Former state Sen. Chuck Colgan was never one to put himself on a pedestal. But now admirers have done it for him. This Sunday, on his 90th birthday, a life-size bronze statue of Colgan will be unveiled at the Science and Technology Campus of George Mason University in Prince William County.
A case that could recalibrate what documents state legislators can keep secret was heard Tuesday in the Supreme Court of Virginia. Vesilind v. Virginia State Board of Elections is primarily a redistricting case, brought to challenge 11 General Assembly districts under the state constitution.
Spanish-language political ads airing just before last week’s state and local elections in Virginia carried an urgent message about a candidate who wasn’t even on the ballot: Republican presidential contender Donald Trump. “Because Trump isn’t the only one,” a mother says to her daughter, in Spanish, urging her to vote for candidates who oppose Trump’s vitriol against undocumented immigrants.
Gun control advocacy did not sink Democrats’ chances of taking the Virginia state Senate this week, pollsters for both the state party and a gun control advocacy group argue. Everytown for Gun Safety, a group founded by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, put more than $2 million into two races Democrats needed to win to take control of the upper chamber of the state legislature. They won one but lost the other, a seeming rebuke of a campaign focused on tighter restrictions on gun purchases.
Democrat Jeremy McPike appears to have won the high-stakes race for the 29th District state Senate seat, but it won’t be enough to help Gov. Terry McAuliffe flip the state Senate to his party’s control. With 73.4 percent of the vote reporting, McPike had pulled ahead of Parrish with more than 54 percent of the vote. But other GOP state Senate candidates will retain their seats, keeping Republicans in control of the state’s top chamber.
With hours to go before polls open for Tuesday’s General Election, both Democrat Jeremy McPike and Republican Hal Parrish said they’re confident they can turn out their voters in this year’s off-off-year contest, thanks in part to the millions spent on TV and online ads in their 29th District state Senate race.
Virginia voters head to the polls Tuesday to cast ballots in a raft of legislative races and local contests that will set the stage for the coming year in politics. All 140 seats in the General Assembly will be on the ballot, and a handful of key races, including one in Prince William County, will determine which party controls the state Senate.
Billionaire Michael Bloomberg's gun control advocacy group is pouring $2.2 million into TV ads backing two Virginia candidates for state Senate, in a bid to wrest control of the chamber from Republicans. A victory on Tuesday by one of the Democrats backed by Bloomberg's Everytown for Gun Safety would switch control of the 40-seat Senate in the state, home of the powerful National Rifle Association gun lobby.
Retiring Democratic state Sen. Chuck Colgan of Prince William County, the longest-serving active member of the legislature, said he will make no endorsement of a candidate to succeed him in the Nov. 3 election. “I’m staying out of it,” Colgan told me Monday on the phone. “I like them both so I’ll just stay out of it.”
Michael Bloomberg’s gun-control group just lavished $1.5 million in TV ads on a Virginia state Senate candidate who not long ago sounded a little leery about gun control. Everytown for Gun Safety, whose co-chairman and best-known backer is the former New York mayor, announced last week that it would bankroll an enormous TV and online ad buy for Jeremy McPike, a Democrat who in his Senate campaign is calling for universal background checks and blocking domestic abusers’ access to guns.