Republican gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin raised $8.3 million over April and May, the highest amount in Virginia’s gubernatorial field, according to campaign finance reports issued Wednesday. However, $6.5 million was from his own bank account, in personal loans made to his campaign over the past six weeks.
Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe continues to dominate the field of Democratic contenders for governor in terms of fundraising, increased his campaign war chest from $8.5 million in early April to $11.3 million over the past two months. However, McAuliffe’s campaign also spent more than $8 million in April and May, and was left with $3.2 million on hand by the end of May, the Virginia Public Access Project reported. Youngkin, the former CEO of The Carlyle Group, started April with a balance of $3.2 million and had $4.3 million cash on hand as of May 27.
With less than a week left until the June 8 Democratic primary, McAuliffe remains the candidate to beat in the governor’s race, both in polling and fundraising. Former state Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy raised $1,027,753 over the past two months, building on her April 1 balance of $2.3 million, closely followed by state Sen. Jennifer McClellan, who raised $1,014,414 between April 1 and May 27 but started with a $442,042 balance. Del. Lee Carter and Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax lagged far behind, raising less than $20,000 apiece during the same period.
In the attorney general Democratic race, incumbent Mark Herring outearned Del. Jay Jones during the past two months, bringing in $1.3 million in donations, doubling his starting balance of $1.3 million on April 1. Jones, who received Gov. Ralph Northam’s endorsement and started April with a $1 million balance, raised $674,306 over the past two months.
Del. Jason Miyares, the Republican nominee for attorney general, raised $247,891 since April 1, adding to his starting balance of $341,065. Winsome Sears, who won the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor, raised $326,931 over the past two months, in addition to her $64,020 April 1 balance.
As for the six-person Democratic field of lieutenant governor candidates, Del. Mark Levine leads the money race with $658,906 raised over the past two months, although he lent $530,000 to his own campaign during the period. Del. Sam Rasoul raised $543,973 since April 1, on top of his balance of $952,667, and Del. Hala Ayala raised $478,069 over the past two months, adding to her $154,960 balance.
Early voting in the Democratic primaries started in April and concludes Tuesday, June 8. Republicans chose their nominees last month in a nominating convention.
On Saturday, roughly 54,000 Virginia Republican convention delegates will have the opportunity to choose their party’s 2021 nominees for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.
Unlike the typical “firehouse convention,” currently prohibited due to COVID-19 precautions, the state GOP has opted for an “unassembled convention” with 39 voting locations open Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and delegates will vote in ranked order — picking their top choice, followed by second, third and so on. This means the candidate with the lowest number of votes at the end of each round of counting will be dropped, and this will continue until one candidate has a majority (rather than a plurality) of votes.
About 54,000 people are signed up as delegates to choose the GOP candidates who will appear on November’s ballot.
Because the paper ballots must be counted by hand, it will likely take a while to get results. The party has reserved a ballroom at the Richmond Marriott through Thursday, May 13, where tabulators and party officials will gather, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
Although the Virginia GOP has previously run unassembled conventions during the pandemic, this is the first of this size and scale, and the process getting there has been fraught with disagreement, with gubernatorial candidates pushing back on the type of ballot-counting software and state Sen. Amanda Chase’s filing a failed lawsuit against the party in an attempt to force a state-run primary election that could have drawn an expected electorate of 300,000. State Democrats have opted for a primary on June 8, and early voting started April 23.
Here are the candidates under consideration:
Governor
Seven candidates are in the race, but the race appears to favor a group of four:
State Sen. Amanda Chase, the pro-gun rights and strongly pro-Trump conservative, has been criticized by those in her own party and was censured by the state Senate earlier this year, in part for her participation at the pro-Trump rally that preceded the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Although she led in early polling and fundraising, Chase’s momentum appears to have slowed down since other candidates entered the race. However, polls are of less importance in a convention format than in primaries and general elections, and Chase has strong support among Virginia’s Trump fans.
Del. Kirk Cox, former House of Delegates speaker and a retired high school teacher, is considered a more moderate candidate compared to Chase, although he has nonetheless brought up conservative talking points such as “cancel culture.” Cox argues that he is the best prepared candidate to face off against former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who has a wide lead in the Democratic field of candidates, and has openly courted convention delegates to mark him as their second choice, if not their first.
Pete Snyder, an entrepreneur from Charlottesville who made a splash last year by starting the Virginia 30 Day Fund to financially assist Virginia small businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, is well-known among state Republicans. Although he previously ran an unsuccessful campaign for the state GOP’s nomination for attorney general, Snyder has cast himself as an outsider candidate and is focused on opening state schools for in-person learning.
Former Carlyle Group CEO Glenn Youngkin, another Northern Virginia businessman, also claims the “outsider” title and is touting his business expertise and promises to create jobs. (Youngkin and Snyder have largely self-funded their campaigns, according to reports filed with the State Board of Elections in April.)
Other candidates include: Sergio de la Peña, a retired Army colonel and former Trump administration Pentagon official; Peter Doran, a former think tank head; and former Roanoke Sheriff Octavia Johnson.
Lieutenant governor
Six candidates are in the race, but two candidates have significant fundraising leads on the others, based on campaign filings for the first quarter:
Virginia Beach Del. Glenn Davis is a telecommunications entrepreneur and leads the field in fundraising. An unsuccessful candidate for the lieutenant governor nomination in 2017, Davis has filed a lawsuit to find out who sent out an anonymous text message to GOP voters calling him a “Gay Democrat,” although he is married to a woman.
