Live from Virginia Thursday morning on The John Fredericks Show –  live weekdays on WNTW AM 820/ FM 92.7 – Richmond, WJFN FM 100.5 – Central Virginia, WMPH AM 1010 / FM 100.1 / FM 96.9 (7-9 PM) Hampton Roads, WBRG AM 1050 / FM 105.1 – Lynchburg/Roanoke and Live Weekdays 6-10 am and 24/7 Stream –  host Fredericks welcomed Republican Candidate for Congress in Virginia’s seventh district Nick Freitas to the show.
During the show, Freitas described his ground game of door-knocking and holding Facebook interactive town halls and compared that to the attack ads and lack of media involvement from his opponent Abigail Spamberger.
Fredericks: Joining us now running for Congress. He’s got a spring in his step. Polls going his way. He’s going to win. Nick Freitas Seventh District Republican going against one-term Congresswoman Abigail Spamberger. One of the strongest candidates in a Trump district in America but no ground game. No people knocking on doors. She can spend all the money she wants she’s going to lose. Nick, great to have you with us.
Freitas: Great to be on John. Thank you.
Fredericks: You know how many doors the Trump campaign has knocked on in the seventh district? We’ve knocked on 70,000 doors. Do you know how many Abigail Spamberger has? Zero.
Freitas: Zero I believe.
Fredericks: Zero. And that’s just our campaign. Not the Nick Freitas campaign which is also knocking on doors every day. Plus Americans for Prosperity. Plus outside groups. So we got a great ground game Nick. What do you think?
Freitas: Oh no. I think we do. And I can’t tell you how many times this has been studied door knocking is absolutely essential in order to be able to inform voters. To be able to engage with voters. That’s why we’ve invested heavily in it. That’s why other campaigns the Trump campaign has invested heavily in it. And it’s gonna be it’s going to be one of the main reasons why both the President wins and why we win on November 3.
Fredericks: You think we have a shot to Trump campaign as an outside shot to win Virginia?
Freitas: Yeah I do. I think when you look at what Democrats have done in the General Assembly. I think when you look at what this governor has done with respect to lockdowns. I think Virginians are sick of it. When the Democrats took over the General Assembly for the first time in 26 years the General Assembly, the governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, they ran as far to the left as possible. They hurt business. They assaulted Second Amendment rights. I think Virginia is just sick of it.
Fredericks: We look at the polling this out now and we’re down by three. We know the ground game we have a minimum one and a half could be two and a half. So we’re like tied far as I’m concerned. But you look at the crosstabs that we have and a lot of this is dialing back to this General Assembly session and defining the police and some of the crazy things that your colleagues in the House are doing. I think if we win Virginia and I think we got a shot, it’s going to get traced back to Eileen Filler-Corn and Caucus of the Corn and they’re going to get to blame for the biggest debacle ever. What say you?
Freitas: Oh no I think you’re absolutely right. I think this is about running against what Democrats have done. it’s also about talking about what the president has done. If we just sit back for a second turn off MSNBC and look at what the president has accomplished in three and a half years. Whether it was tax cuts.
Regulatory reform. Businesses coming back to the United States. Criminal justice reform. He passed the most he passed the strongest criminal justice reform in a generation. And the reason why the Democrats don’t give him credit for it is that his criminal justice reform was not anti-law enforcement. And then you look at things like peace deals in the Middle East.
I mean this is the first time in decades we’ve had peace deals in the Middle East as a result of this president’s efforts. And it wasn’t by going around all over the world apologizing for the United States. It was about demonstrating strong leadership. In the meantime, Democrats can’t even keep peace in their own cities. So I think the contrast is pretty significant and I think people are watching.
Fredericks: All I’ve seen is Spamburger ads is you go to RVAÂ obviously in the seventh they’re all over the TV. But I haven’t seen her campaign. I haven’t seen her make a statement. Am I missing it? Did they take me off their press release list? Their engagement list? Are they having rallies? Or is she doing press conferences? Tell me what I’m missing here.
