Childless GOP Candidate Posed With Friend’s Wife And Kids For Campaign Video: NYT

A Republican operating for workplace in Virginia apparently needed to offer voters the impression he’s a household man after utilizing a picture of himself with a girl and her three youngsters for his marketing campaign.

However they’re not his household.

Derrick Anderson, a former Military Inexperienced Beret, is operating for an open seat in Virginia’s Seventh District. Anderson was featured in a New York Instances article on Friday headlined “G.O.P. Candidates, Seeking to Soften Their Picture, Flip to Their Wives.”

The article discusses the GOP’s push to be seen because the family-values celebration in a 12 months when reproductive well being care entry has grow to be a focus amongst voters.

Anderson’s marketing campaign used footage of the candidate posing with a girl and her three daughters in what might simply be mistaken for a household picture shoot, because the Instances article discusses.

The lady and three women featured within the video ― which was uploaded to Anderson’s YouTube channel and posted on a web site paid for by the Nationwide Republican Marketing campaign Committee ― are as a substitute the household of considered one of Anderson’s longtime mates. Anderson introduced earlier this month that he’s engaged and lives alone along with his canine, per the Instances. He has no youngsters.

A spokesperson for Anderson advised the Instances that the video merely exhibits Anderson posing “with feminine supporters and their youngsters.”

“Derrick’s opponent and each different candidate in America are in comparable photos and video with supporters of all types,” the spokesperson stated.

In one other scene filmed for a doable marketing campaign advert, Anderson is seen sitting round a eating room desk with the identical girl and three women, per the Instances.

Anderson celebrated the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, posting on Twitter that “SCOTUS lastly received it proper, and overturned a 50 12 months determination of federalizing abortions.”

The picture portraying Anderson as a household man could have been his marketing campaign’s try and skirt round one of many GOP’s latest speaking factors: that childless pet homeowners have much less of a stake within the nation’s future than mother and father.

Donald Trump’s operating mate, JD Vance, blasted the “childless left” in 2021 remarks, including that Vice President Kamala Harris is among the “childless cat girls” who’re “depressing.”

JHB has reached out to Anderson for remark.

Learn the total story on the New York Instances.