The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

In Virginia, Republicans reacting to Trump are looking ahead to 2017

October 8, 2016 at 6:03 p.m. EDT
Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), shown at a debate Thursday in Lansdowne, Va., became the first congresswoman to join a growing list of lawmakers urging Donald Trump to step aside in the presidential race. (Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post)

Republicans in Virginia were all over the map in how they responded to lewd comments Trump made about women in a video disclosed Friday, but they had one thing in common: They're all looking beyond Nov. 8.

Virginia is on track to be the only state in the nation next year to host a governor’s race and possibly a U.S. Senate race for Tim Kaine’s seat, making the commonwealth a laboratory for how politicians will have to grapple with life after Trump.

“The plausibility of two statewide elections has concentrated the minds of politicians of both parties like few issues over the last decade,” said Stephen J. ­Farnsworth, a political-science professor at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg.

In the hours after The Washington Post published a 2005 video in which Trump brags about groping and attempting to have sex with women, pressure mounted on Republicans with aspirations to higher office to say something, anything.

Politicians are scolding Donald Trump after the release by The Washington Post of a 2005 video in which he makes vulgar comments about women. (Video: Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

In the midst of a competitive reelection race in her Northern Virginia district, Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) became the first congresswoman to join a growing group of lawmakers urging Trump to step aside.

“This is disgusting, vile, and disqualifying,” she said in a statement. “No woman should ever be subjected to this type of obscene behavior and it is unbecoming of anybody seeking high office.”

Political experts say the move was a smart way to woo voters in the swing county of Loudoun, an anchor of Comstock’s sprawling district, where polls show that Trump has alienated women and minorities.

While her comments upended her previous campaign strategy of silence on the polarizing nominee, to some, it signaled that she is looking beyond the presidential election.

Comstock is often mentioned as a potential contender for Kaine’s Senate seat if Democrats win the White House. In that case, the Republican nominee would probably face a Democrat chosen by Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) in a 2017 special election and then run for a full term in 2018.

The grueling back-to-back election cycle would demand a candidate with the energy and connections to raise tens of millions of dollars — twice.

Comstock, who has spent decades in high-level Republican politics, is close to House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), who recently hosted a fundraiser that raised $400,000 for her reelection campaign. Comstock and Ryan were staffers on Capitol Hill at the same time.

Another possible Senate candidate is Carly Fiorina, a Virginia resident who has stayed in the public eye since ending her campaign for the Republican nomination, appearing at events with Comstock and Ed Gillespie, a longtime GOP strategist who is running for governor, as well as candidates around the country.

Fiorina on Saturday called for Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence to replace Trump at the top of the ticket.

“Donald Trump does not represent me or my party,” Fiorina said in a statement posted on her Facebook page. “I understand the responsibility of Republicans to support their nominee. Our nominee has weighty responsibilities as well. Donald Trump has manifestly failed in these responsibilities.”

Farnsworth, the Mary Washington professor, said, “The reality is Trump won’t be helpful to the people who stuck with him a year from now.”

Vital issue for Republicans: What can they do about Trump?

Other Virginia Republicans have taken a different approach to Trump, preferring to denounce the nominee’s comments but maintaining their support for him as the party standard-bearer.

Gillespie issued a short statement criticizing Trump’s statements but stopped short of anything that could alienate his voters. “Donald Trump’s recorded comments are incredibly offensive and demeaning. All people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect,” Gillespie said Friday.

In nearly unseating Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) in 2014, Gillespie managed a rare feat in the Virginia Republican Party: He united conservative activists and business-centric moderates whose rivalry peaked with the ouster of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in 2014.

Observers say the task could be trickier next year as he competes for the GOP nomination against Corey Stewart, who is Trump’s Virginia campaign chair and chairman of the Prince William Board of Supervisors. Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) and state Sen. Frank W. Wagner (R-Virginia Beach) are running as well.

Stewart defended Trump on Friday, saying that voters will forgive him: “They are not concerned that at times, Donald Trump acts like a frat boy. Sometimes he does, but that’s okay. They know he’s not an angel. They know that he can save the country, though.”

Former Virginia congressman Thomas M. Davis III captured the conundrum faced by Republicans like this: “There are no good options when you have something like this. For people who had earlier embraced him, it’s hard to wiggle away.”