Ultra-conservative minister E.W. Jackson jumped into the race for Senate on Monday, setting up a contested GOP primary for the nomination to take on Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine next year. Jackson was a fringe candidate who took just 5 percent in the 2012 Senate primary, but thanks to a fire and brimstone speech before Republican convention-goers in 2013, the ultra-conservatives who dominated the convention chose him as their nominee for lieutenant governor that year.
Jackson has had a long history of making statements that range from offensive to just downright bizarre. Although he is black himself, Jackson once recorded a video message to "black Christians" where he claimed Planned Parenthood "has been far, far more lethal to black lives than the KKK ever was," and that the "Democrat Party [sic] and Planned Parenthood are partners in this genocide." Jackson has also compared homosexuality to pedophilia, called LGBT people "sick," and accused Democrats of being "anti-God." Weirdly, he even once suggested that yoga leads to Satan.
Predictably, such a nutty candidate went on to lose the 2013 election in a 55-45 rout to Democrat Ralph Northam even though Republicans fared much better elsewhere on the ticket that year. Jackson would almost certainly prove to be a catastrophic nominee for Republicans if he wins the nomination. While Kaine is heavily favored to win re-election in this light-blue state, Republicans fear someone like Jackson could hurt the party in more competitive races for the House in the Old Dominion.
Of course, Jackson's biggest primary rival is hardly any saner. Prince William County Supervisor Corey Stewart has been running for months, and he nearly won the GOP nomination for governor earlier this year in a shocking upset after running hard on a platform of neo-Confederate apologia. That thinly veiled racism may play well with the GOP base in the era of Trump, but Virginia voters punished down-ballot Republicans in elections last month that saw gubernatorial standard-bearer Ed Gillespie lose badly after leaning hard into Stewart-style racism.
Establishment Republicans haven't yet given up hope on avoiding a disastrous nominee after state Del. Nick Freitas also recently joined the GOP primary. Freitas is an Iraq War veteran who has served in the legislature since the 2015 elections. However, it's unclear how he plans to prevail against Stewart and Jackson, particularly since he claims he doesn't plan on attacking his fellow primary contenders. While Republican leaders smartly chose to hold a primary over a convention after the 2013 debacle, Stewart's near upset in this year's gubernatorial contest shows that alone is no guarantee of the establishment getting its preferred nominee in place.