Former Del. Tim Hugo was also named in the mysterious text message, which supported his candidacy as a “real conservative,” but Hugo’s team says it is not behind the message. Hugo previously represented Fairfax County in the House of Delegates, losing his seat in the 2019 election.
Other lieutenant governor candidates include: Puneet Ahluwalia, a political and business consultant; Lance Allen, a national security executive; Maeve Rigler, an attorney and financial consultant; and Winsome Sears, a former state delegate who represented Norfolk in the early 2000s.
Attorney general
There are four candidates running for the GOP attorney general nomination, and two have outpaced the others in fundraising:
Del. Jason Miyares of Virginia Beach leads the field in fundraising. The former Virginia Beach prosecutor says he would focus more attention on crime victims and would investigate the Virginia Parole Board, which has come under fire for releasing an inmate last year who killed a police officer in 1975.
Jack White, a partner at Tysons-based corporate law firm FH+H who has represented police officers. He is a former Trump administration appointee to an Army panel on sexual assault and sexual harassment and served as a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. An Army veteran, he also chaired the Foundation for Fairfax County Public Schools. He entered the race in March but raised close to $100,000 before March 31.
The other two candidates are Chesterfield County Supervisor Leslie Haley, a partner at the Park Haley firm and chair of the Greater Richmond Partnership; and Chuck Smith, a retired commander in the Navy’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps and former Virginia Beach GOP chair.
In a poll released Thursday, 47% of Virginia Democratic voters surveyed are backing former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s primary bid for his party’s gubernatorial nomination, according to data from Christopher Newport University’s Wason Center for Public Leadership. Two months ago, McAuliffe had 26% of the vote in another Wason Center poll.
With six weeks until the party’s June 8 primary, McAuliffe, who has consistently led earlier polls and fundraising, is well ahead of the other candidates seeking the Virginia Democratic Party’s nomination for governor. Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax is in second place with 8%, followed by state Sen. Jennifer McClellan at 6%, former Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy at 5% and Del. Lee Carter at 1%. According to the poll, 27% of voters are undecided.
In the crowded primary race for lieutenant governor, Del. Sam Rasoul leads with 12% — but 64% of voters surveyed say they are undecided. The rest of the field have no more than 2% support, except for Del. Elizabeth Guzman, who had 4% but has since dropped out of the race.
Attorney Gen. Mark Herring
Mark Herring, who is running for his third term as attorney general, leads at 42%, followed by challenger Del. Jay Jones, who has 18% of the vote, although he has raised nearly as much money as Herring and has been backed by Gov. Ralph Northam and music superstar Pharrell Williams, who tweeted Jones’ first television ad this week. Jones’ support has grown from 3% in February’s poll, the Wason Center said. According to the April poll, 34% of Democratic voters are undecided on the attorney general race.
Asked if they are excited about the primary, which will determine the Democratic candidates for the November ballot, 40% of people polled said they are “very enthusiastic,” and 43% said “somewhat enthusiastic.”
With $8.5 million on hand as of March 31, McAuliffe, who is seeking a second, nonconsecutive term as governor, leads Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates in fundraising. He enjoys strong name recognition and has a 56% favorable rating among those polled April 11-20. Fairfax, who has raised the least money of the five major Democratic gubernatorial candidates ($99,204 as of March 31), has a 27% favorable rating and a 26% unfavorable rating. In 2019, two women accused Fairfax of sexual assault in 2000 and 2004, accusations Fairfax has continually denied but also continually raises in public — even bringing up the matter at the candidates’ first debate last month.
“Name recognition is a big head start, but it’s better when voters’ impression is mostly favorable,” Wason Center Academic Director Quentin Kidd said in a statement.
As for the rest of the field, most voters are not familiar with them, with more than 70% saying they have “no opinion” of McClellan or Carroll Foy — either of whom would be the first Black woman to receive the party’s nomination for governor — or Carter, the House of Delegates’ only Democratic Socialist member, who was unfamiliar to 86% of those surveyed.
“This gubernatorial field is the most diverse in the history of the commonwealth, and that has drawn a great deal of interest in the race,” Wason Center Research Director Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo said in a statement.
The Republican candidates will be decided via convention May 8.
After months of discussion and indecision, the Republican Party of Virginia’s State Central Committee elected Tuesday night to hold a May 8 “drive-in” convention — possibly around Liberty University in Lynchburg — to choose its 2021 statewide nominees for governor, attorney general and lieutenant governor.
The state GOP committee conducted a three-hour, occasionally contentious public Zoom meeting Tuesday to decide between holding a convention or a party-run primary known as a “canvass.” If the committee hadn’t been able to reach a decision, its 72 members would have selected this year’s slate of statewide Republican candidates.
The convention method chosen Tuesday will allow Republican voters to submit ballots in person, ranking candidates in order of preference.
Committee members raised the option of holding the event at parking lots in or around the private Christian university in Lynchburg — although in a statement Wednesday, Liberty officials said the school has not yet agreed to rent space for the event.
The decision to hold the convention went against the views of many Republican voters, judging from comments made during the livestreamed meeting. Some party members speaking during the meeting urged the committee to choose a primary in order to spare voters in some corners of the state from making a long drive. Also, three former Republican governors of Virginia wrote a letter Tuesday to the members of the committee urging them to hold a canvass.
“We strongly urge you to put aside differences tonight and select a canvass, which has been successfully used many times previously by our party,” said the letter signed by former Virginia Govs. George Allen, Jim Gilmore and Bob McDonnell. “It would not require an amendment to the party plan, preregistration or mass meetings, nor does it limit the number of Republicans who can participate in the nominating process. It also screens out Democrat participation through signing a pledge, and very importantly, allows for ranked choice voting that is permitted by the party plan.”
Because the state-designated deadline of 5 p.m. Tuesday had passed by the time of the GOP’s committee meeting, the Republican Party of Virginia could no longer decide to hold a state-run primary at taxpayer cost, as the state Democratic Party plans to do on June 8.
There’s often controversy over nomination methods, typically breaking down between conservatives vs. moderates, but this year’s process has been unusually fraught. Gubernatorial candidate state Sen. Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield, filed a lawsuit against the GOP, attempting to force the party to hold a state-run primary election. Chase’s suit requested that the Richmond Circuit Court declare that the party is allowed only to hold an in-person convention — leading to the inevitable decision that such a gathering would be illegal under Gov. Ralph Northam’s Executive Order 72 limiting gatherings to prevent the spread of the pandemic.
However, a Richmond Circuit Court judge threw out the suit Friday because the party had not yet settled on its method of nominating candidates, so there was no injury to Chase.
In a tweet Wednesday, Chase wrote: “So the RPV’s governing board chose a nomination process that is currently illegal under the Governor’s current executive order. We are headed toward 72 members of the SCC choosing our statewide nominees.”
Chase has contended that the party’s State Central Committee was attempting to lock her out of a nomination by making it more difficult for voters to make their preference known at a primary election. Chase is leading the field of Republican candidates in recent polls by at least seven points, but Chase is not personally popular among party officials, due to a series of controversies.
The self-described “Trump in heels,” far-right candidate was censured by the Virginia State Senate in January with votes from three Republican senators, and she left the Senate Republican caucus in 2019 over a conflict with Senate Minority Leader Thomas Norment, R-Virginia Beach. Chase also was kicked out of the Chesterfield County Republican Party after making disparaging remarks about the former Republican sheriff.
Her opponents — among them Del. Kirk Cox, former Carlyle Group CEO Glenn A. Youngkin and retired Army Col. Sergio de la Peña — said last week they had no preference about which nomination method would be used, but Cox and Youngkin expressed concern that the matter had not yet been settled with less than four months before the June 8 deadline for candidates to be chosen for this November’s ballot. Venture capitalist Pete Snyder, another GOP gubernatorial hopeful, did not respond to a request for comment.
After her court case was tossed, Chase said in a statement, “Primaries are best for Virginians as they are more inclusive and don’t create extra hoops for the people who want to vote to jump through. I’ve at least raised awareness as to what they are doing and taken the smoke out of a smoke-filled room. The people are watching. They see what they’re doing and they’re not happy about it. It’s up to the [State Central Committee] to do the right thing.”
In an email to her supporters last week, Chase suggested they make plans to travel to vote in a convention.
According to Liberty’s statement, the school has been contacted by Virginia GOP officials about the possibility of leasing portions of retail parking lots owned by the university but had not agreed to a contract as of Wednesday.
“Liberty University tries to be a good neighbor and promote civic engagement,” the statement reads, noting that it told the state GOP it would consider renting off-campus parking areas at full market rates. “Liberty would do likewise on comparable terms if another political party or candidate asked. Excess parking in retail centers controlled by Liberty University have been leased on a temporary basis for years to carnivals, circuses, car dealerships, and the like.”
RICHMOND, Va. — The Virginia Senate killed a House proposal to expand access to the commonwealth’s new redistricting commission and help make the process more transparent and democratic.
House Bill 2082, patroned by Del. Mark Levine, D-Alexandria, would have required the redistricting commission meetings to be advertised and accessible to the public. The commission will draw the commonwealth’s electoral districts every 10 years. The General Assembly previously drew the districts.
The bill was passed by indefinitely in the Senate Privileges and Elections committee after passing the House with a 55-41 vote.
“During the debates on the commission, I kept saying ‘There’s no transparency here, there’s no transparency,’” Levine said. “Well, there wasn’t, and there isn’t. Without my legislation, the commission can meet in a dark room.”
The law already requires the commission to allow public comment at meetings, but Levine’s bill called for the meetings to be more widely advertised and in multiple languages.
Levine said that one of the most important parts of the bill is that it allowed people to comment on the district maps after they are drawn, not just before. The bill required that maps be posted on the commission’s website and three public comment periods be held prior to voting.
People are more likely to have opinions once they see the practical impact of a district map, he said.
“You might not care before, and then you look at the map and they’ve split your community right down the middle,” Levine said.
The bill also would have prohibited the Supreme Court of Virginia, which has the authority to decide districts if the commission can’t come to an agreement, from meeting in private.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the commission has been meeting virtually. Eight legislators and eight private citizens serve on the commission, split evenly between the two major political parties. For a map to be approved, 15 of the members would have to vote yes, Levine said. If two or more commission members voted against the map, the decision would go to the Supreme Court, according to Levine. The Court also becomes involved if the state legislature rejects the maps.
Levine said that the redistricting court meetings should be publicly accessible, because the Supreme Court would be acting like a legislature.
“I would’ve shined a bright light on the process, and it would have made the commission better,” Levine said.
Virginians voted to establish the commission during a ballot measure in the November general election, where it won with 66% of the vote.
“It doesn’t make it perfect,” Levine said. “I recognize that Virginians voted for it, but I want to make it better.”
Opponents of Levine’s bill believed that the Supreme Court should have the right to meet privately. Republican members of the Voting Rights subcommittee abstained from voting on the bill, then voted against the substitute version of the bill. The vote that killed the bill in the Senate, however, had both Democrats and Republicans voting against it.
During the House Privileges and Elections committee meeting on Feb. 3, opponents of the bill expressed concerns about whether it would go into effect in a timely manner, as well as concerns about whether the Supreme Court should be able to meet in private.
Del. Bobby Orrock, R-Spotsylvania, asked whether the bill would have an impact on the 2021 district maps, because it would not have gone into effect until July 1. A public commenter asked whether the bill raised “constitutional issues” because it prevents the Supreme Court from deliberating in private.
“Both opponents and supporters of the bill agree that we need transparency,” Levine said during the meeting.
Members of several advocacy groups spoke in support of the bill during the meeting, including redistricting coordinator Erin Corbett of the Virginia Civic Engagement Table, a nonprofit advocacy group that supports left-of-center causes.
“We believe that the newly-developed redistricting commission should work to be accessible and transparent,” Corbett said. “With this legislation, we can better ensure language access, public comment, and inclusivity as we move through the process of redistricting in Virginia.”
A provision in the bill, which was taken out during subcommittee hearings, would not have counted prisoners from outside of the commonwealth as Virginia residents. Virginians who are imprisoned in Virginia have been counted as residents of their home districts, but Levine’s attempt to extend this to non-Virginians imprisoned in Virginia was unsuccessful.
The Republican Party of Virginia is clear to move forward with its plans for a May 1 convention, after a Richmond Circuit Court judge on Friday tossed out a lawsuit filed by state Sen. Amanda Chase to force the party to hold a primary election to choose its candidates for governor, attorney general and lieutenant governor.
Following the hearing, the party’s general counsel said a state-run primary to choose the party’s candidates for statewide office is “off the table. We can’t have one.” Chris Marston explained that the party’s State Central Committee can’t call a meeting — due to rules regarding advance notification of members — before the Tuesday deadline set by the State Board of Elections for parties to declare their plans to hold a state-run primary election.
He added that the committee, set to meet Feb. 27, is expected to decide logistics for its nominating methods in coming weeks.
Richmond Circuit Court substitute Judge Margaret Spencer ruled Friday afternoon that Chase, R-Chesterfield, who is leading the Republican field of gubernatorial candidates in recent polls, does not have standing to seek an injunction that would have prevented the state party from moving forward with plans for its May 1 convention to nominate GOP 2021 candidates for governor, attorney general and lieutenant governor.
Chase’s attorney, Tim Anderson of Virginia Beach, said after the ruling he would talk to his client about next steps, including the possibility of appealing. Chase was not in court Friday because she was participating in the state Senate session, which is convening at the Science Museum of Virginia.
In a text message from the Senate floor, Chase said, “We tried today to make sure Virginians could participate in the Republican nomination process for governor, but the judge said it should be the governor of Virginia who brings this case before them. Primaries are best for Virginians as they are more inclusive and don’t create extra hoops for the people who want to vote to jump through. I’ve at least raised awareness as to what they are doing and taken the smoke out of a smoke-filled room.
“The people are watching. They see what they’re doing and they’re not happy about it. It’s up to the [State Central Committee] to do the right thing.”
In an email Friday night, Chase said that she does not plan to appeal the decision because of the Tuesday deadline and asked her supporters “to lobby members of the State Central Committee and ask them to support a primary before Tuesday’s deadline.”
Chase’s suit requested that the Richmond Circuit Court declare that the party is allowed only to hold an in-person convention — leading to the inevitable decision that such a gathering would be illegal under Gov. Ralph Northam’s Executive Order 72 to prevent the spread of the pandemic.
Chase argued that because gatherings of more than 10 people have been outlawed by executive order to prevent the spread of coronavirus, the state GOP “has chosen a method that is illegal under the governor’s current executive orders and is secretly planning to choose the statewide nominees themselves, bypassing the people of Virginia. I will not stand for this.” She said also that the state party’s plans amount to “socialism,” by allowing only a few people in power to decide on candidates.
Because the party has not yet decided precisely its nominating method — including the possibility of holding a party-run primary known as a “canvass” that allows a primary in which the party sets its own rules, or unassembled conventions similar to the “drive-thru” events held by the party to pick congressional nominees — Chase’s injunction request is moot, Spencer said. To have standing, the plaintiff must allege an injury based on “current facts, not future facts,” she added.
The Republican Party’s attorney, Lee Goodman of Washington, D.C., argued, “This is a manufactured crisis. It is wholly speculative about the future.” He added that although Northam’s order currently limits gatherings to 10 people, restrictions could be loosened by late spring or summer and that the executive order in question is set to expire Feb. 28. Although the state’s deadline for parties to declare they would hold a state-run primary is next week, he said, the GOP has more time to decide its method of nomination and logistics before the state’s June 8 deadline for nominations.
Anderson, though, said that Chase “isn’t trying to tell the party what to do,” and contended that regardless of the governor’s executive orders, holding a gathering of more than 10,000 people in one place is “dangerous. You can’t do that, period.”
The Democratic Party has already decided to hold primary elections June 8 to choose its nominees for statewide office.
Former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and state Sen. Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield, lead the packs in pursuit of their parties’ gubernatorial nominations, according to a poll released Friday by the Wason Center for Civic Leadership at Christopher Newport University.
McAuliffe, who has outraised other Democrats in campaign funds, leads the field with 26% of the vote — although 49% of Democratic voters surveyed said they are undecided. Chase has a narrower lead of 17% among likely Republican voters polled. On the GOP side, 55% say they’re undecided.
Here’s the breakdown among the other Democratic candidates:
Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax — 12%
Former Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy and state Sen. Jennifer McClellan — tied at 4% each
Del. Lee Carter — 1%
And on the Republican side:
Del. Kirk Cox — 10%
Pete Snyder, entrepreneur — 6%
Glenn Youngkin, former CEO of The Carlyle Group — 3%
Chase’s hard-right stance and ardent support of former President Trump, which has led her into trouble with fellow Republicans and Democrats, is a sharp contrast next to the more moderate Cox, the former speaker of the House of Delegates. As voters get to know other candidates, the tension “could crack the party and open the door for Snyder or another contender,” Wason Center Research Director Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo said in a statement. Quentin Kidd, the center’s academic director, notes that McAuliffe “opens with a head start, but he’s a long way from closing the deal.”
McAuliffe has the highest name recognition and has a favorable/unfavorable rating of 25% to 21%, while Chase’s ratings are 9% favorable and 14% unfavorable. Chase was censured last month by the state Senate in part for her participation in a pro-Trump rally Jan. 6 in Washington, D.C., before the violent breach of the U.S. Capitol, as well as a laundry list of other actions and words. She is suing the legislative body to have the censure resolution expunged from the record, claiming that it was a violation of her civil rights to free speech.
In a poll of 508 likely voters conducted Feb. 6-11 by YouGov, McAuliffe and Chase held stronger leads than in the Wason poll, based on interviews with 1,005 Virginia registered voters conducted Jan. 31-Feb. 14. McAuliffe carried 33% of Democratic votes, and 21% of undecided Democratic voters say they lean toward voting for the former governor. Chase had 19% of likely Republican votes in the YouGov survey, followed by Snyder with 10% and Cox with 6%, and 10% of undecided Republican voters said they lean toward the Chesterfield senator.
In the other statewide races, the Wason poll found that 42% of Democratic voters say they support Attorney General Mark Herring, who is running for a third term. Only 3% said they support Del. Jerrauld “Jay” Jones, and 50% say they are undecided. Virginia Beach attorney Chuck Smith leads the Republican field of AG candidates with 10%, and Del. Glenn Davis leads the field for the lieutenant governor nomination, with 8% of Republican voters saying they support him. Among Democratic voters, 78% say they are undecided on the crowded lieutenant governor field, and no candidate has a significant lead.
Virginia’s Democratic Party will hold primary elections on June 8 for the three statewide offices, while state Republicans currently have a May 1 convention scheduled to choose their nominees — although a hearing is taking place Friday in Richmond Circuit Court on Chase’s civil suit to prevent the party from hosting a convention, which she says is not fair to voters during pandemic restrictions on large gatherings.
In other questions, Democrats lead Republicans 49% to 37% in a generic ballot for the House of Delegates, in which all 100 seats are up this year. Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam has a 54% approval rating, and 47% of Virginians polled say the state is heading in the right direction, although 41% say it is going in the wrong direction, falling along partisan lines.
Conventional wisdom used to hold that all politics is local, but that’s not really the case anymore. The extreme polarization on display during the recent presidential and U.S. Senate and House races has infected state and local politics, and Virginia’s November 2021 gubernatorial election promises no respite from that.
“The broad point is that the national environment matters,” says Kyle D. Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a political newsletter and website from the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
Jennifer Nicoll Victor, an associate professor of political science at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, agrees with Kondik about the outsized influence national politics is having on state and local races. The present climate, she says, is making it “harder for candidates to distinguish themselves” from national politicians in the same political parties. She thinks, however, that the governor’s race being held in an off year possibly could lessen the spillover.
For Rich Meagher, an associate professor of political science at Randolph-Macon College, “the big story for both parties in the governor’s race is the middle versus the edges.” Just as in the recent national races, he says, Democrats will have to decide how progressive they want to be, and Republicans how moderate.
Will the Democrats go with an establishment figure such as former Gov. Terry McAuliffe? Or will voters feel it is time for new faces and more diversity, as represented by candidates such as the “two Jennifers” — state Sen. Jennifer L. McClellan and former Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy?
And on the GOP side, will voters opt for a traditional candidate, such as Del. Kirk Cox, a former speaker of the House whom Meagher describes as “a reasonable person who can get things done,” or will they prefer the red-meat populist Republican state Sen. Amanda Chase?
Victor thinks that the contentious, divisive nature of the 2020 presidential election might make Chase a more credible candidate than in years past, but Kondik disagrees with that assessment. Chase’s aggressive, racially charged style of politics is not viable in Virginia anymore, he says. For even moderate Republicans to win the governorship in a now-blue state, he believes that they not only would have to retain their dominance in rural areas but make inroads into the suburbs, and that, he says, “is a heavy lift.”
Stephen J. Farnsworth, director of the Center for Leadership and Media Studies at the University of Mary Washington, also comes down on the side of moderation in how he sees the gubernatorial race shaping up on both sides. For Democrats, he expects it to be McAuliffe “versus everyone else.” For Republicans, Farnsworth advises the party to look north for guidance. Traditionally, the GOP has not prevailed when they have nominated more extreme candidates, he says. Better, Farnsworth suggests, to look to the example of incumbent Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a moderate Republican who won the governorship of one the nation’s bluest states.
As to the issues that might dominate the race, Farnsworth expects that, just as in the recent national elections, COVID-19’s ongoing effects will make the economic recovery the biggest focus. Concerns about police conduct and law and order also will be in the spotlight, just as they were in the presidential race.
Of course, as Farnsworth points out, the parties won’t be choosing their nominees until this summer, with the Democrats holding a June primary and the GOP choosing by a convention. “The candidates,” he says, “will have plenty of time to make a case.”
Here’s the latest on where the 2021 gubernatorial race stands:
DEMOCRATS
Del. Lee Carter
Del. Lee J. Carter
A Marine veteran and two-term state delegate who represents most of Manassas and part of Prince William County, Carter is the only self-described Democratic Socialist seeking Virginia’s Democratic nomination for governor. “It’s no secret that Virginia is divided, but it’s not red vs. blue. It’s the haves and the have-nots. One side has the lawyers and the lobbyists, but Virginia needs a governor that’ll fight for the rest of us,” Carter wrote in a Jan. 1 tweet announcing his candidacy. Carter was the state co-chair for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign and co-sponsored a successful bill that caps monthly insulin medical copayments at $50.
Justin Fairfax
Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax
Normally, a lieutenant governor would be sitting in the catbird seat when making a bid for the governorship. But Fairfax’s situation isn’t typical — not when the first paragraphs of news stories announcing his decision to run for the commonwealth’s top job inevitably cited two allegations of sexual assault that were made against him in 2019. No charges have been brought, and Fairfax has denied any misconduct, yet the situation has cast a pall over his campaign. The former federal prosecutor’s platform calls for “justice, fairness and opportunity” for all Virginians, with an emphasis on support for Medicaid expansion and police reform. If elected, Fairfax, 41, would be Virginia’s second Black governor. (Gov. L. Douglas Wilder was first, in 1990.) As of the second quarter of 2020, Fairfax’s campaign had raised less than $20,000, according to the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP).
Jennifer Carroll Foy Contributed photos
Jennifer Carroll Foy
Foy likes to tell voters about how her grandmother shaped the trajectory of her life. “If you have it, you have to give it,” her grandmother told her, and for Foy, “it” has entailed being a groundbreaker from the get-go. The former state delegate who represented Prince William and Stafford counties was one of the first African American women to graduate from Virginia Military Institute, which is now the subject of a state probe into an alleged culture of racism. Foy, 39, went on to become a magistrate judge and then a public defender. Now, she wants to become the nation’s first Black female governor and she’s serious about landing her party’s nomination. In December, she resigned from the House seat she had held since 2017 in order to focus on her gubernatorial bid. As a delegate, Foy helped get the Equal Rights Amendment ratified and supported the successful effort to expand Medicaid to 400,000 Virginians. She believes in gun safety laws, better pay for teachers and protecting the environment. As of the second quarter of 2020, Foy’s campaign had raised more than $800,000.
Gov. Terry McAuliffe
Gov. Terry McAuliffe
Virginia voters scarcely need to be introduced to McAuliffe. The 63-year-old former governor has been a ubiquitous force in national and state politics for 40 years. On the campaign trail in early 2020, President-elect Joe Biden called McAuliffe “the once and future governor.” McAuliffe has built a reputation as a stalwart of his party and a strong advocate of Democratic values, but as an older, white, establishment male, some in the party think it’s time for him to step aside in favor of a new generation of politicians personified by his declared rivals for the Democratic nomination. Still, the multimillionaire’s ability to raise money is legendary, starting with his decision at age 22 to wrestle an 8-foot alligator in exchange for a $15,000 contribution to then-President Jimmy Carter’s reelection campaign. (McAuliffe beat the beast, but Carter lost anyway.) The Washington Post reported McAuliffe had more than $2 million in his campaign war chest when he announced his run in early December 2020.
Jennifer McClellan
Sen. Jennifer McClellan
McClellan, 48, is a familiar face in Richmond, having spent 14 years in the state legislature, first in the House of Delegates for 11 years and then since 2017 as a state senator for the 9th District, which includes Richmond, Charles City County and portions of Henrico and Hanover counties. A corporate lawyer for Verizon, she has built a reputation as a pragmatist. She was a key player in the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, a rollback of abortion restrictions and passing the Virginia Clean Economy Act, which commits the commonwealth to generating its electrical power from carbon-free sources by 2050. Criminal justice reform, health care and education rank high on her agenda. McClellan is partly an establishment figure — her mentor is U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine — but she also can lay claim to being a member of the increasingly diverse left-of-center faction of her party. If elected, she would be the first African American female governor in the country. According to VPAP, her campaign raised close to $500,000 during the first half of 2020.
REPUBLICANS Declared
Sen. Amanda F. Chase
Sen. Amanda Chase
The first candidate of either party to throw a hat in the gubernatorial ring, the highly controversial Chase, 52, spent much of 2020 as the only formally announced GOP candidate. The far-right state senator from Chesterfield County briefly flirted with running as an independent in December, after the state GOP decided to hold a gubernatorial convention instead of a primary, a move some saw as intended to prevent her from gaining the nomination. But she quickly reversed course, affirming her intention to run as a Republican. A fervent Trump supporter, she called on the president to declare martial law and stay in office after his defeat. The pugnacious senator was kicked out of the Chesterfield Republican Party and refuses to caucus with Senate Republicans. Her opponent, Del. Kirk Cox, has said Chase’s “antics have long grown more than tiresome,” and a GOP senator’s aide formed an anti-Chase political action committee, the Unfit Virginia PAC. Chase is a passionate Second Amendment defender and champion of family values and religious liberties. She opposes COVID-19 restrictions, mask-wearing and mandatory coronavirus vaccinations, tweeting: “I will fight this with everything that is in me — so help me God.” She’s also known for making inflammatory and racially charged statements, such as claiming in a November 2020 Facebook post that the Democratic Party of Virginia “hates white people.” Two of her supporters made headlines after being arrested in November for carrying firearms outside a Philadelphia polling place. As of mid-July 2020, Chase had raised more than $225,000.
Del. Kirk Cox
Del. Kirk Cox
Former Speaker of the House Cox has been a force in state politics for more than 30 years. Before the blue tsunami of the 2019 election stripped Republicans of their leadership roles in the state legislature, the representative of the 66th District had served as house speaker and majority leader. “During my leadership tenure, you can point to a Virginia that was very, very well run,” he told a conservative news site, The Virginia Star. Cox, 63, is a traditional conservative: strongly pro-business, pro-law enforcement and anti-abortion. The retired high school government teacher did tread on some GOP toes in 2018, though, when, as speaker, he oversaw the expansion of Medicaid. Still, Cox showed his staying power in 2019 by being reelected in a radically redrawn district that could have turned blue. As governor, Cox has said he would seek to spend $50 million to raise law enforcement salaries. Cox is well-liked among the party stalwarts, and his mild-mannered demeanor could appeal to mainstream voters. In December, former state Sen. Bill Carrico of Grayson County set aside his own 2021 gubernatorial ambitions to endorse Cox, telling The Roanoke Times, “I believe Kirk’s the right man, and I believe he’s the one who can put Virginia forward economically for everyone and bring forth a more safe and secure state.”
Sergio de la Peña (U.S. Army photo by Monica King/Released)
Sergio de la Peña
A Fairfax County resident who served in the Trump administration as deputy assistant secretary of defense, de la Peña is a Mexican native who immigrated to the United States and served 30 years in the U.S. Army, retiring as a colonel. He said in his announcement that he supports President Donald Trump and claims the American dream “is under assault.” In the Department of Defense, he oversaw Western Hemisphere affairs and oversaw the funding of defense cooperation for the U.S. Northern Command and U.S. Southern Command. According to his DOD bio, he was the chief of the international affairs division of the U.S. Northern Command J59, responsible for military to military guidance of training, sales and other activity with Canada and Mexico. He also served in Chile and Venezuela and was an air defense officer, and is an ROTC graduate of the University of Iowa.
Snyder
Pete Snyder
Following a year of buzz over whether he would enter the race, Charlottesville-area venture capitalist Pete Snyder formally announced on Jan. 27 that he would seek the GOP nomination for Virginia governor. A former Fox News contributor, Snyder made an unsuccessful bid for the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor in 2013 and chaired Ed Gillespie’s unsuccessful 2017 gubernatorial campaign. The William & Mary graduate founded Arlington-based social media marketing firm New Media Strategies and sold it in 2007 to Meredith Corp. for $30 million. He’s now chief executive of Disruptor Capital, a venture capital firm focused on innovative technologies and entrepreneurs. In response to the pandemic, Snyder and his wife, Burson, co-founded the Virginia 30 Day Fund, a nonprofit which provides small, forgivable loans to help small businesses weather the pandemic. The endeavor is separate from political considerations, Snyder says: “This is a time for us to be helping each other.”
Glenn A. Youngkin
Glenn A. Youngkin
Youngkin, 54, resigned his longtime position as co-CEO of Washington, D.C.-based investment firm The Carlyle Group in September 2020 in order to focus on “community and public service efforts.” In early January, the political newcomer declared he was running for the Republican nomination. With an estimated net worth of about $254 million, Youngkin could decide to self-fund his campaign. In an interview with The Washington Post, Youngkin’s campaign manager, Garrison Coward, said, “The political insiders have been smothering Virginians’ best interests with their special interests. Glenn is a breath of fresh air that will bring conservative solutions to everyday problems.”
In summer 2020, Youngkin and his wife launched the nonprofit Virginia Ready Institute to retrain workers idled by COVID-19. Youngkin is a longtime Republican donor, and he attended middle school in Chesterfield County before receiving degrees from Rice University and Harvard Business School. He also is part of the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus Advisory Board, among other nonprofit governing boards. Before joining Carlyle in 1995, he was a management consultant with McKinsey & Co.
