Some Republican who thinks they’re extremely clever is running a dirty trick robocall in Georgia against Stacey Abrams and Rep. Sanford Bishop. The robocall thanks Abrams and Bishop for their supposed support of “abortion up until the date of birth,” but, while that would be obvious enough as a Republican effort to hurt them, it doesn’t stop there.
”This is Jill, and my pronouns are she/her,” the call opens. “I’m sure you’ll agree with me that people that identify as women are under attack, not just in Georgia, but throughout our country. Georgia is lucky to have Stacey Abrams and Sanford Bishop fighting for our abortion rights.”
Gosh, that sounds legit! People who identify their pronouns would definitely do it in a robocall where no one will be talking to them and therefore have no reason to be using their pronouns.
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“While some elected officials are trying to limit abortion rights to six months or even five months after conception, we are so lucky to have Stacey Abrams and Sanford Bishop fighting to protect our right to have an abortion up until the date of birth,” the call goes on to say. “Would you please take a moment to call Stacey Abrams or Sanford Bishop and thank them for standing up for women’s right to abort their babies up to the point of birth.”
And, to drive the point home, “Government needs to stay out of the reproductive rights of birthing persons.”
It then offers voters a chance to leave a message for Bishop or Abrams, redirecting them to either Bishop’s district office or, instead of any Abrams’ offices, it gives the local Democratic committee chair’s private number, leading her to receive harassing calls.
From the pronouns to “identify as women” to “abortion up until the date of birth” to “birthing persons,” this was so clearly intended as a parody of how reproductive rights activists would talk, and written to trigger rage in anyone who has ever watched 10 minutes of Fox News. You can just picture a couple of aging frat boys—they probably look like Buckley Carlson—giggling over every new supposed left-wing buzzword they thought up and crammed into the robocall script.
The call went to 43,000 phones, CNN reports, and claimed to have been paid for by “American Values”—except CNN called a series of groups with that name and none took responsibility (although some failed to respond). A similar call targeting just Bishop went to 41,000 phones, some of them having also received the Bishop/Abrams call.
In reality, Bishop has voted for some abortion restrictions. Abrams recently said, “I believe that abortion is a medical decision, not a political decision, and arbitrary, politically defined timelines are deeply problematic, because they ignore the reality of medical and physiological issues.
Republican ratfucking robocalls do not admit to nuance, however.
This one also, typically, violates Federal Communications Commission rules by not identifying who paid for it in the introduction (and, again, it’s kind of a mystery what group sent it, given the generic name) and failing to give a callback number.
The same congressional district where these calls were sent was the site of another dirty trick robocall during the Republican primary. Those calls pretended to support Jeremy Hunt, a Black candidate in the Republican primary, by calling on people to “celebrate Black independence.”
“We can leave the old ways of the Republican Party in the past and build our party back better,” that call said, simultaneously being critical of the Republican Party and echoing a Democratic agenda. “No more attacks on our capital, no more divisive language from a former President.”
Another Republican robocall scandal was in the news this week as Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman pleaded guilty in Ohio to a single count of fifth-degree felony telecommunications fraud for their role in a racist robocall targeting Black voters in Ohio, Michigan, and New York. Ohio prosecutors dropped 14 other charges, but Wohl and Burkman still face criminal charges in Michigan and civil ones in New York.
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How should we be reading the 2022 polls, in light of shifting margins and past misses? In this week’s episode of The Downballot Public Policy Polling's Tom Jensen joins us to explain how his firm weights polls to reflect the likely electorate; why Democratic leads in most surveys this year should be treated as smaller than they appear because undecided voters lean heavily anti-Biden; and the surprisingly potent impact abortion has had on moving the needle with voters despite our deep polarization.