It was a great night for NFIB/Virginia and our slate of
endorsed candidates. We endorsed 46 candidates in the state legislative
races and 38 won for an 83% success rate.
Control of the Virginia State Senate was the main focus of
this year’s NFIB endorsements. With a
21-19 pro-small business majority in the Senate, it was critical that NFIB
engaged in those races where business friendly candidates were running. NFIB identified 4 races as our top priorities
– Senate District 10; Senate District 7; Senate District 21; and Senate
District 29. We went 2 for 2 in our Top
4 priority Senate seats.
Our first priority race – Senate District 10 (Richmond area
– formerly held by John Watkins) was won by our candidate Glen Sturtevant.
We spent close to $5300 in radio ads for his campaign. And he touted our
endorsement & logo in TV ads the last few weeks of the campaign.
NFIB member & Senator Frank Wagner in Virginia Beach
beat back a well-funded Democrat challenger. Governor McAuliffe made
Wagner his number 1 target of incumbent Republicans to knock off. Again
we spent close to $3600 in radio ads for Wagner.
With the Republicans
maintaining the majority, it’s pretty well known that Wagner will replace
Watkins as Chairman of the Senate Commerce & Labor committee. This is
our most important committee in the Senate where 75% of our issues are decided.
Some other Senate seats of interest include Senate District
13 where Senator Dick Black whom we endorsed defeated another well-funded
challenger. Dr. McCabe was supported heavily by Governor McAuliffe and
outside groups. Black was the 2nd
incumbent Republican target of Democrats.
Our endorsed candidates Bill DeSteph (Senate District 8),
Amanda Chase (Senate District 10) and Siobhan Dunnavant (Senate District 12) all
won open seats held by retiring.
In the House the vast majority of our endorsed candidates
won. We were 26 for 30 including the pick-up of Mark Dudenhefer, our
endorsed candidate, in House District 2 which is located in the Stafford,
Prince William area. In the end, the House Republicans lost 1 seat so
they’ll go from a 67 majority to a 66 majority.
