Last weekend, gubernatorial candidate Lindy Blanchard put out a campaign video calling Governor Kay Ivey a “Fauci loving, never Trump liberal.”
This comes after the latest poll by Emerson College and The Hill in coordination with Nexstar’s WHNT News 19 showed Ivey leading the race with 48% support from likely Republican voters, followed by Tim James with 11% and Blanchard with 8%.
Thursday on WVNN’s “The Yaffee Program,” Blanchard doubled down on her criticism of Ivey’s record.
“Well, certainly when you see a governor that’s not proactive during our shutdown and opened back up,” she said. “What she should’ve done is just followed the direction of our conservative governors around us and opened up this state after the science was proven that she should, but instead she followed Fauci, and those are the type things liberals do.”
The former ambassador took Ivey to task for hurting businesses in Alabama.
“She also, when she shut down this state and shut down the businesses,” she continued, “she left open the abortion clinics.”
Blanchard also reacted to Ivey’s latest campaign ad about protecting election integrity in the Yellowhammer State.
“Well, I can say I’m glad she followed my lead,” she argued. “I put that message out early on in the campaign. I think that was my first commercial saying that the election was stolen.”
The candidate slammed Ivey over how she reacted to President Joe Biden’s election victory.
“One unique thing is the day of Biden’s inauguration,” she explained, “she was one of the first governors that congratulated Biden and his team on the election when the Trump team was still asking for an audit.”
Blanchard said she has been pushing Ivey to use her authority to suspend the gas tax.
“I asked Ivey also recently,” she continued, “if she would go ahead before the election and push to suspend the gas tax, you know, because she did push in 2020. She actually called an emergency and rolled back a tax, so it is in her discretion to do the same now.”
While she focused most of her attention on criticizing Ivey, Blanchard did mention that her other opponent, Tim James, had some issues as well.
“I agree with his commercial,” she said, “but what I don’t agree with is that I’m the only outsider and he’s is in the pockets of others just like Ivey. You profit when your daddy was governor, so I think he’s a conservative, but I do think he’s connected in other areas where he’ll have to pay back.”
Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” Weekdays 9-11am on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee
Don’t miss out! Subscribe today to have Alabama’s leading headlines delivered to your inbox.