It’s never a good sign when a politician has to resort to dishonesty about his record in order to get re-elected. As reported on Blue Virginia, Delegate Chris Jones (HD-76) is trying to rewrite history and make voters believe that he’s been a champion of Medicaid expansion in Virginia all along— conveniently leaving out the fact that he voted against it not once, not twice, but FOUR times, in turn denying coverage for years for thousands of his constituents and hundreds of thousands of people across the Commonwealth.
Once described by the Washington Post as “a leader in the fight against Medicaid expansion,” he is now claiming in a new TV ad that he “led the fight to expand Medicaid.” A press release from the Democratic Party of Virginia notes that “Jones fought to remove Medicaid expansion from every budget proposed during the McAuliffe administration, only changing his position once it became politically inconvenient.”
Once a safely Republican seat, the 76th District is now the most Democratic district currently held by a Republican in Virginia. Earlier this year, federal courts redrew the district after ruling that the old map was unconstitutionally gerrymandered to disenfranchise minority voters. The real kicker? Delegate Jones was one of the chief architects of Republican gerrymandering efforts in 2001 and 2011. Without his gerrymander to protect him, Jones is running in a 58% Democratic district, so it’s no wonder he’s trying to mask his record.
His Democratic opponent, Clint Jenkins, is an Army veteran, small business owner, and proven leader who has been fighting to improve his community his entire adult life through his work with various Civic Leagues and other local organizations. He is currently the DPVA’s Third Congressional District Chair and has been active in Democratic politics for decades. He’s the ideal candidate to go up against an entrenched, career politician.
The path to a Democratic majority in the House of Delegates runs straight through the 76th District, and we can’t afford to let false Republican narratives go unchecked. If Democrats in Virginia can pull this off (and I think they can), it really will be a bad omen for Republicans in 2020.
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