PETERSBURG, Va. (AP) — Rae Pickett stepped onto Richell Hines’ front stoop wearing a pink T-shirt that foretold the case she hoped to make to Virginia voters as she knocked on doors on a sunny Saturday in early October.

“Abortion is on the ballot,” it read.

Hines answered Pickett’s knock on her Petersburg, Virginia, door with a disarming smile and a T-shirt of her own: “She who kneels before God can stand before anyone.”

The polite exchange that followed between Pickett and Hines revealed the complexity of one of the most vivid policy differences between the two women vying to be the first female governor of Virginia — Democrat Abigail Spanberger and Republican Winsome Earle-Sears. The winner will likely influence abortion law in the only Southern state that’s maintained broad access

See Full Page