Dave LaRock, the college dropout former MAGA state delegate, now has an opponent from his right in the now-crowded Virginia Republican Party governor’s race.
Former State Sen. Amanda Chase, who, like LaRock, was at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, is now signaling her intent to run for the MAGA nomination, challenging the sitting lieutenant governor and the favorite of the party elites, Winsome Earle-Sears.
ICYMI
- Jan. 6 guy Dave LaRock mounting campaign for Republican governor nomination
- Republican radio guy doesn’t like the party’s presumptive Black nominee for governor
Echoing LaRock, Chase, who mounted an unsuccessful bid for the Republican Party gubernatorial nomination in 2021, is calling Earle-Sears a “Never Trumper,” citing the LG’s comment to Fox News in 2022 that the party needed to “move on” from Trump.
“Many Trump supporters said they will stay home if she’s on the ballot,” Chase said in an email blast to supporters announcing her candidacy this week.
Trump is probably a loser for a Republican statewide candidate in Virginia in November – his approval rating in a recent Roanoke College poll of Virginia voters was at a paltry 37 percent, with 58 percent not approving.
But a June electorate that would decide the Republican nominee in a party primary doesn’t include Democrats or independents, and among Republicans surveyed in that Roanoke College poll, Trump was at 90 percent approval.
Which is why you’ve been seeing even Earle-Sears come around on trying to make herself seem more Trumpy, to appeal to the base that will decide on the nominee.
Earle-Sears already has the support of the party establishment – with endorsements from the sitting governor, Glenn Youngkin, who has his eyes on the U.S. Senate in the 2026 cycle, along with a large group of Republican state legislators, including House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert and Senate Minority Leader Ryan McDougle.
Trump himself has yet to weigh in, and that’s significant – because you can’t assume he’s going to sit this one out, given that it’s a prominent early referendum on his second term in the White House, and because it’s proven hard for him to not want to punish Republicans who have ever had anything remotely insufficiently Trumpy to say about him.
And now he has not one, but two White candidates to choose from if he decides he’s not comfortable with the uppity Black woman who said mean things about him on his favorite TV channel.
It would be one thing if the uppity Black woman who said mean things about Trump was polling well, but, no, she’s not.
The Roanoke College poll has the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for governor, Abigail Spanberger, ahead of Earle-Sears by 15 points.
Yeah, this is going to get ugly.
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Chris Graham
