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BAIT & SWITCH: Republican candidates scrub mentions of abortion from their websites

BAIT & SWITCH: Republican candidates scrub mentions of abortion from their websites

BAIT & SWITCH: Republican candidate scrub mentions of abortion from their websites

After voters in Kansas made history by rejecting an anti-abortion referendum and Democrats won tough special elections in New York and Alaska, Republicans are feeling the pressure and trying to trick voters about their hardline anti-choice stances.

Across the country in key battleground races in Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, Arizona, and North Carolina, Republican candidates are scrubbing abortion language from campaign websites and twisting themselves into a pretzel to avoid alienating voters while stumping on the trail.

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In Arizona, GOP Senate nominee Blake Masters removed language that said, “I am 100% pro-life,” and a line expressing his support for “a federal personhood law that recognizes that unborn babies are human beings that may not be killed.”

In Minnesota, the GOP nominee for governor, Scott Jensen, watered down anti-abortion language on his website, removing lines including, “He believes in the sanctity of human life, from conception to natural death.” The GOP gubernatorial candidate in Oregon, Christine Drazan, edited her website to dilute her stance against abortion after her Democratic opponent began airing ads on the issue.

Bo Hines, a Republican Congressional candidate in North Carolina was similarly called out for erasing all mentions of abortion from his website despite previously claiming he supported a “100% ban on abortion, no exceptions.”

In my home state of Florida, Nick Diceglie running for an open seat in Florida’s 18th Senate District also is scrubbing anti-abortion views from his campaign website and it appears that U.S. Senator Marco Rubio has also edited his site, despite previously answering yes to all ten of the National Pro-Life Alliance’s priorities when asked by the group if he would support them.

Republicans know their extremist positions against abortion and reproductive rights are unpopular with voters and now they are desperate to run away from the issue as they see their colleagues flounder in electoral contests across the state. They know their prospects in November have been greatly diminished by their unhinged attacks against basic civil rights and freedoms and now they are disingenuously trying to trick voters by lying to them and misrepresenting their positions.

Don’t let these cynical liars get away with it. Call them out and vote them out.

Thomas Kennedy is an elected Democratic National Committee member from Florida. Twitter: @tomaskenn

This is an opinion column that solely reflects the opinions of the author.

Thomas Kennedy
is a former reported opinion columnist and roving correspondent. He's an elected member of the Democratic National Committee from Florida and a fomer Director of Sunshine Agenda Inc. a government transparency nonprofit organization.

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