Is early attention on 2016 hurting Virginia legislative candidates in 2015?

Before I could ask Angela Lynn, the Democratic Party nominee in the 25^th House District race, to give us a state of the campaign, and quiz her on the issues of the day in Virginia politics, I was duty-bound to ask her opinion on …

Yes, you guessed it. Donald Trump.

I was being facetious, but the serious question underlying was, what kind of impact is the hyper-attention being paid on the 2016 presidential race impacting candidates running for office in Virginia’s off-year General Assembly elections?

“It is a great distraction to getting people to actually concentrate on politics and be able to ask the questions of local officials and local challengers on what is important to them,” said Lynn, who is challenging Republican incumbent Steve Landes in the 25^th, which stretches from the western half of Albemarle County through a portion of Augusta County into a small corner of Rockingham County.

For a challenger like Lynn, oxygen is the biggest need, but it’s in short supply with so much attention being paid to the presidential race, particularly on the GOP side, with Trump, the billionaire celebrity quote machine, being thrust into so many conversations on politics, deserved or not.

(Don’t worry: we’ll ask Trump for comment on Angela Lynn. That’s a requirement in the current media environment.)

But seriously, yes, it is making life hard for Virginia pols who have races to run with November 2015, not November 2016, in mind.

“Whatever their talking points are is not necessarily the way we are presenting things. You don’t want to have those things supersede the important issues here at home,” Lynn said.

– Story by Chris Graham