Democrats took advantage of every chance to remind voters of Ken Cuccinelli's views. No end to 'war on women' attacks

Hardly a commercial break went by in October in which Virginia voters weren’t reminded of Ken Cuccinelli’s far-right views on abortion and other social issues.

How much of a difference the deluge ultimately made after Cuccinelli’s surprisingly narrow loss to Democrat Terry McAuliffe is open for debate. What isn’t in dispute is that Democrats and women’s groups believe their “war on women” playbook worked. And they have every intention of using it again in 2014 even as Republicans and some political observers argue that Virginia didn’t provide a mandate on the issue.


“I think we’re going to get to a point where how many times do voters across the country need to send the tea party and the Republican Party a message?” Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz told POLITICO at McAuliffe’s victory party. “Stop the divisiveness; stop the polarization; stop the obsessive focus on women’s reproductive health.”

( PHOTOS: Debbie Wasserman Schultz's career)

Whether that line of argument can be replicated in the 2014 midterms may hinge on who the GOP candidates are and how they respond. Republicans note that many politicians on the ballot next year haven’t prioritized social issues the way Cuccinelli has throughout his career in Virginia politics — and they vow that their candidates won’t be defined by the subject.

“Being pro-life is a majority position in this country or at least close to it,” said National Republican Senatorial Committee spokesman Brad Dayspring. “Candidates have to explain their positions without getting stuck getting nitpicked to death. … We fully expect the ‘war on women’ politics to be used and exploited by Democrats, [and] we fully expect our candidates to be fully prepared for it.”

Democrats took to the Virginia airwaves and the campaign trail this fall to note Cuccinelli’s opposition to abortion, even in cases of rape or incest, and to say he backed legislation that would have effectively banned certain kinds of birth control, drawing on his record in the statehouse and as attorney general.

( SEE RESULTS: 2013 Virginia governor’s race)

“Really, given that God does judge nations, it’s amazing that abortion has run as far and foully as it has,” Cuccinelli once said, one of his many comments seized on for campaign ad fodder.

That messaging came on the heels of the 2012 flood of TV ads bashing GOP nominee Mitt Romney on social issues.

To be sure, there are numerous factors that contributed to Cuccinelli’s narrow loss Tuesday night. But exit polling data showing McAuliffe’s overwhelming strength among unmarried women — he won that demographic by 42 percentage points — suggests that the “war on women” message hit home with many female voters.

“It was the most pronounced I’ve ever seen it,” Dawn Laguens, executive director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said, speaking on a panel Thursday about the emphasis on women’s health issues in the Virginia race.

McAuliffe won the overall female vote by 9 percentage points, 51 percent to 42 percent — slightly below President Barack Obama’s margin and far below what polls ahead of the election suggested but 5 percentage points higher than Democratic gubernatorial nominee Creigh Deeds’s support among women in 2009. Cuccinelli won among married women, 51 percent to 42 percent, according to exit poll data.

( Also on POLITICO: Ken Cuccinelli bright spot: Young voters)

Republicans say the closer-than-expected race proves that the “war on women” narrative isn’t nearly as potent as Democrats suggest.

“The Democrats tried focusing completely on social issues in Virginia and won by just” under 3 percentage points, said Republican National Committee spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski, who said Republicans are emphasizing Obamacare.

Charlie Black, a longtime Republican strategist, said the opportunity to hammer away at social issues was fairly specific to Cuccinelli.

“Ken earlier in his career had some things to say about abortion and some other issues that were pretty severe,” Black said, adding that “not very many” GOP candidates share the same views.

There’s also the issue of tone. Some politicians up for reelection in 2014, especially Govs. John Kasich of Ohio and Scott Walker of Wisconsin, have avoided the kind of remarks — like Todd Akin’s discussion of “legitimate rape” — that have sunk other Republican candidates.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s 22-percentage-point victory Tuesday night provides a compelling counterpoint to the Virginia results. Christie opposes abortion rights but, unlike Cuccinelli, allows for more exceptions and doesn’t stress the subject on the trail. Despite Democratic efforts to paint him as “extreme,” Christie won 57 percent of the female vote.

( PHOTOS: Governors’ offices up for grabs in 2014)

That approach could blunt the Democratic narrative, said GOP pollster Christine Matthews.

“They’re all pro-life. They all have some conservative social views,” she said. “I don’t think that matters at all because of their great message on so many other issues.”

There’s no doubt the attacks will come, but she said running that type of advertising against Republican incumbents, with whom voters are more familiar, won’t be nearly as effective as it was against Romney and Cuccinelli.

“When you’re talking about governors who have already served the time, it’s going to be significantly less effective,” she said.

Former Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-Ohio), who worked with Kasich in Congress, said he’s more a politician in the mold of Christie than Cuccinelli and that voters can “see through” the social issues attacks.

“I think voters will see Gov. Kasich as the whole man and not just as a single issue candidate,” she said, “no matter how hard they try to paint him.”

But Democrats and women’s groups say they see a slew of opportunities to talk about reproductive rights and other women’s issues — including “fair pay” and other economic matters — in 2014 Senate and gubernatorial battlegrounds.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett and Walker are examples of “a whole host of Republicans who are running in 2014 who are Ken Cuccinelli in a different form,” said Marcy Stech, a spokeswoman for EMILY’s List.

Danny Kanner, spokesman for the Democratic Governors Association, named four GOP governors running in swing states — Walker, Corbett, Kasich and Florida’s Rick Scott — as the candidates against whom the message will resonate most.

Take Wisconsin and Ohio: Both states saw a huge influx of ad dollars in 2012 and now have GOP governors running for reelection. Walker and Kasich are not usually seen as a social crusaders, but Democrats say the stricter abortion laws they signed this summer are potent enough for the “war on women” message to take hold.

Pennsylvania’s Corbett, like Cuccinelli, has made some inflammatory statements on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage that Democrats plan to exploit next year. Corbett, asked if the state’s mandatory ultrasound bill went “too far,” responded, “You just have to close your eyes,” a comment that state and national Democrats immediately jumped on. Corbett also said same-sex marriage is akin to marriage between “a brother and sister,” another comment for which he has received considerable criticism this year.

Spokesmen for Corbett, Walker and Kasich declined or did not respond to requests for comment.

Terry Madonna, the veteran pollster for Franklin & Marshall College, noted that the percentage of women who said Corbett was doing an “excellent” or “good” job as governor was 8 percentage points lower than among men in a recent survey. He said that while women’s health issues aren’t currently at the forefront of Pennsylvania politics, a concerted push by Democrats could help woo women in the socially liberal, electorally crucial Philadelphia suburbs.

As for the Senate, Democrats point to North Carolina. One of incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan’s potential Republican challengers, Thom Tillis, is closely tied to controversial abortion measures pushed through the State Assembly over the summer, and other candidates in the primary field are committed social conservatives.

North Carolina-based pollster Tom Jensen, of the liberal-leaning Public Policy Polling, said the state is split on the question of abortion but that the Senate GOP hopefuls will have to duke it out in a primary — and may swing far enough to the right that they will be vulnerable to “war on women” narratives.

“These primaries are serving to force the Republican nominee more toward a Ken Cuccinelli-type candidate,” he said.

But Thomas Mills, a North Carolina-based Democratic strategist, said that painting Tillis — a front-runner — as the next Cuccinelli could be difficult because he’s better known as a business-oriented establishment Republican.

“Tillis, he’ll pay a price for what he did on anti-choice issues in North Carolina, but he is not Ken Cuccinelli,” Mills said. “It’s going to be very hard to wrap him completely around those issues.”