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

A Republican running for office in Virginia apparently wanted to give voters the impression he’s a family man after using an image of himself with a woman and her three children for his campaign.

But they’re not his family.

Derrick Anderson, a former Army Green Beret, is running for an open seat in Virginia’s Seventh District. Anderson was featured in a New York Times article on Friday headlined “G.O.P. Candidates, Looking to Soften Their Image, Turn to Their Wives.”

The article discusses the GOP’s push to be seen as the family-values party in a year when reproductive health care access has become a focal point among voters.

Anderson’s campaign used footage of the candidate posing with a woman and her three daughters in what could easily be mistaken for a family photo shoot, as the Times article discusses.

The woman and three girls featured in the video ― which was uploaded to Anderson’s YouTube channel and posted on a website paid for by the National Republican Campaign Committee ― are instead the family of one of Anderson’s longtime friends. Anderson announced earlier this month that he is engaged and lives alone with his dog, per the Times. He has no kids.

In a separate scene filmed for a possible campaign ad, Anderson is seen sitting around a dining room table with the same woman and three girls, the Times reported.

A spokesperson for Anderson told the Times that the footage simply shows Anderson posing “with female supporters and their kids.”

“Derrick’s opponent and every other candidate in America are in similar pictures and video with supporters of all kinds,” the spokesperson said.

In a follow-up statement to HuffPost, a spokesperson for Anderson called it a “normal campaign video.”

“The false, politically-motivated reporting on Derrick – who is happily engaged and very proud of/vocal about his family – appearing in a normal campaign video with female supporters and their kids is both hilarious and sad,” the spokesperson said in an email.

The statement also took aim at Anderson’s opponent in the race, Yevgeny “Eugene” Vindman, a retired Army colonel who once raised concerns about Donald Trump’s actions toward Ukraine during the Republican’s presidency.

“Derrick’s opponent and every other candidate in America are in similar pictures and video with supporters of all kinds, and … [Yevgeny] Vindman features similar shots in his own campaign videos,” the statement said, while accusing Vindman of misleading voters on multiple fronts.

Anderson celebrated the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, posting on Twitter that “SCOTUS finally got it right, and overturned a 50 year decision of federalizing abortions.”

The photo portraying Anderson as a family man may have been his campaign’s attempt to skirt around one of the GOP’s recent talking points: that childless pet owners have less of a stake in the country’s future than parents.

Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, blasted the “childless left” in 2021 remarks, adding that Vice President Kamala Harris is one of the “childless cat ladies” who are “miserable.”

Read the full story at The New York Times.