Democrat Wiley Nickel, a candidate for one of North Carolina’s most competitive U.S. House races, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are out with a new ad blasting Republican Bo Hines on his abortion platform.
Hines, who with Nickel is running to represent North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District, supports abortion bans without exceptions, except in cases where the procedure is necessary to save the life of the mother.
The ad, entitled “Hell no,” features a woman who underwent an abortion procedure before it was constitutionally protected.
“Bo Hines supports a national ban on abortion. I know how unsafe that would be because I had an abortion before Roe v. Wade,” the woman says, referencing the U.S. Supreme Court majority ruling overturning Roe. v. Wade. “To keep the location hidden from police I was blindfolded and the procedure was done on a dining room table. And it nearly killed me.”
“Now, Bo Hines wants to outlaw abortion again. Bo? Hell no!” she concludes in the ad.
FiveThirtyEight gives Hines a 71 in 100 chance of winning re-election, but the race is still considered a top battleground in North Carolina’s biggest swing district. The two candidates are running to replace Republican U.S. Rep. Ted Budd, who is running for U.S. Senate against Cheri Beasley, another nationally watched context with implications for both political parties.
Under new district boundaries, which includes parts of Raleigh and surrounding areas, has a slight Democratic lean, with 161,713 registered Democrats and 145,881 Republicans, according to the most recent L2 voter data. But there are more non-partisan voters than either major political party, with 180,770 unaffiliated voters.
Abortion has been a top-tier issue in the race, with Nickel frequently leaning into a post-Roe reality as he campaigns on promises to work toward codifying provisions under Roe into federal law.
While Hines has been firm on his anti-abortion stance, likening it to murder and even using the issue to attack Nickel as himself an abortion extremist, the Republican has tried to steer clear of the issue.
A CBS 17 report showed Hines deleted his abortion platform from his website.
Yet Hines also accused Nickel of supporting “abortion all the way up until the point of birth, even post-birth.” Politifact evaluated the claim and found it to be false, noting that Nickel supports a law sanctioning abortion up to the point of fetal viability. Hines cited Nickel’s opposition to North Carolina’s Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which had it not been vetoed, would have amended the state’s murder statute to include withholding care from an infant born alive during an attempted abortion. Nickel opposed the legislation because existing law already outlawed killing a newborn baby and because the law would “demonize and criminalize” doctors and nurses, according to Politifact.
