70 million audit of the 2020 election results that would have saddled taxpayers with the massive bill. Kiggans also repeatedly refused to say whether she felt Joe Biden was the lawfully elected president — “It says much about the looming June 21 Republican primary that Ms. Kiggans would not say that Mr. Biden was the lawfully elected president,” reported the New York Times, and the Washington Post reported that “when questioned she would not say whether she herself believed there was fraud in the 2020 election in Virginia necessitating an audit.” Kiggans has been dodging questions about this topic for more than a year: “Many Republicans are simply trying to deflect the question of Mr. Biden’s legitimacy,” wrote the New York Times in June 2021. “Jen Kiggans of Virginia, campaigning for a competitive U.S. House seat based around Norfolk, issued a nearly 900-word statement on Facebook detailing her commitment to restoring ‘voter confidence’ but making no mention of Mr. Biden or whether she disputed the 2020 results.”
Virginians, beware: Jen Kiggans is threatening to throw your vote in the trash, and she wants to make you pay for it.
JEN KIGGANS WANTS TO SEE ABORTION BANNED NATIONWIDE
In the wake of alarming reports that the Supreme Court of the United States is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, Jen Kiggans would spell disaster for Virginia women. Kiggans claimed ending access to safe, legal abortion was her motivation to run for office, and pledged to prioritize “the right to life.” She largely based her first campaign on promoting misinformation and false claims about “infanticide” – then shamefully deleted that part of her website after she won her primary. While in the state Senate, Kiggans voted against legislation to expand access to abortion. And when asked about where she stands on Roe v. Wade, Kiggans responded that she was “100%, unapologetically pro-life.” Support for safe, legal abortion has never been higher and Jen Kiggans is dangerously out of step.
INFRASTRUCTURE: ONLY A PIPE DREAM ON KIGGANS’ WATCH
Thanks to the House Democrats’ infrastructure plan, Virginia is soon to see a once-in-a-lifetime investment in roads, bridges, pipes, ports, and broadband. But that economic boost and investment in Virginia’s aging infrastructure would have been nothing but a pipe dream if Jen Kiggans had her way. More than 200 Republicans voted against it – and among them would have been Kiggans, who said she wouldn’t have voted for the package to “send a message […] and stay with my [Republican] caucus.” Kiggans described the infrastructure upgrades as “a perfect example of what’s wrong with Washington.” Opposing jobs, bridges, internet, and roads to score cheap political points: Not the winning issue Kiggans thinks it is.
JEN KIGGANS IS A RADICAL EXTREMIST OUT OF STEP WITH VIRGINIANS
At a time when Virginians need leaders in Washington willing to work across the aisle and find solutions to tough problems, Jen Kiggans has proven she’ll be a rubber stamp for the most extreme, radical wing of her party. After the devastating elementary school shooting in Uvalde that killed 19 students and 2 teachers, Kiggans shamefully sided with the NRA, further proving she stands with the gun lobby — not with children and the safety of our communities. In 2019, in classic Jen Kiggans fashion, she “didn’t take a stance on any gun control measures” — despite having touted her “A” rating from the NRA just a few months prior. She then went on to vote against commonsense gun violence prevention measures like background checks and keeping guns out of the hands of people who were substantial risks to harm themselves and others. Kiggans admitted that by doing so, she was abandoning her campaign promise to reach across the aisle and find compromise.
In a desperate effort to win her primary, Kiggans spent her time as a local elected official spearheading measures to prevent LGBTQ+ Virginians from living free from discrimination. The move “may have been motivated […] after facing conservative backlash because […] she is now running for the U.S. House representing Virginia’s second congressional district in 2022.” Kiggans even voted against banning conversion therapy for minors. Jen Kiggans is way out of step with Virginia families, and far too dangerous to sit in Congress.
JEN KIGGANS IS IN THE POCKET OF BIG PHARMA
Kiggans is out for only one person: herself. Over the course of her political career, Kiggans has been bought and paid for by some of the slimiest, swampiest special interests out there. Kiggans’ largest donor in 2019 was the Republican State Leadership Committee, which gave her nearly half a million dollars after they received more than $800,000 from Big Pharma.
PATH TO VICTORY
Rep. Elaine Luria’s path to victory in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District is clear. The new VA-02 includes Virginia Beach City in its approximate center and spans from Franklin and Suffolk Cities in the southwest to Virginia’s portion of the Eastern Shore in the northeast.
This new configuration is a diverse, suburban/urban district that has been trending Democratic. President Joe Biden and Sen. Mark Warner both won this district in 2020, and Sen. Tim Kaine won as well in 2018. Under the new lines, Biden would have received 50.9% of the major-party vote, and Warner would have received 51.9% in 2020.
Voters in VA-02 have consistently supported Democratic candidates up and down the ballot, and Congresswoman Elaine Luria is the perfect representative for this seat. Virginians will proudly re-elect her in November.
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