Former Democratic Party chair to run for Republican Senate nomination

Former Augusta County Democratic Committee chair Marshall Pattie will announce his intention to seek the 2015 Republican nomination in the 24th Senate District on Monday.

Pattie would ostensibly be challenging incumbent Republican Sen. Emmett Hanger for the nomination in the 24th. Hanger, first elected to public office in 1979, when he was elected Commissioner of the Revenue in Augusta County, has served in the State Senate since 1996.

Hanger has not made his intentions regarding 2015 known, but it is expected that he will run for re-election.

The incumbent has had to beat back an intraparty nomination challenge once, in 2007, when Rockbridge County businessman Scott Sayre received 47 percent of the vote in a two-way race with Hanger, losing by 866 votes of the more than 14,300 cast.

Pattie, elected in 2011 to the Augusta County Board of Supervisors, is a bit of a surprise as a possible intraparty challenger. The James Madison University professor was elected to chair the Augusta County Democratic Committee in 2009, and remained in that position until resigning in 2011 as he geared up for his run as an independent for the North River seat on the Board of Supervisors in 2011.

Pattie defeated a former Augusta County Republican chair, Larry Roller, in a three-way race for the seat.