Last night there were two sets of results from Virginia I was watching closely, a Democratic primary to replace Jennifer Wexton in VA-10 (primarily Loudoun county) and a Republican primary for VA-05 (a sprawling district that stretches from Southside all the up to Charlottesville and the Richmond suburbs). Let’s start with VA-10, where the winner is state Sen. Suhas Subramanyam.
The district, once a GOP bastion, now has a D+6 PVI and a D+21 partisan lean. It’s an extremely wealthy district including all of Loudoun, Rappahannock and Fauquier counties and parts of Prince William and Fairfax counties plus the independent cities of Manassas and Manassas Park. Both Hillary (with 52%) and Biden (with 58%) beat Trump, In 2021 McAuliffe beat Youngkin by 5 points and the following year Wexton beat Republican Hung Cao 157,405 (53.3%) to 138,163 (46.7%).
This year’s primary has been wild. First of all, there were no really good candidates for progressives to rally around— just a dozen flawed contenders hoping their rivals would look worse than they are. It was hard to say who was the worst. In May, when we ran two very negative posts about why Filler-Corn should be defeated (here and here), we were approached about getting involved in a coalition to derail her front-runner status. The problem we had we that none of the other potential front-runners looked any better than her. So we demurred.
In terms of fundraising, only 5 of the candidates raised over $500,000:
Daniel Helmer- $1,548,739
Suhas Subramanyam- $1,044,605
Eileen Filler-Corn- $959,072
Krystie Kaul- $822,755 (almost half self-funded, so not a real contender)
Jennifer Boysko- $535,851
Corrupt outside special interest money dominated the race, with the crypto-criminals and Vote Vets spending over $5 million for the conservative Washington Post-endorsed Delegate Helmer, the pro-genocide lobbyists spending for Filler-Corn and other dark money groups spending for various candidates. They turned the campaign into a cesspool that was so fetid that the NY Times speculated that a Republican could win in November! The day before balloting, Jonathan Weisman dubbed the race “the ugliest Democratic primary campaign of 2024.”
The front-runner, State Representative Dan Helmer, is fending off a last-minute accusation of sexual harassment that he strenuously denies. Another top candidate, Eileen Filler-Corn, has been attacked by a progressive political action committee over a donation to a pro-Israel group that then endorsed her.
One of the field’s top fund-raisers, Krystle Kaul, faces charges of embellishing her résumé well beyond the usual flourishes of a political campaign. And amid the flying mud, another front-runner, State Senator Suhas Subramanyam, beat back a report that he improperly put employees of his State Senate staff on his campaign payroll, an accusation he says is categorically false.
…A dozen Democrats are in the race to succeed her, many with sterling political résumés. Filler-Corn was the first woman and first Jewish speaker of the Virginia State House. Subramanyam is a current state senator for much of the district. Helmer is a Rhodes scholar and an Army veteran who served in Afghanistan, Iraq, and as a member of the Virginia House.
But those backgrounds and ambitions laid the groundwork for a campaign that has scorched the earth of what was once Republican horse country and is now a diverse suburban landscape. Many of the candidates know one another— Helmer was part of a group of Virginia State House Democrats who ousted Filler-Corn as their leader in 2022 after the party lost control of the chamber. And much to the dismay of local party leaders, many of the bigger names refused to drop out and rally around a rival in order to consolidate the field.
…[L]ast week, an anonymous Democratic official, speaking through her lawyer, accused Helmer of groping her and later making sexually crude remarks. On June 10, three former Loudoun County Democratic Party chairmen and the current deputy chairmen backed the accuser, releasing a statement saying the party had developed its sexual harassment policies in response to “the egregious harassment” of a Loudoun County party member by Helmer.
In short order, the Virginia chapter of the National Organization for Women, Filler-Corn, Kaul, Mayor Michele Davis Younger of Manassas, Va., and others called on Helmer to drop from the race. Helmer refused, denouncing “baseless charges” leveled “a week before an election by people who have endorsed my opponents.”
…Democratic voters in the district peppered by texts attacking Helmer could be forgiven if they do not know where to turn. Filler-Corn has also been deluged by negative advertising by the liberal Virginia Democratic Action Political Action Committee, which called her a “bad Democrat.” The group also filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission saying her state political action committee transferred $110,000 to the Democratic Majority for Israel the day after the PAC endorsed her for Congress.
Subramanyam, who had been endorsed by Wexton, won Loudoun County and Helmer won the rest of the district (other than inconsequential Manassas Park, which was won by also-ran Delegate Michelle-Ann Maldonado). These were the results:
I was delighted that Filler-Corn and the genocidists who backed her were humiliated and relieved the right-of-center Helmer, a groper, also lost. Subramanyam is untrustworthy but less terrible than either of them and in all likelihood he’ll be going to Congress as another garden variety shitty careerist Democrat.
OK, on to VA-05, which we’ve been covering all cycle because the embattled incumbent, Bob Good, is
the chair of the neo-fascist House Freedom Caucus
seriously challenged by another ambitious neo-fascist goon, state Sen. John McGuire
The focus of concentrated animus from Kevin McCarthy, who Good helped oust, and Señor Trumpanzee, who could not abide Good’s decision to back Ron DeSantis
It looks like there will be a recount because of how close the results are. This was another race— even more so than VA-10— with all villains competing, but far more so. It’s a pretty red district with an R+7 PVI and a partisan lean of R+15. Most of the Republican voters like in Campbell, Pittsylvania, Albemarle and Bedford counties plus Lynchburg, an independent city. Trump beat Hillary 53.1% to 41.8% and beat Biden 53.2% to 45.0%. Youngkin took the district with 60% and last cycle Good was reelected against Democrat Josh Throneburg 177,191 (57.57%) to 129,996 (42.24%).
This cycle they both raised around the same amount, and Good spent $985,787 to McGuire’s $671,111. The outside money dwarfed their spending though, almost $6 million on behalf of McGuire and nearly $5 million for Good. The biggest spenders were the American Patriots PAC (GOP fat cats Kenneth Griffin and Paul Singer) for McGuire; Conservative Outside PAC, a dark money fascist operation, for Good; House freedom Caucus for Good; Jeff Yass’ neo-fascist Protect Freedom PAC for Good; AIPAC against Good; and the House centrists Defending Main Street PAC, against Good.
As of now, with a few mail-in ballots left to be counted in Good-leaning Albemarle and Lynchburg and in McGuire-leaning Halifax, McGuire is ahead by less that 400 votes (and less than a point):
If Good wins, it will be a huge slap in the face to Trump and another loss in McCarthy’s revenge tour. At the tele-rally Trump did for McGuire Monday night, he said of Good, “If he’s reelected, he will stab Virginia in the back, sort of like he did with me.” Sounding bitter, Good whined that MAGA Mike has done nothing to help him in his race. One of the Freedom Caucus lunatics who no one in Virginia ever heard of but who backed Good, Eli Crane who represents a backward, rural Arizona district, said that if McCarthy, Marjorie Traitor Greene and Señor T are “able to take out the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, it will send a definite message to other conservatives that want [to] challenge the status quo and make big moves.” Meanwhile, a Republican Good tried— and failed to— defeat, Rep. William Timmons (R-SC) chartered a bus from DC over the weekend and brought nearly 30 House staffers to the district to campaign against Good, known my many of his House colleagues as “Bad Bob.”
Politico put it like this today: “[I]t wasn’t the blowout that one would expect when a candidate has nearly every major player in his party against him… far closer than widely anticipated, with a winner potentially not coming for days... It was a somewhat surprising result. McGuire was better-funded and had the all-powerful Trump endorsement. His struggles suggest the power of incumbency remains strong. And if Good does survive, he will return to Congress even more emboldened to hijack the GOP leadership’s legislative agenda and endorse the primary rivals of his House colleagues.”
