Virginia's Republicans "made a mistake" by going on defense against Democrats' General Assembly campaigns that focused on abortion rights instead of going on offense on issues that the voters "really care about," said Jim McLaughlin of McLaughlin and Associates, who is also a pollster for former President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign.
"There's no question that Republicans underperformed in Virginia, but I saw one analysis that said the Democrats outspent them by almost $8 million," McLaughlin said on Newsmax's "National Report" about Tuesday's election, in which Democrats in Virginia won full control of the General Assembly.
McLaughlin acknowledged that "every race is different," but said that in Virginia and other places, making the race a "referendum on abortion" hurt Republican candidates.
"I did a lot of races last night in places like New York and New Jersey, and in New York, the Republicans won overwhelmingly," said McLaughlin. "They picked up the county executive seat out [in] Long Island. The Republicans owned most of the town supervisor races, most of the mayor races, and we picked up that county executive race out in Long Island and the Hudson Valley, which actually portends really well for these Republicans."
Conservative podcaster Tudor Dixon, also on the program Wednesday, said Democrats are using abortion as a "powerful message" against Republicans.
Gerard Filliti, the senior counsel for The Lawfare Project, also commenting on Newsmax Wednesday, said he thinks Republicans need to refine their strategy, as "abortion has not been a winning issue" since the 1990s.
"There is no unified messaging," he said. "They will continue to lose races. The problem is that the Republican Party right now does seem to be in some disarray. We saw this on Capitol Hill with electing a speaker. We're seeing this [play out] in the primary."
Filliti said that means that Republicans need to "focus on issues, the issue that voters care about [like] the economy, school issues, parental rights, not just abortion."
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