Youngkin's team responds to Monty Mason's latest ad focused on grocery tax and other GOP talking points
Republicans pushed back against the first Mason ad and are doing the same for his second.
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Youngkin’s team responds to Mason’s latest ad
Sen. Monty Mason (D) is embracing some of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s top talking points as he faces a tough reelection bid this November. In the ad, Mason talks about cutting the grocery tax, lowering the income tax, and supporting a tax rebate.
These have been three of Youngkin and Virginia Republicans’ biggest talking points over the last year. In general, these are not high priorities for Democrats — however, this is the second ad this month that Mason used these talking points.
Youngkin ran on achieving these goals in 2021 — even though Gov. Ralph Northam introduced a grocery tax in his budget proposal after Youngkin had already won the election — which was interesting.
Republicans pushed back against the first Mason ad and are doing the same thing for his second.
“When you repeatedly tell parents they don’t matter and block commonsense policies to protect kids, it makes sense you’d try to distract voters by pretending you’re the author of the Youngkin economic agenda,” said Dave Rexrode, the chairman of Youngkin’s Spirit of Virginia PAC. “Don’t fall for it. Monty Mason is standing in the way of funding important programs and more tax relief for Virginians.”
Other Republicans believe that Mason’s shift in messaging is a sign that Democrats are afraid they are going to lose in November when all 140 General Assembly seats are on the ballot.
“When a Democrat’s ad looks just like a Republican’s ad, you know they’re in deep trouble. The wind is blowing hard, and it isn’t in their direction,” one Republican operative told Virginia Scope.
“The Monty Mason rebrand seems to follow the playbook of [Gov. Youngkin] and State Republicans,” said Mason DiPalma, the deputy communications director for the Republican State Leadership Committee. “Virginians know who has their back and it's not the guy who has referred to parental rights as 'crap' and 'garbage.'“
The parental rights comments that they are using to attack Mason stem from what appears to be a secretly recorded audio clip earlier this year of Mason discussing the efforts from Republicans to require parental consent for online shopping. You can listen for yourself here.
Mason’s campaign did not provide a comment for this article.
He is facing a tough reelection battle against Danny Diggs in a district that Youngkin won by 3 points in 2021 according to analysis from VPAP.
After the first ad was released, Spirit of Virginia stated they were sending the Diggs campaign $100,000.
Mason and Diggs are running in SD-24 which encompasses York County, Williamsburg, Poquoson, and parts of Newport News and James City County.
Mason reported having $774,180 cash on hand at the last filing deadline on June 30. Diggs reported having $423,658, according to VPAP.
Election day is Nov. 7 and the first day of early voting is Sept. 22.
