RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A day after easily winning his Republican primary battle, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia has taken sides in the state’s already tense nomination fight for next year’s governor’s race.
Cantor, second only to House Speaker John Boehner in the House of Representatives leadership, endorsed Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling over tea party hero Ken Cuccinelli, the state’s activist conservative attorney general, in the 2013 GOP gubernatorial contest.
Cantor’s endorsement came Wednesday, one day after he defeated a little-known primary challenger with tea party backing. His ally, former Sen. George Allen, defeated three opponents who ran to his right, including state tea party leader Jamie Radtke.
It also came two days ahead of a strategically critical fight by the state GOP’s ruling body over whether to stick with a 2013 gubernatorial primary or shift to a nominating convention, which Cuccinelli’s backers prefer.
Cantor is not the first major Virginia political leader to endorse Bolling. Gov. Bob McDonnell, who appointed Bolling his administration’s “chief jobs-creation officer,” has backed him as well.
Bolling and McDonnell have both called upon the Republican Party of Virginia’s central committee not to reverse itself and shift from a primary to a convention next June.
Bolling and Cantor share other political ties. Both are descended from the same Richmond-Henrico County Republican organization that produced former U.S. Rep. Thomas Bliley and Gov. Jim Gilmore. Bolling and Cantor also share political advisers in Ray Allen and M. Boyd Marcus.