Undecided
Sen. Emmett Hanger
Sen. Emmett Hanger
In September, Hanger created a political action committee, Virginians for a Better Tomorrow, to push for a constitutional amendment on nonpartisan political redistricting. Voters approved the amendment in November. The 72-year-old Hanger, who represents Staunton, Augusta County and other areas of the Shenandoah Valley, has said he will announce whether he will run for governor before the General Assembly session opens on Jan. 13. He has been a member of the legislature since 1982, first as a delegate, then as a senator. “When I started, I considered myself to be one of the most conservative members, and I don’t think my views have changed,” he says. Since then, however, more members of his party have moved “considerably to the right of me,” he says. Being labeled “moderate” used to bother him, but Hanger now considers “moderate” a synonym for “reasonable.” A believer in limited government and fiscal restraint, Hanger has been known to reach across the aisle to get things done. To the dismay of many in his party, he supported the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
Also considering a run
Princess Blanding, the sister of an Essex County high school biology teacher who was killed by a Richmond police officer during a mental health crisis in 2018, announced in December a third-party bid for governor. An advocate for criminal justice reform, Blanding is running as a candidate for the Liberation Party, a party created following the killing of her brother, Marcus-David Peters. She is a science teacher from Middlesex County.
Mike L. Chapman, a three-term Republican Loudoun County sheriff, is openly considering a run to push back against what he calls “a false narrative” about law enforcement. He adamantly opposes citizen oversight bodies like those greenlighted in 2020 by the General Assembly to investigate police misconduct complaints.
Neil Chatterjee was chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission before being demoted from the post in November 2020 by President Donald Trump. In May, Chatterjee, a Republican, created a Facebook group pitching a “hypothetical” run for governor. He told Politico he was “just playing around,” but the former aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not formally ruled out a run.
Pete Doran is a free-market stalwart who chairs the pro-GOP political organization Let’s Win, Virginia! He is the former CEO of the nonprofit Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), which advocates for public policy to encourage an economically vibrant, strategically secure and politically free Europe.
Republican U.S. Rep. Denver Riggleman, whose term ended Jan. 3, has formed an exploratory committee to examine a run as an independent after the GOP did not renominate him for his House seat representing the Fifth District, Virginia’s largest geographic congressional district. The one-term congressman was censured by his party for not supporting its positions on spending and immigration, as well as officiating a same-sex wedding and not backing Trump’s voter fraud claims. He’s been a vocal critic of Trump and congressional Republicans.
Several candidates have already jumped into the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial race, and several more likely entrants are waiting to declare their candidacies until the 2020 election concludes.
Virginia’s constitution limits governors to nonconsecutive four-year terms, so incumbent Gov. Ralph Northam can’t run for reelection. Republicans haven’t won a statewide election in Virginia since 2009, and the Democratic field is more crowded than the Republican side so far.
Among the Democrats, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, state Sen. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, and Del. Jennifer Carroll Foy, D-Prince William, have declared their candidacies.
Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who served as governor from 2014 to 2018, filed paperwork to create a gubernatorial campaign committee but says he won’t announce whether he’ll run until after the 2020 election. McAuliffe is serving as a surrogate for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
The only declared Republican candidate for governor so far is state Sen. Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield. Others, including former state Sen. Bill Carrico, R-Grayson, longtime delegate and former Speaker of the House Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, and Charlottesville entrepreneur Pete Snyder, who lost the GOP primary for lieutenant governor in 2013, are considering runs as well.
Fairfax and Foy were part of a Democratic statewide sweep with Gov. Ralph Northam in 2017. Fairfax and Northam were caught up in 2019 scandals. Northam came under heavy criticism for a blackface photo that appeared on his 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook page. (The governor has denied he was in the photo, which also depicted a person in a Ku Klux Klan costume.) Two women have alleged that Fairfax sexually assaulted them in the early 2000s, but Fairfax has said the incidents were consensual.
McClellan won election to the House of Delegates in 2005 and served there until 2017, when she won a special election to fill Donald McEachin’s state Senate seat after he was elected to Congress.
Foy was a public defender until she was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 2017.
Either McClellan or Foy would be the first woman governor in Virginia, as well as the first Black woman governor in the United States.
On the Republican side, Chase is running as a renegade Republican who refused to caucus with her fellow party senators in 2020. She was elected to the Virginia Senate in 2015 after defeating two primary opponents, including a 22-year incumbent, and winning the general election. She’s drawn attention for open carrying a .38 caliber firearm during the General Assembly session and for reportedly cursing at a Capitol Police officer during a parking dispute.
Other Republicans appear to be waiting to announce until after the 2020 election.
“My goal has been not to interfere with the 2020 race,” says Carrico, who served in the House of Delegates from 2002 to 2012 and the Virginia Senate from 2012 to 2020. “I don’t want to confuse the electorate. One of the things I felt about Amanda coming out [for governor] in February is that she takes focus off of what people need to be looking at.”
Chase has no apologies.
“I tell people I can chew gum and walk at the same time,” Chase says. “Some people want to criticize me for starting early. I’m going to win. People can criticize me, but at the end they’ll be calling me governor.”
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