ELECTION 2023: Senate District 16 race – Democrat VanValkenburg vs. Republican incumbent Dunnavant

Time will tell whether Virginia Republicans can convince swing voters they’re not the abortion-banning fanatics Democrats say they are. But few are trying harder than Sen. Siobhan Dunnavant, R-Henrico, whose Richmond-area district will be one of the GOP’s toughest to defend this fall in the high-stakes battle for control of the General Assembly.

Dunnavant, a doctor who has served in the Virginia Senate since 2016, is facing a strong challenge from state Del. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico, a high school civics teacher hoping suburban voters’ desire to protect abortion rights could be the difference-maker in a western Henrico County district made bluer by redistricting.

Instead of shying away from abortion, Dunnavant is leaning in, running ads presenting herself as a level-headed moderate with unique insight on the issue from her day job delivering babies as a practicing OB-GYN.

Facing accusations she’s inconsistent on abortion and beholden to a party whose anti-abortion stance is perfectly clear, Dunnavant is trying to respond with nuance. She’s highlighting her own proposal to keep abortion legal in roughly the first four months of pregnancy (with exceptions more lenient than what Gov. Glenn Youngkin has proposed) but restrict access beyond that point and make abortions tougher to get in later stages of pregnancy.

In an interview, Dunnavant said Virginia’s post-Roe crossroads is a challenge uniquely suited for her style of legislating.

“I kind of de-escalate things. I build consensus,” Dunnavant said. “I find a way for us to see what we have in common.”

VanValkenburg, part of the wave of Democrats elected to the House of Delegates in 2017 that brought about Medicaid expansion a year later, says the abortion debate is bigger than Dunnavant, because GOP majorities in other states have shown what they’ll do if given the chance to enact “punitive” abortion laws.

“A ban is a ban. And she’s proposing a ban,” VanValkenburg said in an interview.

Playing out in a district with Democratic-friendly demographics but a Republican incumbent, the Dunnavant-VanValkenburg race is a critical piece of Senate Democrats’ plans to preserve or expand their 22-18 majority in the upper chamber.

In a year marked by a surge of first-time candidates looking to replace retiring incumbents, the race in Senate District 16 features two experienced lawmakers known more for getting into the policymaking weeds than for fiery partisan rhetoric.

Both candidates are emphasizing their records of bipartisanship and their occasional willingness to take stances unpopular with their own party. VanValkenburg was one of a handful of House Democrats who championed the redistricting reform amendment Virginia voters approved in 2020 even though it had the effect of stripping Democrats’ power to redraw the state’s political boundaries for their own benefit.

“I didn’t make a lot of people in my party happy with that,” VanValkenburg said. “It was the right thing to do.”

Dunnavant broke with her party earlier this year to back an unsuccessful Democratic bill to limit the availability of assault-style firearms, a vote she says was largely about her support for raising the age from 18 to 21 to buy and possess assault-style weaponry.

“My votes are not predetermined. They are based on listening to my constituents,” Dunnavant said. “They are based on my analysis.”

As Dunnavant draws on her experience as a doctor, VanValkenburg has spotlighted his career as a teacher in an ad that features a dramatic depiction of school lockdown drills and a call for more action to reduce gun violence.

The two lawmakers are also hitting familiar themes from recent election cycles. VanValkenburg highlights Democratic priorities like better-funded schools, more affordable health care and stricter gun laws, while Dunnavant echoes Youngkin-esque rhetoric on parents’ rights, lower taxes and a tougher approach to crime.

But abortion is a dominant issue in both campaigns’ messages, making the race a test case of whether the fall of Roe v. Wade last year spells doom for swing-district Republicans or if the right GOP candidate can convince voters a 15-week limit is a reasonable compromise.

As it has with many elements of Youngkin’s conservative agenda, the Democratic-controlled Senate has blocked proposals to restrict abortion access after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Dunnavant voted against the governor’s plan, saying she couldn’t support a 15-week limit without an exception for severe fetal abnormalities. Youngkin supports exceptions in cases of rape, incest and when the life of the mother is at risk, a stance many other Republican candidates have embraced in their campaigns.

Most abortions in Virginia occur before 15 weeks. Echoing recent complaints that Democrats are misrepresenting the GOP position on abortion, Dunnavant insisted a 15-week limit with exceptions can’t accurately be called a “ban.”

“I looked up ‘ban’ on Webster’s dictionary, and it says prohibited, or none,” Dunnavant said. “It just simply doesn’t apply to my position.”

VanValkenburg said semantic debates about what is and isn’t a ban overlook the real-world impact on women who’d be affected by new abortion restrictions.

“Tell that to the woman who’s 16 weeks pregnant and didn’t know about it,” VanValkenburg said. “Tell it to the woman who has a health problem. Tell that to the woman whose life is in danger.”

Dunnavant’s proposal would allow women whose lives are in danger to get an abortion beyond 15 weeks, and she said life-saving care is always a “paramount” concern for medical providers. However, she said the other exceptions to the 15-week limit shouldn’t apply past the point of fetal viability, which her proposal defines as 22 to 24 weeks.

“The consensus language would be legal and rare. That’s where people are,” Dunnavant said, accusing Democrats of embracing abortion “up until the moment of birth.”

Republicans are basing that accusation on a controversial Democratic bill from 2019 that would have loosened Virginia’s existing restrictions on second- and third-trimester abortions, as well as a more recent proposal to enshrine abortion rights in the Virginia Constitution in a way that could cast legal uncertainty on the state’s existing abortion regulations.

VanValkenburg said he supports Virginia’s current abortion laws, which allow access to abortion in the first and second trimesters but only permit third-trimester abortions when multiple doctors agree the mother’s life or health is at risk. That system, he said, protects women’s rights while allowing “reasonable regulations” in the third trimester.

“I think it works,” VanValkenburg said. “There’s no reason to start nipping away at it.”

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This article first appeared on Virginia Mercury and is republished here with permission. Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence.