A new Democratic attack ad tries to hold a GOP candidate for State Assembly accountable for something that happened before he was born.
Ross Traphagen, a 25-year-old pro-choice Republican councilman from Clinton, is the target of a digital ad paid for by the Democrats painting him as an extremist on abortion that cites a National Public Radio report from October 1996, thirteen months before his birth.
The Democratic ad and accompanying website, which also sources a Star-Ledger story from 1998, seeks to attach Traphagen to pro-life positions taken by his running mate, State Senate candidate Michael Pappas when he was a congressman in the 1990s.
“Apparently, Andrew Zwicker, Roy Freiman, and Mitchelle Drulis believe that I formulated a position on abortion before I was even born,” Traphagen said. “This sloppy attack demonstrates that our opponents will go as low as possible in this campaign.”
Democrats allege that “Pappas and his MAGA running mates are a threat to women’s reproductive rights” and that they would “allow insurance companies to deny coverage for birth control.” They also claim the Republican legislative candidates support a 23% sales tax hike, based on a 1998 Star-Ledger story.
Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute of New Jersey Politics at Rider University, said it’s “not unusual to saddle candidates with the unpopular positions of their running mates.”
“What is unusual is when your running mate happens to have been in Congress before you were born,” said Rasmussen. “It’s certainly fair game to hold Mike Pappas to account for the abortion positions he took as a federal lawmaker, and that’s exactly what the ad’s first point does.”
But Rasmussen explains that the attacks “very directly claim Traphagen has taken positions on birth control and tax hikes, using sources from before he was born.
“So it’s impossible to assess from these sources whether he actually holds these positions, and if that’s all the evidence there is, then the ad is wrong,” he said.
Traphagen said the ad was wrong.
“Let me make this clear too, I believe in a woman’s right to choose, believe in protecting access to women’s health services, and believe in lowering taxes to make New Jersey more affordable,” said Traphagen. “Stating otherwise is an utter lie.”
He called on the Democrats to “denounce this slanderous attack and elevate the discourse of this race.”
“Failure to do so will demonstrate with absolute certainty a serious lack of respect for the voters of this district,” he said.
But the Democrats doubled down on their ad, despite using sources from the 1990s.
“If Ross Traphagen supports a woman’s right to choose, why is he running on a ticket with someone who would support banning abortion in all cases?” asked Frances Patano, a spokesperson for the Zwicker, Freiman, and Drulis campaigns. “Mike Pappas has spent decades pushing his extremist views on reproductive rights, and Traphagen has chosen to run on his slate.”
The same logic could apply to other Democrats in Central Jersey who are running on slates with two pro-life Democratic assemblymen who voted against a bill to codify Roe v. Wade into state law: Wayne DeAngelo (D-Hamilton) in the 14th district and Joseph Egan (D-New Brunswick) in the 17th.
The ad and website were paid for by the Senate Democratic Majority and New Jersey Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee.
Script: “Texas. Mississippi. Florida. Rolling women’s rights back. Total bans on abortion. Denying access to birth control. And in New Jersey, with MAGA extremists Mike Pappas, Ross, Traphagen, and Grace Zhang in Trenton, it’s only a matter of time.”