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Virginia Governor 2017: Contested primaries shaping up in both parties
Northam, Gillespie face challenges from anti-establishment rivals
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
RICHMOND (CFP) — Any hopes Democratic and Republican leaders in Virginia had of avoiding contentious primaries in the governor’s race this year have been dashed, with both parties facing the same establishment-versus-insurgent battles that characterized the 2016 presidential contest.
With two months to go before the filing deadline for the June primary, the Democratic race has already drawn two major contenders, while the Republican race has four. All are vying to replace Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe, who is barred by state law from seeking re-election.
On the Democratic side, Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam appeared to be cruising to his party’s nomination unmolested until January, when former U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello jumped into the race and began casting himself as anti-establishment, in contrast to the well-connected Northam.
On the Republican side, Ed Gillespie, a former Republican National Committee chairman who ran a surprisingly strong race for U.S. Senate in 2014, is being challenged by Donald Trump’s former Virginia campaign chairman, a veteran state senator who also worked for Trump, and a Tea Party-aligned distillery owner who has hired the campaign manager who helped take down Eric Cantor in 2014.
A poll from the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University, released February 2, shows both primary races are fluid, with Gillespie and Northam leading but most voters undecided.
The governor’s battle takes place amid changing political currents in the Old Dominion. Once reliably Republican, Democrats have carried the state in the last three presidential elections and hold both U.S. Senate seats. Three of the last four governors have been Democrats.
Virginia also doesn’t have primary runoffs, which means that on the Republican side, the winner is likely to have garnered significantly less than 50 percent of the vote.
Ed Gillespie
Gillespie, 55, from Fairfax County, is a former top lieutenant to President George W. Bush who has run both the national and state GOP. In 2014, he came within 18,000 votes of unseating Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Warner, in what was considered one of the biggest surprises of that election cycle.
Standing in Gillespie’s road to the nomination are Corey Stewart, 48, chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, who ran Trump’s campaign in Virginia until being fired a month before the 2016 election; State Senator Frank Wagner, 61, from Virginia Beach, a former U.S. Navy officer who has served in the the state legislature for 25 years; and Denver Riggleman, a distillery owner and former Air Force intelligence officer from Afton.
County Supervisor Corey Stewart
Stewart, who instigated a crackdown on undocumented immigrants as county chairman, has boasted that “I was Trump before Trump was Trump.” However, he was removed from the Trump campaign last October after organizing a protest outside of Republican National Committee headquarters demanding that the GOP hierarchy not abandon Trump in the wake of the release of an audiotape in which Trump made sexually suggestive comments.
A key question in the GOP primary will be the extent to which Trump might assist Stewart — and how much good that would actually do in a state Trump lost.
State Senator Frank Wagner
Stewart will also have competition for the pro-Trump banner from Wagner, who was co-chair of Trump’s campaign in southeast Virginia. He has remained a Trump defender, endorsing the president’s controversial ban on refugees from seven predominantly Muslim countries and criticizing Gillespie for not following suit.
In his campaign, Wagner is also touting his legislative experience and the fact that he is the only Republican candidate who is a native Virginian.
Denver Riggleman
Riggleman, the least well-known among the Republican candidates, has hired the campaign manager used by U.S. Rep. Dave Brat in his upset win over then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a GOP primary 2014. Backed by Tea Party activists and talk radio hosts, Brat tossed the powerful Cantor from Congress, in what is now seen as a prelude to the political earthquake that brought Trump to power two years later.
The Wason Center poll found that Gillespie was the choice of 33 percent of Republican or Republican-learning voters, with Wagner at 9 percent, Stewart at 7 percent and Riggleman at 1 percent. However, 50 percent remain undecided.
Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam
On the Democratic side, Northam, 57, a doctor and former U.S. Army major from Norfolk, served in the state senate before winning the lieutenant governorship in 2013. He has the backing of most of the commonwealth’s Democratic leadership, including McAuliffe, Warner and U.S. Senator Tim Kaine.
Perriello, 42, from Charlottesville, served a single term in Congress before being swamped in the Tea Party wave of 2010. His tenure was noteworthy for his vote in favor of Obamacare, which didn’t go down well in the more conservative parts of his central Virginia district.
