Republican Winsome Earle-Sears and Democrat Abigail Spanberger spar over abortion in Virginia Politics Oct 20, 2025 4:56 PM EDT

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.”

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The polite exchange that followed between Pickett and Hines revealed the complexity of one of the most vivid policy differences between th

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