What a difference a few weeks make! In January, Winsome Earl-Sears (R – Lt Governor) was the presumptive nominee for the GOP. Then, over the course of a week in February, former state delegate Dave LaRock (R) and former state senator Amanda Chase (R) declared their candidacies, throwing the Republican primary into uncertainty. LaRock has positioned himself as a farther-right alternative to Earle-Sears and is calling for the state equivalent of the Department of Government Efficiency. Chase, who proudly calls herself “Trump in Heels” lost her 2021 bid for the Republican Gubernatorial nomination. Her antics in the VA General Assembly resulted in her being censured and stripped of her committee assignments during her last term in the state senate. Since that time she has run and lost in four Republican primaries for races up and down the ballot.
Their entries come just as Spanberger opened a double-digit lead over Earle-Sears for the first time in a Roanoke College poll. Spanberger is unlikely to face a primary challenge as Mayor Levar Stoney (D) has opted to run for Lt. Governor instead and Rep Bobby Scott (D) has signaled he won’t be running and expressed confidence that Virginia Democrats would unify for elections in November.
What’s driving the turnaround? According to Martin Chase, Editor of the FDX Advance out of Fredericksburg, it’s because Trump’s chaos doesn’t play well with many Virginians. Read his full opinion letter here.