It’s still early, but it is now 2024. And at least one Democrat is willing to take on Republican Congressman Jamie Comer this year, and she’s going to be hitting Comer over the issue of abortion. Her name is Erin Marshall, and she is a young single mother with a story to tell and a sharp contrast to make with Comer.
[NOTE: This is Kentucky, and finding any hopeful sign for Democrats here is like planting a seedling and hoping it eventually grows. The soil is very poor for Democrats, but at least someone is willing to come forward and try.]
From Joseph Gerth of The Louisville Courier-Journal:
In his four previous races for his first district congressional seat, Jamie Comer hasn’t faced the tough questions that derailed his bid for the governor’s office in 2015.
In that race, he told the Lexington Herald-Leader that he had never hit a former college girlfriend who he was rumored to have abused.
After he did that, the former girlfriend came forward and told the Courier Journal that not only did he hit her, he took her to obtain an abortion in Louisville after she became pregnant.
He lost the Republican primary for governor that year by just 83 votes, but the issues of abuse and an abortion hasn’t come up much since.
Emphasis is mine.
This has not gotten any real play since that time. Comer keeps insisting that his former girlfriend is a liar, but seeing as Comer has been known to spread all kinds of lies, I’m willing to believe her. And it does appear that Erin Marshall is going to use this story in her campaign.
None of that is likely to matter to Marshall, whose campaign manager says she takes personally Comer’s position opposed to abortion rights along with the allegation that he took a former girlfriend for an abortion.
Marshall was living in Cincinnati when she was 24 and learned she was pregnant. About that time, she and her boyfriend broke up.
She could have gotten an abortion, especially since there were signs the pregnancy was a high-risk one. But she decided to return to Frankfort and have her son, according to the campaign.
“She just thinks every woman should have the same choices she had,” said Mark Nickolas, her campaign manager.
“Erin is an incredibly unique candidate,” Nickolas said. “She is a single mom who is motivated by this abortion issue that we’re having in Kentucky. …
“Comer has two abortion problems. The first, he’s an extremist on the abortion issue. The second he’s a hypocrite; he’s one who says one thing and lives another. He’s got the Herschel Walker problem.”
While she’s a first-time candidate, Marshall isn’t completely new to politics. She’s worked on campaigns and in 2022, and she starred in a commercial for Franklin Circuit Judge Phil Shepherd in which she labeled Shepherd’s opponent, Joe Bilby, an extremist on abortion.
They’ll hit that message hard again in this race.
Now, Marshall is not a real newbie to politics, which is a good thing. I’m not sure having Nickolas as a campaign manager is good though. He was the manager for Amy McGrath’s pitiful campaigns.
Rolls eyes in rememberance.
However, Marshall and Nickolas are saying they will hit Comer like Warnock hit Herschel Walker. And how will the good citizens of the 1st Congressional District respond? It will still be a longshot and uphill battle for Marshall. The district is now Republican, but Andy Beshear did get 44% of the vote in the 1st. And at least 43% of the voters there rejected the attempt to vote for a constitutional amendment to ban abortion in KY.
I will add one thing that Gerth does not bring up. It has been my experience that the voters in western KY put a strong emphasis on social and cultural issues. This has always worked against Democrats since Clinton was president. I can remember all the BS that poured forth from people in the western part of KY about Clinton’s cheating on Hillary.
Never mind all the cheating by Trump.
But my point is that I don’t think Comer has the same protection as Trump when it comes to being a liar and hypocrite. It did sink his run for KY governor back in 2015. Instead, we got the Trump mini-me Matt Bevin.
And even Bevin was too mean for KY.
Marshall may be on to something here with her run against Comer. I know it can’t hurt to take the fight to him.