Freitas: Well one of the things she’s doing is she’s using her congressional budget to “inform constituents” when in reality she’s using more like campaign ads. But then on top of that, she doesn’t want to engage in debates. She finally agreed to a forum which is not a debate but not until October 20.
We’ve been desperately trying to get her on a debate stage so we can actually discuss ideas. But right now she’s just hiding behind millions of dollars in attack ads. And you would think if she believed in those attack ads she’d be wanting to get on a debate stage and let us each talk about our ideas and how we plan to legislate. But that doesn’t seem to be on her agenda.
Fredericks: Are you having any debates? I mean give us a heads up here. With these 35 days, what’s the debate form format?
Freitas: The only thing we have is a forum that’s going to be held on October 20. There are some other things that she tried to pass off as debates when in reality they were closed forums that weren’t even going to be broadcast to the people of the Seventh District. They were for private organizations.
We’ve been trying to get as many debates as possible so that people in the Seventh District have a chance to actually watch them and hear where the candidates stand on issues. But again she’s not interested in that. So we got one forum on October 20 so far. We’ll try to see what else we can get.
But in the meantime, we’re going to continue to do what we’ve been doing which is holding a Facebook live town hall every Tuesday at eight because we think people have a right to come on to ask me questions. By the way, when we do those, they are all on our Facebook page. So you can go back for months and see exactly what I’ve said on every single issue. The questions that I’ve answered.
You know when she does something she’ll do a Teletown hall which then doesn’t get published. So people don’t know what she was asked or who participated. She screens the questions. You know we put everything out there because we don’t have anything to hide. We’re proud of where we stand on issues and we want to make sure that people know about it so they can be informed when they go and vote.
Fredericks: Nick, why has Spamberger not agreed to a series of debates? She’s a pretty good debater and she’s an excellent speaker. Why is she hiding?
Freitas: I mean would you want to have to defend their platform? I mean she came out and she campaigned as a hardcore moderate. She was going to stand up against her own party. And then she voted with Pelosi 92 percent of the time. She votes against the President more than just about anybody.
I mean when AOC and Bernie Sanders vote along with the president more than you do you can call yourself a lot of things but I don’t think you can legitimately call yourself a moderate. And so I don’t think she wants to get out there and talk about cities burning. I don’t think she wants to get out there and talk about $4 trillion tax increases that she wants to pass. She doesn’t want to talk about a Green New Deal.
So she just wants to hide behind millions of dollars in ads talking about how bipartisan she is when in reality she’s voted for things like HR1 which would guarantee her campaign $5 million . She talks about campaign finance reform. I still think candidates should have to at least go out and ask people to donate to their campaign. She wants it to be mandated by the government. Again, who wants to stand up on a debate stage and have to defend those things?
Fredericks: I think that’s the issue. I mean she ran saying one thing against Dave and now she’s done another. And that becomes a very hard an indefensible position. I followed her campaign in detail in 2018. She’s a very good campaigner. She’s great on her feet and she’s an adept debater but you’re right.
That’s the reason that she’s avoiding the media. She hasn’t done anything. And I’m not even get anything from her campaign as part of the media. I don’t get anything. I don’t know where she. If she’s in the district. What she’s doing? I don’t know how you win that way. She’s campaigning like she’s been there nine terms and it’s a district that’s plus 5D. I mean Trump is going to carry the seventh by four that’s what I predict. He’s going to carry it by four. That’s what he’s ahead now. That means that she’s got to overcome a four percent deficit.
So you got to go in the voting booth or do mail or whatever you’re doing and you got to vote for Trump. So four percent of the people that vote for Trump to get reelected in the seventh half to then turn around and vote for the person that voted to impeach the guy you’re voting for. I don’t see it, man. I just don’t see it. I don’t know how she wins.
Listen to the full show here:
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