Former U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello
After leaving Congress, Perriello worked at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, and was appointed by President Obama as a State Department envoy to Africa.
While Perriello’s voting record in Congress was moderate for a Democrat, he has been staking out ground on the progressive left in the governor’s race, saying he wants to make Virginia “a firewall against hate, corruption and an assault on the Virginia values of decency and progress.” He has also changed his position on using federal funds to pay for abortions, which he once voted against but now supports.
The Democratic primary race is likely to feature some of the remaining currents from the bruising 2016 battle between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
Northam’s most prominent backer, McAufliffe, is a close confidant of the Clintons, and Northam endorsed Clinton over Sanders in the commonwealth’s presidential primary. That could provide an opening for Perriello, who is also close to Obama and members of the former president’s political brain trust.
The Wason Center poll shoed Northam at 26 percent and Perriello at 15 percent among Democratic and Democratic leaning voters, with 59 percent undecided.
Virginia is one of four Southern states that hold gubernatorial elections in off years but is the only one voting in 2017. Louisiana, Kentucky, and Mississippi will have elections in 2019.
Ed Gillespie’s main GOP rival drops out of Virginia U.S. Senate race
Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Warner is endorsed by his Republican predecessor, John Warner
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com
RICHMOND (CFP) — High-powered Republican political operative Ed Gillespie is one step closer to his party’s U.S. Senate nomination in Virginia after one of his two GOP rivals dropped out of the race.
U.S. Senator Mark Warner
Meanwhile, the Democratic incumbent , U.S. Senator Mark Warner, got a high-profile Republican endorsement from a one-time political rival, former U.S. Senator John Warner.
John Warner said Mark Warner (no relation) “crosses the aisle and makes things work,”
“We come from the old school,” John Warner said in a statement. “The Senate works best when there’s collaborative effort between the two parties.”
Mark Warner unsuccessfully challenged John Warner for his Senate seat in 1996 and replaced him when he retired in 2008.
Over on the Republican side, just two weeks after Gillespie’s entry into the race, Howie Lind, a former military officer from McClean, called it quits, saying his fundraising had dried up.
“The financial resources to continue this campaign for a statewide office are not available since Ed Gillespie has joined the race,” Lind said in a statement. “Statewide campaigns are very expensive, and financial backing corresponds directly to political strength and the ability to win on election day.”
Lind, who entered the Senate race last June, had raised more than $300,000 — a respectable amount for someone who has never held political office but just a fraction of the more than $7 million that Mark Warner has raised.
With Lind out of the race, Gillespie’s only GOP opponent is Shak Hill, a former military officer from Centreville, who, like Lind, is running as an outsider and seeking Tea Party support.
Virginia Senate hopeful Ed Gillespie
Though he, too, has never held elected office, Gillespie, 52, is a consummate Washington insider. He was a communications strategist for President George W. Bush’s winning campaign in 2000 and went on to serve as head of the Republican National Committee and a White House counselor.
In April 2012, after Mitt Romney was finally able to claim the Republican presidential nomination, he signed on as a senior adviser to the Romney campaign.
Gillespie also has a long association with Karl Rove, the Bush political consigliere who has frequently drawn the ire of the party’s Tea Party wing. He held Rove create Crossroads GPS, the super-PAC that has backed establishment candidates facing Tea Party insurgencies.
Gillespie’s entry into the Senate race sets up a class establishment-versus-Tea Party struggle within Republican ranks in the Old Dominion.
Unlike in most states, Republicans in Virginia select their nominees with a party convention, rather than a primary. That could level the playing field for an outsider candidate who can develop a strong cadre of supporters to turn out at the convention, which will be held in June in Roanoke.
Both The Rothenberg Political Report and Cook Political Report classify Warner’s seat as safely in Democratic hands. Obama carried Virginia twice, and Democrats swept all three of the state’s top offices in the 2013 elections for the first time since 1969,
GOP operative Ed Gillespie announces bid for Virginia U.S. Senate seat
Gillespie, the former head of the Republican National Committee, takes aim at U.S. Mark Warner’s vote for Obamacare
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedp0litics.com editor
RICHMOND (CFP) — High-powered Republican political operative Ed Gillespie is off and running for the U.S. Senate seat in Virginia with a direct swipe at Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Warner’s vote in favor of Obamacare.
