Senator Kay Hagan (D., N.C.) is scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to finding ways to portray her Republican opponent, House speaker Thom Tillis, as anti-woman.
Following the two Senate candidates’ first debate, Hagan’s team is complaining that Tillis called his former colleague by her first name.
“We saw women on social media in particular who were bothered by his tone and more than anything they were bothered by his record,” Hagan spokeswoman Sadie Weiner told Politico.
Tillis had a pretty good comeback. “I knew Senator Hagan when she was in the state legislature. I knew her husband, Chip. This race isn’t about titles. It’s about results,” Politico quotes him as saying. “And in Senator Hagan’s case, it’s a lack of results. If you look at it just objectively, if that is what Hagan’s camp is focusing on in this debate, then they must have really felt in their own minds that they fell short on the issues. If it really comes down to that — I mean what about the substance of the debate?”
Hagan’s more policy-oriented attempt to drive women away from Tillis — claiming that he “had ‘consistently made it difficult’ for women to access birth control,” per the Duke Chronicle — fell flat when Tillis said he thinks it should be “more broadly” available.
“I think over-the-counter oral contraception should be available without a prescription,” he said, as Politico noted elsewhere. “If you do those kinds of things you will actually increase the access and reduce the barriers for having more options for women for contraception.”