Ed Gillespie, the Republican hope for a revival in Virginia, squeaked out a narrow victory Tuesday night over a populist Corey Stewart to win the GOP nomination for governor.
His win was especially unimpressive compared with the smashing victory of Lt. Governor Ralph Northam for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Gillespie, 55, the former Republican national chairman and White House adviser to President George W. Bush, enters the race against Northam as the underdog. The election is November 7.
But the center-right conservative should not be taken lightly. Gillespie’s a skillful and likable candidate who came within several thousand votes of defeating Democratic Sen. Mark Warner in 2016. And he has wisely kept his distance from President Trump, who is unpopular in Virginia. Northam has called Trump “a narcissistic maniac.”
Gillespie paid a price in the Republican primary by running an aloof campaign in which he rarely engaged with Stewart, who ran Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in Virginia before being fired for being too aggressive, or state Sen. Frank Wagner, the third candidate.
Stewart, 48, did the opposite. He attacked Gillespie relentlessly over his experience as a Washington lobbyist whose firm had worked for Tyson’s Chicken when it was accused of smuggling Mexican workers across the border. In truth, Gillespie’s firm merely did P.R. work for Tyson’s, which was acquitted in the smuggling case.
Nonetheless, Stewart got a boost from pressing the issue. At one point, he suggested Gillespie was “complicit in human trafficking.” Stewart is chairman of the board of supervisors in Prince William County in the exurbs of Washington, D.C.
It was Gillespie’s strong showing against Warner that pushed him to the front of the Republican bench. He is regarded as the only Republican with a credible shot at winning the governor’s office. If he succeeds, it will be the first statewide victory for a Republican candidate since 2009.
Over the past decade, Virginia has been transformed from a solidly Republican state to one that leans Democratic. President Obama won the state in 2008 and 2012 and Hillary Clinton defeated Trump handily last year.
With its off-year election, the Virginia governor’s race comes a year after a new president is elected. And running against Democratic presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama helped Republicans win the governor’s office in 1993 and 2009. But Gillespie won’t have that luxury with Trump in the White House.
Instead, he is poised to attack Northam and the Democratic party as too far to the left. B Indeed, both Northam and his primary opponent, Tom Periello, focused on liberal issues in the primary, along with denouncing Trump. ThatAnd the leftward lurch is likely to have made moderate Democrats and independents uneasy.
Gillespie, meanwhile, has positioned himself in the political center for the general election. If he can isolate Northam on the left, he can win. That will be difficult, but it’s far from impossible.
Correction: An earlier headline incorrectly stated that Stewart was endorsed by President Trump. The President did not make an endorsement in the race.
