Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) made it clear Tuesday that she was not interested in having President Joe Biden campaign for her in the last few months leading up to the 2022 midterm elections. “I will do the campaigning myself,” she said.
Spanberger made an appearance on “America’s Newsroom,” where Fox News anchor Dana Perino pressed her on the fact that her seat — in Virginia’s 7th Congressional District — was likely to be in play and asked whether she was interested in getting any campaign assistance from the White House going into November.
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"I intend to do that campaigning myself. I am a candidate. It is my name on the ballot," Abigail Spanberger dismisses the idea that she would invite President Biden to campaign for her. pic.twitter.com/v3uC4hrDG9
— Virginia Kruta (@VAKruta) June 28, 2022
“According to the Cook Political Report, it is a toss-up, a Democratic toss-up, D-plus-one district now is what they are calling it,” Perino began. “You know, I wonder as you look across the board, do you think you will have President Biden come and campaign with you in that district?
“I intend to do the campaigning myself. I am the candidate. It is my name on the ballot. Certainly when I first ran, I ran in an R-plus-seven district. And I won in that seat by getting out, speaking to voters, making sure that they know who I am and what it is that I intended to do for them,” Spanberger replied.
She went on to say that when she ran for reelection in 2020, she had outperformed President Biden “by telling people what I had done and what I was going to continue to do.”
Spanberger then touted a number of issues she had worked on during her time in Congress, mentioning a number of bills that she had worked on: “infrastructure-related, cost of prescription drug-related, funding the police-related, immigration reform-related, border security-related. Bills I’ve gotten passed and signed into law, both by the current president and by former President Trump.”
Spanberger has previously spoken out within her own party, criticizing those on the far left who advocate for policies like “defunding the police” and saying that their rhetoric makes it more difficult for Democrats in more moderate districts to reach voters.
She called the 2020 Congressional elections a “failure” during a call with other Democrats, adding, “No one should say ‘defund the police’ ever again. Nobody should be talking about socialism” — and warning that if the party continued in that direction, they would be “f***ing torn apart” in future elections.