Virginia Democrats are realizing they don’t have candidates against a majority of state representatives, so organizers plan to throw party resources behind whoever is interested, according to a Thursday report from Blue Virginia.
The Virginia Democratic Party doesn’t actually have someone in charge of recruiting potential candidates, according to the report, a move that exposes a key weakness in the party moving into the 2018 mid-term elections.
“The trouble is, I can’t really tell who in Virginia is responsible for making sure we have quality recruits in every competitive race. It’s heartening that groups like Indivisible and Run for Something are taking up the cause,” David Jonas wrote for Blue Virginia. “But I’ve talked to a bunch of folks over the past few weeks, and without outing anyone in particular, it seems like no one is really in charge here. There’s no captain of the ship.”
Are you a progressive Virginian who’s never run for office? Now’s the time to change that. Grab a clipboard and run! https://t.co/6uwvuPWkgp
— Tom Perriello (@tomperriello) February 10, 2017
Jonas identifies six districts in which no Democrat is running that were won by presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Potential candidates have until March 30th to file their candidacy for the 2018 election.
The districts that need a Democratic candidate include Norfolk, Newport News, Fairfax County, Richmond, and Prince William County, areas of densely-populated Democratic areas according to Jonas.
“There’s no more time,” Jonas asserts in the article. “I wish I could be more diplomatic about this, but we are on the verge of losing out on what might be our only opportunity in a decade to take back an insanely gerrymandered statehouse. During this off-year election, we could ride the groundswell of popular anti-Trump sentiment and drive Democrats to the polls as if it’s 2020. But if there’s a wave, we have to have candidates to catch it.”
“Those are the stakes. You can’t win if you don’t show up. We have until March 30th to field a full and complete team,” Jonas concluded.
Shortly after The Daily Caller News Foundation obtained the text of the article, Blue Virginia deleted the page. The Virginia Democrat’s Twitter page quickly denied the argument, asserting that all of the information in the article was false.
@VAHouseDems As of today, we have 43 Democratic challengers, including in ALL 17 of the districts Hillary Clinton won
— VA House Democrats (@VAHouseDems) February 10, 2017
@VAHouseDems More are committing every day, and we are on track to meet our full recruitment goal by the June 13th filling deadline.
— VA House Democrats (@VAHouseDems) February 10, 2017
@VAHouseDems We want candidates in as many districts as possible to increase our chances in every corner of the Commonwealth.
— VA House Democrats (@VAHouseDems) February 10, 2017
The Democratic Party lost several governor’s mansions in 2016, as well as the leadership of several statehouses, leading some pundits to assert that Democrats have a problem recruiting good candidates nationally.
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