A GOP gubernatorial candidate is taking thousands of dollars in donations from election-denying lobbyists

Plus, JD Vance continues to alienate voters with hard-right stances on abortion, LGBTQ rights.

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New audio of vice-presidential candidate JD Vance shows the Ohio senator doubling down on providing no exemptions regarding abortions — even if rape or incest are involved. 

“Look, my view on this has been very clear, and I think the question betrays a certain presumption that's wrong,” Vance says in a 2021 interview with Spectrum News that has since resurfaced. 

“It's not whether a woman should be forced to bring a child to term. It's whether a child should be allowed to live even though the circumstances of that child's birth are somehow inconvenient or a problem to society.”

The GOP’s vice-presidential pick also waded into a controversy surrounding an Olympic boxing match where Algeria’s Imane Khelif defeated Italy’s Angela Carini. Right-wing pundits and influencers immediately pointed to the match as an example of the dangers of allowing transgender women to participate in women’s sports — even though Khelif is not trans. Carini apologized today for walking away from a post-fight handshake with Khelif, saying she was emotional from losing the bout and was in no way making a political statement.

Still, Vance called the Khelif’s inclusion “disgusting” and claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris would have supported a “grown man pummeling a woman in a boxing match.”

As Missouri’s Democratic primaries loom, progressive Rep. Cori Bush’s (D-MO) opponent, St. Louis prosecutor Wesley Bell, appears to have accepted $7 million in campaign contributions from the right-wing American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its PAC, United Democracy Project.

The PAC also mailed out flyers to residents of Bush’s district which appear to be digitally manipulated in a racialized manner: Bush’s forehead appears enlarged, her chin extended and her skin tone altered. 

“It is shameful that in 2024, our communities are still being targeted with such blatant racism from political campaigns, let alone in a Democratic primary,” Bush said in a statement to multiple news outlets. “The people of St. Louis deserve better than to see their first Black Congresswoman racistly distorted into a caricature — I shouldn’t have to ask my opponent to condemn his biggest funders for putting out an ad like this and to apologize to the people of this district.”

Jay Ashcroft took over $40,000 from election-denying group, made state’s election regulations less reliable

By Richard Eberwein

Missouri gubernatorial candidate and sitting Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (R) received over $40,000 in campaign donations from election-denying lobbyists who urged him to drop Missouri from an election security nonprofit, emails show.

According to documents obtained by American Oversight and published in January, Ashcroft received several emails from members of Verity Vote, an elections “research and investigation” organization that has routinely sowed doubt in the 2020 presidential election results. These emails point to a virtual meeting that Ashcroft attended, where members of Verity Vote gave a presentation to the sitting secretary of state in February 2023.

An email written by Patricia Chandler and forwarded by Verity Vote’s founder Heather Honey proves that the dialogue between Verity Vote and Ashcroft was specifically aimed at convincing Ashcroft to remove Missouri from participating in the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC).

Chandler wrote:

“It’s clear that we share the same broad vision for better, cheaper, and safer data management for our voter rolls and DMV private data.

We’re pleased to see you understand that Missouri really has two legitimate choices:

1. Reform ERIC
2. Return Control and Management of State Data Back to the States

We believe with a more detailed understanding of the available alternatives today combined with an effective messaging campaign, states who champion path 2 will have better results.”

ERIC is a nonprofit organization founded by a bipartisan group of election officials in 2012 that helps states who enroll maintain voting data and detect illegal voting. According to ERIC’s website, 24 states and Washington D.C. are currently members of ERIC.

Honey and Verity Vote have ties to former Trump lawyer Cleta Mitchell, a leading figure in the former president’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election results. Mitchell was also part of the infamous phone call where Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” 11,779 votes, which was the amount of votes Trump lost by in Georgia.

Six days after the email exchange, Ashcroft spoke about ERIC to other Republican secretaries of state at a conference hosted by the Heritage Foundation, the same think tank that crafted the GOP’s roadmap Project 2025. On March 6, 2023, Ashcroft announced that Missouri was withdrawing from ERIC, citing several reasons including that ERIC encourages eligible voters to register to vote.

“ERIC focuses on adding names to voters rolls,” Ashcroft wrote. “By requiring a solicitation to individuals who already had an opportunity to register to vote and made the conscious decision not to be registered.”

This January, Ashcroft’s decision was criticized by Missouri’s State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick, who argued that Ashcroft had not consulted stakeholders or have a plan to replace the benefits of being a member of ERIC.

“As a result, the SOS and local election authorities (LEAs) will have less assurance that the voter rolls of the state are reliable, and will have less useful and timely information for updating voter registration lists,” Fitzpatrick wrote in an official report.

According to an itemized receipt from the Missouri Ethics Commission, Ashcroft accepted a $25,000 donation to his Committee for Liberty PAC on April, 9 2023 from Chandler. Over the next 14 months, Ashcroft would accept a total of $42,427.54 from Chandler.

In a recent debate with his opponent Bill Eigel, Ashcroft also described himself as a Christian nationalist after being given a full definition of the term.