Free Republic

If Democrats can’t deliver a win in Virginia’s gubernatorial election 19 days hence, they should shut down and reopen as a haunted house. “See the spine-tinglingly campaign finance reports!!! Hear the bloodcurdling voicemails from Debbie Wasserman Schultz!!! Smell the horror of a goat cheese and red-pepper hummus sandwich one of the interns left downstairs!!!” Republicans have done well in recent cycles in gubernatorial races in Democrat-leaning states. Massachusetts, Maryland, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey and Wisconsin are all presently governed by Republicans. So it wouldn’t be all together shocking for a state that had a strong Republican lead until...

Republican Ed Gillespie, who is running for governor of Virginia against Democrat Ralph Northam, is being criticized for portraying MS-13 members as "heavily tattooed Latino men" who want to "KILL, RAPE, CONTROL." From Yahoo News : Ed Gillespie often insists that the gubernatorial election in Virginia should mainly be a dialogue about the deeply researched policy papers he’s put out on seemingly every topic under the sun. And while that may be true, the Republican’s campaign might be best known at this point for a series of TV ads in which photos of heavily tattooed Latino men are displayed...

We’re three weeks out from Virginia’s gubernatorial race and it’s been mostly relegated to the backburner thanks to the endless news that emanates from the Trump White House. It’s an off-year election, but it’s in D.C.'s backyard. The state has increasingly become more bluish since the Bush years, albeit the state legislature is Republican. The House of Delegates, the lower chamber, is reliably Republican where they hold a supermajority. The state Senate is more competitive. Anti-gun groups under the Bloomberg umbrella tried and failed to flip the Senate in 2015. Those groups are mounting a second invasion of the state...

Virginia, the Mother of presidents, the Tidewater Miracle which helped birth a nation conceived in liberty, could be turning into another third-world hell-hole. The state went blue in 2008 because of disgust with George W. Bush. Then this red state went Democratic for two more election cycles, especially when other blue states, which had flipped for Obama, then flipped back to Trump—that’s bad news for Virginia and the country.I have written about my experience in the Old Dominion last month. Recognizing that an intense race for governor is taking place right now, I feel compelled to speak out on the...

In a year where coverage of President Trump has generated TV ratings, limitless controversy, and the world’s scrutiny, the November 7th Virginia governor’s race between former Republican National Committee Chair Ed Gillespie and Democratic Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam has been gasping for attention. That may change this week as both campaigns pull out some heavy hitters. President George W. Bush is attending two Gillespie fundraisers on Monday. President Obama is campaigning for Northam on Thursday. That, following weekend appearances by Vice President Mike Pence at a Gillespie rally and former Vice President Joe Biden at an Northam event. Unknown yet...

Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ralph Northam and his Republican rival Ed Gillespie are pulling out a couple of the big guns Saturday, as they look to energize their respective coalitions less than a month out from Election Day. Mr. Northam plans to spend the morning campaigning with former Vice President Joseph R. Biden in Northern Virginia, and Mr. Gillespie is set to appear at an evening rally with Vice President Mike Pence in Southwest Virginia. The race is tight, according to polls, which has shown Mr. Northam, the state’s lieutenant governor, with a fairly consistent lead, riding strong support from voters...

WISE, Va. (AP) — The two major party candidates in Virginia’s closely watched race for governor are set for their third and final debate. Republican Ed Gillespie and Democratic Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam will debate Monday evening at the University of Virginia at Wise. Gillespie was a senior White House adviser to former President George W. Bush. The southwest Virginia debate comes a month before Election Day in a year when only two states are electing new governors. Virginia’s swing state status has led to intense national interest, with President Donald Trump recently weighing in on Twitter to attack Northam...

As the major party candidates in the Virginia governor’s race prepare for the Sept. 19 televised debate, a Suffolk University poll shows Democrat Ralph Northam and Republican Ed Gillespie tied, with 42 percent supporting or leaning toward each. Libertarian Clifford Hyra is at 3 percent, and 12 percent are undecided. These swing voters will play a critical role in November. And as the nation wrestles with a strategy to deal with Confederate statues in public places, 57 percent of Virginia voters want them to remain in place, while 32 percent support their removal. Voters were split by party and race...

Last week, the National Rifle Association endorsed the full Republican ticket -- Ed Gillespie, Jill Vogel, and John Adams. The NRA promotes policies that would make our communities, schools, and children less safe -- from allowing guns in schools to opposing universal background checks. But one Virginian is killed every 10 hours by a gun. That’s why Ralph and the Democratic ticket are proud to have an ‘F’ rating from the NRA -- because commonsense gun laws are important for the safety of the commonwealth. Will you chip in today to help us counter the NRA’s support of the GOP...

