The Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) is headed towards the State Central Committee (SCC) selecting the GOP 2021 nominees for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. A majority of the party has voted repeatedly for an in-person convention, which is illegal under current COVID-19 executive orders. A minority of the party hoping for a primary has blocked attempts to pass an amendment to party rules allowing an unassembled convention.
“That’s the danger of this game of chicken that’s being played, and it’s what concerns me,” RPV Chair Rich Anderson said on The John Fredericks Show on Wednesday. “It appears that those votes are not going to be there [to approve the amendment].”
Without those votes, the party could be stuck with 72 SCC members choosing the 2021 nominees even though 1.96 million Virginians voted Republican in the 2020 presidential election. Anderson said, “Right now on this day, standing in front of my telephone with you, I don’t see a pathway forward.”
In a Monday letter to the SCC, Anderson said the next SCC meeting would occur on February 27, after the deadline to opt for a state-run primary has passed, effectively ending discussion of a primary. The SCC could potentially opt for a party-run firehouse primary, but the pro-convention majority isn’t likely to approve that result after multiple heated Zoom meetings and months of pressure. Anderson indicated that he was preparing for both an in-person and an unassembled convention, and that he did not plan to call another SCC meeting before the February deadline for a primary.
“As State Party Chair, I now find myself at a place where I have been instructed by the SCC through four successive votes—across three meetings and over a two-month period—that we will proceed with a convention,” Anderson wrote. “I believe that we now need a cooling off period as a result of our present impasse, passions running at elevated levels in full view of the public, adverse publicity, and the need for Congressional District Republican Committee chairs to research potential district venues for unassembled conventions.”
Gubernatorial candidate Senator Amanda Chase (R-Chesterfield) told The Virginia Star, “I completely object to members of the State Central Committee choosing our nominee.”
Chase has been lobbying the SCC to choose a primary, but she said she was prepared to run in either a primary or a convention, as long as the process allowed the people to speak. She said, “I would fully support the nominee that came out of [a convention] but I will not support a candidate that is chosen out of the State Central Committee and there will be a lawsuit.”
“I do believe that this is an attempt to try to find a candidate other than me because I’m the front-runner right now,” she said. Chase said she’s already been collecting signatures in case she needs them for a RPV primary or an independent run, and with new rules for the 2021 election, she only needs 2,000.
“We need to allow the people to determine [the nominee], not the Republican establishment elite that sit on that committee, the governing board. I think it is outrageous, it is blasphemous in the strongest terms possible that they would attempt to reset the process and take it away from the people and this is exactly why we will lose statewide,” Chase said.
Chase warned that Republican voters would not turn out if the SCC picks the RPV nominees.
“People are not going to vote — they are already ticked that Republicans did not stand up and fight this election fraud and yet they are giving the people of Virginia who vote one more reason not to support and vote for Republicans this fall,” the legislator said.
Gubernatorial candidate Pete Snyder’s campaign spokesperson Lenze Morris said, “Pete trusts the leaders on the RPV SCC to come together and ensure Republicans across Virginia have the opportunity to nominate a candidate who shares their passion and their values. Regardless of what the nomination process looks like, you can count on one thing: Virginians are fed up with career politicians letting them down, and conservative outsider Pete Snyder will unify Virginia Republicans and put an end to the Northam-McAuliffe polices that have closed our schools, failed in responding to COVID, and shuttered our economy.”
Kirk Cox for Governor Press Secretary Kristen Bennett said, “Our campaign is focused on calling out Governor Northam’s failed vaccine distribution and the far-left policies resulting from Democratic one-party control. The State Central Committee will take care of its business, hopefully sooner rather than later, but that isn’t stopping us from doing what we need to do in order to win the nomination.”
In the letter, Anderson said he didn’t want the SCC to choose the RPV’s nominees. But he said, “Without approved State Party Plan amendments for an unassembled convention, we are now on a trajectory that will preclude an assembled convention, an unassembled convention, and a primary. That will require that our three statewide nominees be selected by the SCC, which will take on the perception of party bosses huddled in a smoke-filled back room.”
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Eric Burk is a reporter at The Virginia Star and the Star News Digital Network. Email tips to [email protected].
Background Photo “Virginia Capitol” by Anderskev. CC BY 3.0.
John Fredericks is the publisher and editor-in-chief of The Virginia Star.
He is also a Trump 2020 delegate and the chairman of the Trump Virginia Delegation.
