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Jen Kiggans’s extreme record is starting to catch up to her, and she’s left scrambling to distort and run from her record in a desperate attempt to get voters on her side.
The Washington Post highlighted Kiggans’s reputation in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District of racing to extremes on the issues that matter to Virginians – but then trying to walk back her positions in the general election.
“Kiggans is twisting herself into a pretzel trying to rewrite her extreme record,” said DCCC spokesperson Monica Robinson. “She’s starting to realize her record of attacking law enforcement, celebrating Roe v. Wade being overturned, and attempting to spend $70 million taxpayer dollars to toss out Virginians’ votes aren’t mainstream, and they’ll cost her in November.”
Read more below:
Washington Post: Ad attacks leave Kiggans trying to reclaim image: ‘I’m not an extremist’
By Meagan Flynn
September 11, 2022
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“For Kiggans, ‘I’m not an extremist’ has become somewhat of a mantra, battling the image of her that Luria has splashed across television screens in one of the most competitive races in the nation.”
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“But on the other hand Kiggans has also stuck to the script on some of the GOP’s more divisive narratives — in turn leading Luria to paint the very image of Kiggans that she is expressly trying to avoid.”
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“‘Jen is a political opportunist who will say and do anything to get elected, and the people of Coastal Virginia see right through her,’ Luria, a retired Navy commander, said in a statement, arguing that Kiggans’s ‘extreme words and actions speak for themselves.’”
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“She pointed to Kiggans joining the chorus of Republicans who immediately sought to discredit the FBI’s search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago before facts about the search emerged, which in part led the Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press editorial board to accuse Kiggans of forging a path to victory that included ‘the selling of her soul.’”
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“And while Kiggans has never beat a ‘stolen election’ drum, she has hesitated to acknowledge President Biden was legitimately elected when asked directly, saying he simply ‘lives in the White House.’”
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“Now, Luria has turned to abortion — releasing three ads in a month accusing Kiggans of supporting a ban on abortion without exception after Kiggans applauded the overturn of Roe v. Wade. ‘She wants to make abortion illegal,’ a narrator said against a smiling image of Kiggans in the first ad.”
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“Up against Luria’s 10-to-1 cash-on-hand advantage at the start of the summer, the bombardment is leaving Kiggans constantly on defense against an image she says doesn’t represent the real her — and perhaps leaving the district’s all-important swing voters wondering: Who is the real Kiggans, anyway?”
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“But some of her Democratic colleagues pointed to what they saw as a shift harder to the right in some of Kiggans’s actions this year. Sen. Ghazala F. Hashmi (D-Richmond), who had befriended Kiggans when they both attended a training at the University of Virginia for aspiring candidates in 2018, started to describe Kiggans as a lawmaker who wasn’t one to ‘challenge or provoke people’ on hot-button issues, before stopping herself: ‘Well, let me take that back: In previous years she wasn’t.’”
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“This session, Kiggans carried the mantle on some of her party’s culture-war issues.”
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“‘In my view, she lost her moderate persona this past session, completely,’ said Sen. Barbara A. Favola (D-Arlington).”
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“Hashmi, who chairs the subcommittee that killed both of those bills, said it didn’t surprise her that the ‘very conservative’ Kiggans would support them — but she was ‘disappointed’ Kiggans decided to be their spokeswoman.”
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“What was surprising, Hashmi and Favola said, was Kiggans’s support for a $70 million audit of the 2020 election proposed by Sen. Amanda F. Chase (R-Chesterfield), which was rejected by all but four Republicans.”
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“‘I’ve seen again the effort to appeal to the extreme right-wing agenda,’ Hashmi said, drawing a contrast with Luria’s service on the committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.”
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“But, [Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo, a political science professor at Christopher Newport University] added, the repeal of Roe throws in a wrench. ‘Really, before that, I would have said Kiggans was a favorite, and now I would say it’s much closer to a toss-up, because maybe the abortion issue will energize, particularly, college-educated women in the suburbs,’ she said.”
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