The decision by three-term Rep. Robert Hurt to not seek re-election has created an opening in Virginia’s Republican-tilted 5th U.S. House District — once occupied by James Madison — that four men are eager to occupy in 2017.
State Sen. Thomas A. Garrett, R-Buckingham, a former prosecutor; Bedford businessman and developer Jim McKelvey; Navy veteran and former Capitol Hill staffer Joe Whited; and Albemarle County-based tech executive Michael Del Rosso are vying for the GOP nomination.
The mostly rural, inverted boot-shaped district covers 21 counties and two cities — an area the size of New Jersey — and runs from horse country and Warrenton in Northern Virginia to tobacco country and Danville in Southside along the North Carolina border.
The nominating battle — perhaps the most competitive congressional contest in Virginia this election cycle — will be decided Saturday at the 5th Congressional District convention at Nelson County High School in Lovingston. Roughly 1,500 delegates have signed up to attend.
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Democrats have chosen their standard bearer to bid for the seat — Jane Dittmar, a former member of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors who was unopposed and nominated in a Democratic convention.
Republicans won the district in nine of the past 10 elections, making the GOP nominee a favorite to hold the seat for the party. But the stakes are high for Republicans, who face a general election made all the more unpredictable by the expected nomination of brash billionaire businessman Donald Trump at the top of the ticket.
“It’s far too early to predict a party change in the district or the whole House, but this is an unusual year,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “Now that we know Donald Trump will be the GOP nominee, it will remain an unusual year.”
Here’s a look at the Republican hopefuls:
Tom Garrett
Garrett is a two-term state senator and former commonwealth’s attorney in Louisa County who has earned a reputation as a combative constitutional conservative willing to challenge party leadership in the legislature on issues ranging from the budget to power sharing.
The 44-year-old Army veteran has the endorsement of the National Rifle Association and 15 of the 21 members of the Republican Senate Caucus. He supported Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in Virginia’s presidential primary but said he will support Trump as the party’s nominee.
“Donald Trump deserves a medal for bringing attention to things people didn’t want to discuss, most notably illegal immigration,” said Garrett.
As the only candidate who has served in elected office, Garrett said he’s running as someone who has made promises and kept them as a “pro-Constitution, pro-life, pro-Second Amendment champion of limited government.”
Garrett said he would prioritize reining in government spending and waste and would improve the economy of the district by opposing what he termed “unfair trade agreements” such as NAFTA and by closing the Southern border of the United States.
Jim McKelvey
McKelvey, a 60-year-old businessman and gentleman farmer from Bedford, with construction and real estate development interests, came in second to Hurt six years ago in a seven-candidate Republican primary.
The self-described “fiscal, constitutional conservative” had not planned another congressional run until Hurt decided to retire, but he said “to truly know you can make a difference and do nothing just isn’t in me.”
McKelvey said he does not accept endorsements and doesn’t believe in them. But as the 5th Congressional District chairman of the Trump campaign, he is squarely behind the presumptive nominee.
“People in the establishment created Trump because of their do-nothing attitude,” he said, noting that he agrees with the majority of what Trump says, and is especially supportive of his stance on border security.
“Put me on the border — I’ll get those walls up ahead of schedule and below budget,” he said. “If we don’t seal our border, we are not a sovereign nation.”
In addition to immigration, McKelvey said he would restore fiscal responsibility by cutting the federal budget and deficit, saying the government is “rampant with waste and fraud.” He also would eliminate the Department of Education and leave schools to the states and restore accountability to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Joe Whited
The youngest and least-funded candidate in the field, Whited, 36, arguably has spent the most time in Washington, serving as a congressional staffer on the House Armed Services Committee as an intelligence adviser. While Garrett served in the Army, Whited spent 10 years in the U.S. Navy, mostly in intelligence positions, serving in Kosovo, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iraq.
While he did not seek any endorsements, Whited supported Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., in the Virginia primary and said he will back Trump as the GOP presidential nominee. “I think we’ve got to come together and support our nominees,” he said.
Whited said his strength as a candidate is his experience in Washington over the past seven years, learning how to write legislation and see it through to passage.
“I’ll be ready on Day 1,” he said. “There’s not a lot of time for on-the-job training.”
Whited said he would prioritize “getting government out of the way” through regulatory reform in small business and Environmental Protection Agency policies. He said he would push for a hybrid system of care for military veterans involving the Department of Veterans Affairs and private providers. He said he would support budget reform that gives Congress the chance to vote on individual spending bills rather than one, flawed omnibus plan.
Michael Del Rosso
A New York City-born technology executive who has lived in Albemarle and Charlottesville since 2007, Del Rosso, 59, brings what his campaign terms “extensive congressional outreach experience” working with elected leaders and staff on issues related to homeland security, infrastructure protection, counterterrorism and nuclear proliferation.
Endorsed by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.; former Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.; former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense William G. Boykin; and Conservative HQ.com Chairman Richard Viguerie, Del Rosso supported Cruz in the primary but is now “an enthusiastic supporter” of Trump.
Del Rosso is co-author of the book “Sharia: The Threat to America.” His campaign credits him and a handful of others with raising awareness in Congress of the “Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic threat.”
He favors halting all immigration to the U.S. until the government implements a working system to track everyone who enters and leaves. He calls for prioritizing Americans for jobs over immigrants and building a wall where it is needed.
Like other GOP candidates, Del Rosso favors ending NAFTA and the Affordable Care Act. He also favors a flat income tax, eliminating corporate taxes and balancing the budget in one year “by using zero-based budgeting ... to cut away unconstitutional spending.”
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In 2008, the 5th District elected a Democrat, Tom Perriello, who defeated Rep. Virgil Goode, who had held the seat since 1997, serving as a Democrat, then as an independent and finishing his congressional tenure as a Republican.
In that high-turnout presidential election year, Perriello rode the coattails of Democrat Barack Obama. Democrats also captured the 2nd and 11th districts that year, gaining a 6-5 majority in the Virginia delegation.
Two years later, with much lower voter turnout, Republicans took back the seats in the 2nd and 5th districts and claimed the 9th District, where Morgan Griffith ousted Rep. Rick Boucher, a veteran Democrat.
“Virginia is more susceptible to swings than it once was, even with heavily gerrymandered districts,” said Sabato. “It’s one of America’s top swing states, and that guarantees lots of attention and expenditures on all sides.”
Sensing a similar opening this year, national Democrats also see an opportunity to pick up seats in the House. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has targeted the 10th District seat in Northern Virginia, held by freshman Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-10th.
National Democrats consider the 5th District very Republican, but are said to be monitoring the race because it is an open seat and Dittmar is an experienced candidate. She has been campaigning for the seat since September and raised $62,000 in the first 17 days of April alone.
“All one has to do is look at the 2008 election. ... There was an awful lot of vote-splitting going on,” said Republican strategist Chris LaCivita, who ran Hurt’s subsequent successful campaigns for the seat.
“The notion that the 5th District could nominate any Republican for Congress and still win is a bit outdated and unrealistic. The district always has to be treated as competitive, especially from an open-seat standpoint.”
But LaCivita said the National Republican Congressional Committee is not going to let the 5th District slip away and that it is “the Republicans’ to lose.” He said that, while Dittmar’s political base is entirely within the district, she also has a liberal record that won’t comport with the rest of the district.
“Albemarle and Pittsylvania are as different as night and day,” he said. “You can’t just win Albemarle and Charlottesville and expect to win the 5th,” LaCivita said. “You have to be able to win Southside.”