Liberty University was an obvious choice as backdrop for Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to roll out his 2016 presidential campaign. But don’t overlook the fact that Liberty University also happens to be in Virginia, and the role that Virginia will play in the 2016 campaign.
Virginia has gone blue in the past two presidential cycles, pulling the lever for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, after a long history, dating back to the 1960s, of casting its electoral votes for Republicans. Both U.S. senators from Virginia are Democrats, and the three top statewide offices are all held by Democrats.
But on the undercard, eight of the 11 congressional seats are held by Republicans, who also hold a slim majority in the State Senate, and a supermajority in the House of Delegates.
So Virginia has to be looked at very much as being in play in 2016, if not maybe even leaning Republican, considering the near-miss for popular Sen. Mark Warner, who barely held on to his seat in his 2014 race with political unknown Ed Gillespie.
Liberty U. provides nice campaign wallpaper because it’s a right-leaning Christian school that exists mainly because its founder, the late Moral Majority evangelist Jerry Falwell, wanted to prove a political point. Its location in the heart of the red part of Virginia, the three-quarters of land mass of the state that sits to the south and west of the Urban Crescent that stretches from Northern Virginia through Richmond down to Hampton Roads, is also significant.
Cruz is looking ahead generally to getting his name out there ahead of the rest of the GOP field for 2016, but also specifically to the March 1 presidential primary in Virginia, part of the Super Tuesday lineup in battleground states including Colorado and Florida, that could slingshot whoever ends up being the big winner to the head of the pack toward the nomination.
As clumsy as the rollout may have been, that part will be forgotten by the time Virginia is in the primary crosshairs next year. The important thing for Cruz and other candidates will be building their grassroots here in the Old Dominion.
– Column by Chris Graham
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Chris Graham
