Dear John,
I've always said campaigns are about contrasts and this race for one of the seven battleground state Senate districts is no different. Contrast isn't just about positive vs. negative: sometimes it's about how you conduct your campaign and tout your own positions vs. what the other side does.
I'm super proud of the fact that the overwhelming majority of our campaign's message has been positive since we started our paid ads two months ago.
Our campaign is now in its ninth week of running entirely positive ads on digital, streaming and television: the first touted my vision for greater Prince William; the second supported my record of expanding Medicaid, securing tens of millions of dollars to fix Route 28, and introducing legislation to fight data center sprawl; and the third -- which is running now -- is about my successful work to expand free school meals to thousands more students in our area. (Your donations today will help us keep up our message!)
Even in the mail, most of our ads have been positive -- and our contrasts compare my stances in favor of abortion rights and gun safety against the Republican's opposition to both as they're major, real-life issues at stake in this election.
In our campaign, we've touted my record of passing 41 bipartisan bills into law and delivering on issue after issue. In fact, in mailboxes today, while the other side has a childish-looking negative ad against me because I refuse to defund public schools by allowing tax dollars to go to private schools, our campaign has an ad about how I kept my promise to expand Medicaid, which is now covering 728,000 Virginians -- including more than 36,000 here in greater Prince William. That's the real-deal stuff.
So I've done what I can to run a high-brow, issues-oriented campaign. Meanwhile, our local cable provider last week pulled down a transphobic attack against me by the Republican candidate because it broke Virginia's "Stand by Your Ad" law. However, they eventually replaced the ad, doubling down on attacking me for supporting the nine trans kids out of 1.26 million public school students in Virginia who just wanted to play sports with their friends.
And then when I earned endorsement of The Washington Post's editorial board, we got word Republicans started pleading for outside groups to do more of their transphobic dirty work for them -- just like they did in 2017, when we unseated the self-described "chief homophobe" of Virginia by nearly 8 percentage points after a flood of transphobic attacks swept through the district during the closing weeks of the campaign.
Apparently the lesson they took was, "What if we did the same thing but this time with a lot more money behind it! Surely that's the ticket to defeating Transgender Delegate in an area that's elected her three times!"
I know what winning campaigns look like because that's all we've ever run -- and I know what losing campaigns look like because that's all the other side has ever run against me, and the only difference between this one and the last three is how much money they're putting into their losing message.
Election Day is in 3.5 weeks and all we need to do to put this race away is execute our game plan. That's where your contribution comes in. Please donate $10, $25, $50, $100 or whatever you can do today so we can close out the campaign on our terms with our message with the advertising and ground game we need to support our narrative.
While I prefer to run positive campaigns, candidates who attack LGBTQ+ kids don't get a free pass. We need to win this campaign on November 7. It's the only way to show them we need to focus on feeding kids, not bullying them, while continuing to deliver results for the people of greater Prince William.
Warmly,
Danica
