PFAW Member --
One of the AMAZING young progressive champions PFAW has endorsed in the rapidly approaching Virginia elections is state Senate candidate Qasim Rashid.
Earlier this month, we emailed you about Islamophobic attacks on Qasim by his Republican opponent -- and PFAW members stepped up big time, with donations to have Qasim's back and respond to right-wing racism and hate with progressive support and love. (Thank you!)
Well, we are sad to report that not only is Qasim's opponent, Republican incumbent state Sen. Richard Stuart, standing by -- and still running -- Islamophobic, race-baiting online ads that try to tie Qasim to “Islamic terrorism,” his commitment to the smears is now being picked up by white supremacist hate groups and Qasim is receiving an increasing number of threats echoing Stuart's attacks.
We need to show Republicans that their racist, Islamophobic, immigrant-bashing campaign playbook won't work! Not this year, and not in 2020.
100% of your donation will go to Qasim Rashid's campaign for state Senate.
Republican Sen. Richard Stuart is running a series of ads accusing Qasim of being “radical” and one of the ads stating, “Qasim Rashid doesn’t believe Islamic terrorism exists.”
In recent weeks, as Stuart has continued to embrace the Trump playbook and promised to stand by his anti-Muslim ads, it has drawn the attention of hate groups and anti-Muslim activists, whose followers are targeting Qasim with DEATH THREATS. (One of those activists, who blogged about Qasim, is Robert Spencer, one of the inspirations of the Norwegian terrorist who carried out an anti-Muslim mass shooting in 2011 that killed 77 people.)
Rather than condemning those threats or backing away from the ads that sparked them, Stuart has decided to double down.
Qasim is incredibly grateful for the support he's received so far from the PFAW community -- and we are immensely proud to be standing with him, and proud of our members for stepping up to join us.
Now, as the attacks against him continue to escalate, Qasim is asking for our help again.
Will you rush an emergency donation to Qasim right now via ActBlue to help him fight back?
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We only need to flip TWO SEATS to change majority control of the Virginia state Senate from Republican to Democrat.
So if we can join together and make Republican Richard Stuart’s racist and dishonest smear tactics backfire with a surge of grassroots support to Qasim’s campaign, we can FLIP this Republican Senate seat from red to blue and FLIP the Virginia Senate!
Republican Richard Stuart has voted to expand access to guns and to restrict funding for abortions and family planning services. He also voted against ratifying the ERA, against raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, and against expanding Medicaid.
But our candidate, human rights lawyer Qasim Rashid, is a progressive fighter who is running to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, expand health care access for Virginians, and improve worker protections and strengthen unions. He is a champion for voting rights, supports ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment, and is ready to fight for common-sense reforms to address gun violence.
Qasim is also rejecting campaign contributions from corporations and the state’s largest electric utilities to focus on small dollar donations from individuals – including hundreds of PFAW members.
But Republican Richard Stuart, who is attacking Qasim with racist, Islamophobic ads, has a massive Big Money advantage, with nearly half of his campaign contributions from Big Business in 2019, including Dominion Energy, Appalachian Power, Verizon, Altria and Capital One... So we need to fight back with even more grassroots support!
(100% of your donation will go to Qasim Rashid's campaign for state Senate.)
Thank you so much for stepping up, and for all you do.
-- Lizet Ocampo, Political Director
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