“You cannot send a man to do a woman’s job,” decries Maloney in new campaign ad

A woman’s place is in the House – specifically representing New York’s newly drawn 12th Congressional district, a new television ad from Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney asserts. 

Maloney, the longtime representative who is now locked in a fierce primary with fellow incumbent Rep. Jerry Nadler to represent much of Manhattan above 14th Street, is putting out a video focusing on Maloney’s battles for women’s rights and reproductive rights for the last half century. “You cannot send a man to do a woman’s job,” Maloney says at the end of the ad, in a not-so-veiled shot at Nadler – and presumably also at Suraj Patel, who is challenging Maloney for the third time. Ashmi Sheth is also running in the primary but has raised little money compared to her opponents.

Maloney’s team says two 30-second versions of the digital ad will start airing  Tuesday on cable, broadcast and digital streaming. They plan to run the ads through the August 23 primary. She isn’t the first on TV in the race – Patel reportedly started running  a TV ad four weeks ago. 

Maloney is putting abortion rights front and center in her pitch to voters. She was arrested last week outside the U.S. Supreme Court, along with Reps. Nydia Velázquez and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez during a protest of the court’s recent ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, which in 1973 effectively legalized abortion nationwide.

The Upper East Side resident is not the only congressional candidate this year who is campaigning on SCOTUS’ reversal of Roe, though unlike Pat Ryan who is running in the special election in NY-19, Maloney is deploying the tactic against a fellow Democrat who also supports abortion rights.

The heated primary doesn’t have a clear frontrunner. Maloney, who loaned her own campaign $900,000, had a little over $2 million on hand as of June 30, while Nadler had roughly $1.2 million on hand. Earlier this month, Nadler clinched the support of 1199SEIU, while Maloney is endorsed by the Uniformed Firefighters Association and the Building Trades Council. Other major unions, however, are hesitant to pick sides between the two incumbents.