GOP Nomination Fight in Virginia’s 5th District

As they survey the mood of the electorate and the results of a recent poll that found generic “Tea Party” candidates beating out Republicans in 2010, Virginia’s Republican Party leaders must be getting pretty nervous. Especially in the 5th District.

National party insiders have anointed state Senator Robert Hurt to run there against weak incumbent Tom Periello. But apparently they forgot that Robert Hurt has supported some very un-fiscally-conservative proposals over the years, including then-Governor Mark Warner’s 2005 tax hike that was the largest in state history.

Unfortunately for the party establishment, there are at least six people in the 5th District who remember.

From a press release issued by the Laurence Verga campaign:

Six out of seven of the Republican candidates for the nomination for the U. S. House of Representatives from Virginia’s 5th Congressional District have notified unit chairs throughout the district that they prefer having that nomination made at a District Convention of party delegates in May of next year rather than an open primary in June.

The six Republican candidates signing onto the statement were Feda Morton, Ken Boyd, Laurence Verga, Michael McFadden, Ron Ferrin, and Jim McKelvey.

Coincidentally, Sen. Hurt, the only candidate who supports a primary, just happens to also be the only one likely to recieve financial backing from the national party.

A few other reasons offered by the release for a convention instead of a primary:

[A] May convention would give the party’s nominee an extra month to focus on defeating Perriello over a June primary and that a convention will require an absolute majority of votes to pick a winner while a simple plurality would be needed in a primary.
 
…in a seven-way [primary], a candidate could conceivably win with as little as 15% of the vote.

Coming up next year, these same six candidates will be engaging in a series of debates hosted by Tea Parties in the 5th District.

Stay tuned for more info on that, and to see whether Sen. Hurt chooses to attend any of those events and defend his record.