O.K. gang, time to roll up our sleeves and get back to work. Several others on the site as well as myself have been warning that 2018 will be here before we know it. Hell, we don’t even have to wait that long, 2017 will be here in 11 days! And the first election of consequence will be in 21 days. And when I say consequence, I mean consequence.
Tom Garrett was the sitting GOP Senator in VA’s 22nd district, but he got elected to the US House, so he’s stepping down. Virginia has called for a special election on January 10th to fill his seat. Here’s the critical part. This is a potential flip seat, and right now the VA state Senate is +2 GOP. If we take this seat, we flip the whole VA Senate to Democratic control! This would tie the Senate at 20 and the deciding vote would belong to the Lieutenant Governor, who is a Democrat.
This is a lift, it is a solidly “Red” district, but we have some possible advantages. First of all, it’s now an open seat, so we’re not fighting the “incumbent advantage”. Second, the GOP candidate Mark Peake is not a known name. He is a small business owner and local attorney, not a practiced politician. And third, this is a stand alone election, it’s the only thing on the slate, so turnout is going to be low.
Ryant Washington has the resume. He has been in law enforcement since 1990. He has served as both deputy Sheriff and Sheriff of Fluvanna county, as well as a Virginia state trooper. He has two college degrees, and trained at the national Sheriff’s Institute. In 2014 Governor Terry McAuliffe appointed Washington as a special law enforcement advisor to the Virginia Alcohol Beverage Commission. The GOP luvs dem some law enforcement, so we gave them some law enforcement.
Turnout is going to be the key here. The timing on this may be a godsend for us. It’s taking place 9 days after New Years day, and all good Republicans are going to already be drooling at the thought of the Trump inauguration in 10 more days. This is going to be under a lot of peoples radar.
Look, there was all kinds if hand wringing about our ground game not having been what it needed to be in some places where we lost. That was most certainly not the case in Virginia. Our organization threw such a scare into Dave Brat that bloody Mike Pence had to show up at Brat’s campaign office two days before the election with pizzas. The good thing for us about the timing of this election, is that it is so close to the November election, getting motivated to push for this shouldn’t be hard. It’s a matter of a couple of weeks, not several months, so it’s a short sprint. This upset would be the best New Years resolution the Democrats could make.
To learn more about Ryant Washington you can go HERE. To donate to his campaign, you can go HERE. And most importantly, to get personally involved and do the ground work to get Ryant Washington into the Senate, you can go HERE.
This will be a great first step for us. Money is always nice, but this figures to be a low turnout special election, It’s going to come down to making phone calls and knocking on doors. What better way to take out our frustrations for November than by pulling this one out and flipping the VA Senate in the process?