Virginia Senate hopeful Ed Gillespie
Announcing his Senate run January 16 with a YouTube video, Gillespie, a top aide in the Bush White House and the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, notes that Warner “cast the deciding vote” for Obamacare, adding, “If I were a Virginia senator, it would not be law today.”
However, adding a bit of nuance to his argument, Gillespie says he would replace Obamacare, rather than saying he would repeal it.
In his announcement video, Gillespie highlights his first job in Washington — working as a parking lot attendant in the Senate while working his way through Catholic University of America.
“I’m running for the Senate because the American dream is being undermined by policies that move us away from constitutional principles of limited government and personal liberty,” says Gillespie, who also hits Warner for voting for “nearly $1 trillion in new taxes and $7 trillion in new federal debt.”
The president’s signature healthcare bill passed in 2009 with 60 votes, the minimum required to get around a GOP fililbuster. Republicans running in 2014 against Democratic senators who voted for the bill are all being tagged with casting the deciding vote.
Though he has never held elected office, Gillespie, 52, is a consummate Washington insider. He was a communications strategist for President George W. Bush’s winning campaign in 2000 and went on to serve as head of the RNC and a White House counselor.
In April 2012, after Mitt Romney was finally able to claim the Republican presidential nomination, he signed on as a senior adviser to the Romney campaign.
Gillespie also has a long association with Karl Rove, the Bush political consigliere who has frequently drawn the ire of the party’s Tea Party wing. He held Rove create Crossroads GPS, the super-PAC that has backed establishment candidates facing Tea Party insurgencies.
Gillespie’s entry into the Senate race sets up a class establishment-versus-Tea Party struggle within Republican ranks in the Old Dominion. Two former military officers, Howie Lind of McClean and Shak Hill of Centreville, are already in the race, running as outsiders and seeking Tea Party support.
Unlike in most states, Republicans in Virginia select their nominees with a party convention, rather than a primary. That could level the playing field for an outsider candidate who can develop a strong cadre of supporters to turn out at the convention, which will be held in June in Roanoke.
Lind’s campaign is touting the results of a “grassroots voter contact program” which it says shows Lind with substantially more support than either Gillespie or Hill. The campaign also says it has already raised $300,000 for the race.
U.S. Senator Mark Warner
Whoever wins the GOP nomination will face the formidable Warner, 59, a former governor and self-made millionaire who already has more than $7 million in cash on hand for the 2104 race — a huge head start over any of the Republicans in the field.
Both The Rothenberg Political Report and Cook Political Report classify Warner’s seat as safely in Democratic hands. Obama carried Virginia twice, and Democrats swept all three of the state’s top offices in the 2013 elections for the first time since 1969,
In a curious parallel to Gillespie, Warner also worked his way through The George Washington University at the Senate, although as an aide rather than as a parking lot attendant.
View Gillespie’s YouTube announcement:
Analysis: GOP needs an (unlikely) Southern sweep to take back the Senate
Republicans face a tall order of ousting incumbents in Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina and keeping a seat in Kentucky
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com
This year, 13 of the 14 Southern states — all save Florida — will have a Senate election. And a look at the map shows that the GOP needs to make a Shermanesque march across the South to have any hope of taking the Senate.
Barring any unforseen upsets, we can take nine of the 15 Southern races off the board — Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and two in Oklahoma.
In all of those states except Virginia and Georgia, Republican incuments are running again and are likely to win. One of the GOP-held seats in Oklahoma is open but unlikely to turn blue.
In Virginia, Democrat Mark Warner is running and favored, although the entry into the race of former Bush aide and GOP bigwig Ed Gillespie could make it interesting. The seat in Georgia is open, but, given the Peach State’s Republican proclivities, the party’s nominee would be in the driver’s seat.
That leaves five Southern races that will be pivotal — Arkansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, West Virginia and Kentucky. Democrats hold four of those seats; Republicans, only Kentucky.
If Republicans sweep all five of those seats, they will make a net gain of four seats. That would be enough to take control of the Senate if, as expected, the GOP takes away open Democratic seats in Montana and South Dakota.
