Virginia Primary Elections: Dems Lurch Leftward, GOP Moves To The Middle

Virginia’s November elections for control of the General Assembly may be the most important in a generation.

Will Virginia become Berkeley east? Or will it return to being a sane, moderate commonwealth?

Great news! Tuesday’s primaries saw the GOP cut loose its clown candidates, while Democrats embraced theirs.

A look at this week’s primary results are an excellent sign for those on the right who support reasonable restrictions on abortion, school choice and parents rights.

Put simply, Democrats gave the boot to more moderate, bipartisan members of the state legislature to nominate wacky, far-left candidates. Republicans rejected the far right and nominated common-sense conservatives who were endorsed by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. In fact, every one of the 10 candidates endorsed by Youngkin won their races.

Excellent news.

Let’s look at a couple of the upsets.

Senate District 37. 

Longtime Sen. Chap Petersen was defeated by Saddam Salim in a race that pitted the seasoned 55-year-old attorney who’s served in the General Assembly since 2002 against 33-year-old Bangladeshi-born Salim, a far-left member of Fairfax County’s Young Democrats.

While Petersen has been a reliable Democratic vote, he occasionally broke ranks with his party during Covid forming a bipartisan coalition of legislators in 2021 that pushed to reopen schools and get filthy masks off kids’ faces.  He filed suit on behalf of clients who had their businesses shut down during Ralph Northam’s extreme Covid lockdowns and opposed a broad assault weapons ban.

Salim supports LGBTQ+ rights, wants unlimited access to abortion, is supported by gun-grabbing lobbies and, according to his website, wants to make Virginia “a Rainbow Wall State.”

Oh joy.

On the Republican side, attorney Glen Sturtevant picked off incumbent State Sen. Amanda Chase who describes herself as “Trump in heels.”

Like her role model, Chase is refusing to accept the results of Tuesday’s vote, challenging the legitimacy of several voting machines.

Predictable.

While Sturtevant supports many of the same positions as Chase it’s what he ISN’T that sets him apart. He isn’t Chase who attended Trump’s January 6 rally and later praised the rioters, before calling on the president to declare martial law to prevent Biden from taking office.

Chase has been the face of the loopy right wing of the GOP. Sidelining her in the November election increases the appeal of the Republican Party for independents.

Dems also ousted Sen, Joe Morrissey , the Richmond area maverick senator who was a predictable left-wing vote except for one unforgivable position: Morrissey described himself as “pro-life” and indicated he could support Youngkin’s 15-week limit on the procedure.

For the sin of wanting to limit late-term abortions, Morrissey was soundly beaten by Lachrecse Aird, an abortion enthusiast, who made her unwavering support for abortion the centerpiece of her campaign.

The leftward lurch of Democrats and the GOP move toward the middle was noted by liberal Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist Jeff Schapiro:

 With the defeats of such veterans as (George Lincoln) Barker and a fellow Fairfax senator, Chap Petersen — his loss to Saddam Salim, a Bangladeshi immigrant, was among Tuesday’s surprises — the Democrats’ establishment wing was dealt a stunning setback by the increasingly diverse and younger progressive forces that have been steadily pulling the state party leftward since 2016, financed with millions from husband-wife, green-energy activists Michael Bills and Sonjia Smith.

Republicans shed some of their more shrill, MAGA-centric members — most notably, Sen. Amanda Chase of Chesterfield County, defeated by former Sen. Glen Sturtevant, and apparently Del. Dave LaRock, who’d moved from Loudoun County to seek a Winchester-area Senate seat in an eight-candidate free-for-all. This perhaps will make it easier for Gov. Glenn Youngkin to present the GOP as he prefers to be seen: Trump-ian in his conservatism, courtly in his manners.

If the GOP is able to brand itself as the party of compromise and responsible policies, while portraying the Dems as the party of extremists: gun-grabbers who support abortion until the moment of birth and boys playing girls’ sports - they have a chance to take the General Assembly in November.

Those chances increased with Tuesday’s results.