RICHMOND — Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie wants you to know that Democratic candidate Ralph Northam voted for “the largest tax increase in Virginia history.” But Gillespie is leaving out a big detail. The $6 billion 2013 funding package he’s talking about was the signature policy accomplishment of Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell, which McDonnell and GOP leadership called a mechanism for providing much-needed transportation improvements in Virginia.

Having lost a series of tantalizingly close congressional elections, the Democratic Party has now placed the fate of its collective psyche in the hands of an unassuming, soft-spoken pediatric neurologist. Virginia Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam says he feels no enhanced pressure to win his gubernatorial race this fall, even though his will be most high-profile contest since Democrats lost the much-watched special election in Georgia’s 6th District. “You always feel pressure,” he told HuffPost in an interview. “If you’re not feeling pressure then you’re not out there to win. And we plan to win in November.” But while Northam may...

Pollsters had major trouble spotting the surge of support for Corey Stewart in Virginia’s Republican governor’s primary this week, suggesting they still can’t figure out how to successfully survey Trump supporters. Mr. Stewart, chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors and onetime Trump campaign chairman in Virginia, ran as the Trump figure in the race, pursuing an anti-establishment message that centered around a tough approach to illegal immigration. Polling — which was strikingly infrequent — showed Mr. Stewart failing to crack 20 percent support, trailing Ed Gillespie, the putative front-runner, by as much as 27 percent. In the...

Polls have now closed in Virginia. #VAGov Follow results along live here: https://decisiondeskhq.com/results/ Virginia Governor (Democratic) Virginia Lieutenant Governor (Democratic) Virginia Governor (Republican) Virginia Lieutenant Governor (Republican)

Republican gubernatorial candidate Frank Wagner visited Roanoke Friday to pitch his campaign message of improving transportation infrastructure in order to create more jobs across Virginia.At a Roanoke County Republican Committee luncheon, Wagner, a GOP state senator from Virginia Beach, discussed his proposal to raise the gas tax for projects like widening Interstate 81 and building Interstate 73 and the Coalfields Expressway.Yes, he’s a rare Republican calling for a tax increase. He understands the irony. Building up major pathways in and out of Southwest Virginia will improve the business climate, he said.In the economically depressed Southside region , adding broadband and...

The front-runner for the Republican nomination in Virginia’s closely watched governor’s race is expressing discomfort with series of vulgar and predatory comments about women President Donald Trump made in a recording 12 years ago. Ed Gillespie said at a Republican debate Saturday in Goochland that he was offended by comments from a 2005 Access Hollywood tape in which Trump boasted about groping women.

Submitted by Gillespie campaign: “Longtime conservative leader, 2014 U.S. Senate nominee and 2017 Republican candidate for governor Ed Gillespie won the straw poll at the Prince William County GOP Lincoln-Reagan Dinner Saturday night with over 60 percent of the vote. Gillespie won with 62 percent of the vote, followed by Corey Stewart at 24 percent, Denver Riggleman at eight percent, and Frank Wagner at three percent. The Prince William County straw poll is the largest straw poll conducted in the primary to date.

-- Republican Ed Gillespie conceded the Virginia Senate race Friday to incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Warner. Gillespie said at a Friday afternoon news conference that he had called Warner "congratulating him on his re-election" in a race that turned out to be one of the midterm election's biggest surprises. Polls had shown Warner, a popular former governor who'd been endorsed by his Republican predecessor, ex-Sen. John Warner, with a hefty lead. But Gillespie led Warner for much of the night as returns trickled in Tuesday -- and ultimately ended up trailing by less than one percentage point. Get ready: 2016...

Radio reporting Gillespie going to throw in towel. Do we know which precinct in Fairfax turned in the final votes that put Warner over the top? Seems pretty suspicious, when Gillespie was ahead right up to that point, then Fairfax turns in just enough for a Warner "win".

In an interesting coincidence, in a number of precincts, Republican Ed Gillespie received fewer than 10 votes. Yet, this was not because of a lack of eligible voters. Instead, Gillespie's opponent, Mark Warner, did extremely well in such precincts, drastically out-gaining his opponent. Warner went on to win. Added together, the precincts that Gillespie received 9 or fewer votes adds up to 98. In those same precincts, Warner received an astounding 5,657 votes. Even stranger is the fact that a number of these precincts were near each other and drastically favored Warner. In Newport News City, there were seven precincts...

<p>RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia woke up Wednesday without a clear winner in its Senate race: Democratic incumbent Mark Warner held a narrow lead over Republican Ed Gillespie, who made the contest surprisingly close even though he received little attention and money from national groups.</p>