But that also means that there is little room for error. Nearly all of the Southern dominoes have to fall the right way. And that’s easier said than done.
Louisiana is perhaps the weakest link for Republicans, who have been trying, and failing, to get Mary Landrieu out of the Senate for the past 18 years. She has proven herself to be the tabby cat of Louisiana politics — and of her nine lives, only three are spent.
North Carolina is also no slam dunk for the GOP, which is trying to defeat freshman Senator Kay Hagan. This is a state, after all, that Barack Obama carried in 2008 and almost carried in 2012, and the place where John Edwards won a Senate seat not that long ago.
In Arkansas, Senator Mark Pryor is in the political fight of his life against U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton. Yet, Pryor holds one of the most storied names in Arkansas political history. And this, remember, is the Land of Clinton, where Democrats still hold most of the statewide offices.
In Kentucky, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is facing a brutal primary fight with Tea Party favorite Matt Bevin, with Democratic Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes waiting in the wings.
Smart money is still on McConnell, mainly because he has a mountain of money and is running in a state Obama lost by more than 20 points. But there is no question he faces a battle for survival.
At the end of the day, Republicans are likely to some of these Southern seats, maybe even most of them. But a complete sweep would seem to be a stretch.
So if they want to take back the Senate, Republicans may need to expand the map.
The best prospects for that are races in Michigan and Iowa, where Democratic incumbents are retiring, and New Hampshire, where one-time GOP star Scott Brown may cross the border from Masschusetts to take on Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen. Another possibility is Alaska, where Republicans have high hopes of ousting Democatic Senator Mark Begich.
Virgnia is another possibility, although Democrats could potentially also make Georgia competitive.
Any way you slice it, though, the South is where Senate control will be won or lost — and where the GOP will need the run of a lifetime in 2014.
Republican operative Ed Gillespie eyeing Virginia U.S. Senate race
Gillespie, a former Republican National Commitee chief and aide to President George W. Bush, may take on Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Warner
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitcs.com editor
NORFOLK, Virginia (CFP) — Ed Gillespie, a high-level Washington GOP political operative, is considering running for the U.S. Senate seat in Virginia now held by Democrat Mark Warner.
Ed Gillespie
Gillespie, speaking to the Virginian-Pilot newspaper January 5 after meeting with Republican activists in Norfolk, said he has concluded that Warner can be beaten and will decide whether to run by early February.
“I have concluded it is a winnable race,” Gillespie said.
Should Gillespie run, it would set up a classic establishment-versus-Tea Party struggle within Republican ranks in the Old Dominion. Two former miltary officers, Howie Lind of McClean and Shak Hill of Centreville, are already in the race, running as outsiders and playing for Tea Party support.
Also, Virginia Republicans select their candidates through a convention, rather than a primary. That could level the playing field for an outsider candidate who can develop a strong cadre of supporters to turn out at the convention, which will be held in June in Roanoke.
U.S. Senator Mark Warner
Whoever wins the GOP nomination will face the formidable Warner, a former governor who already has more $7 million in cash on hand for the 2014 race — a huge head start over any of the Republicans in the field.
Both The Rothenberg Political Report and Cook Political Report classify Warner’s seat as safely in Democratic hands.
Gillespie told the Virginian-Pilot that he thinks Warner is vulnerable because he has voted with President Obama “97 percent of the time.”
However, Virginia is no longer reliably Republican as it once was. Obama carried the state twice, and GOP candidates lost all three statewide races in 2013.
Although he has never sought office before, Gillespie, 52, is the connsumate Washington insider. He was a communications strategist in Bush’s winning campaign in 2000 and went on to chair the Republican National Committee. In 2007, he became a counselor in the Bush White House.
In April 2012, after Mitt Romney was finally able to claim the Republican presidential nomination, Gillespie signed on as a senior adviser to the Romney campaign.
Gillespie also has a long association with Karl Rove, the Bush political consigliere who has frequently drawn the ire of the party’s Tea Party wing. He helped Rove create Crossroads GPS, the super-PAC that has backed establishment candidates facing Tea Party insurgencies.
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