RICHMOND, Va. – Gov. Bob McDonnell will endorse fellow Republican George Allen’s 2012 U.S. Senate bid on Friday.
McDonnell’s political action committee and Allen’s campaign plan to announce McDonnell’s backing for the former governor and senator in morning emails to their political supporters.
In a copy of the email obtained by The Associated Press, McDonnell urges Republicans to follow Tuesday’s GOP takeover of the state Senate with Allen’s election next fall, and perhaps a new U.S. Senate Republican majority.
“The eyes of the country will be on Virginia in 2012,” McDonnell wrote.
McDonnell departed Thursday on a trade mission to India and Israel.
His endorsement comes as Allen competes against a GOP primary field that includes Virginia tea party leader Jamie Radtke, businessman Tim Donner, Chesapeake minister E.W. Jackson and lawyer David McCormick.
His predecessor, former Democratic National Committee chairman Tim Kaine, also is seeking retiring Democratic Sen. Jim Webb’s open seat. Others running for the Democratic nomination include businessman Julien Modica and businesswoman Courtney Lynch.
Webb, a former Republican making his first race for elective office, upset Allen’s Senate re-election in 2006. Webb’s 9,000-vote victory clenched a Senate majority that Democrats still narrowly hold.
With Virginia considered a 2012 battleground state for the presidential race and a must-win by both parties’ hopes of ruling the U.S. Senate, attention and funding pivoted overnight from this week’s legislative elections to the Senate race.
A conservative, pro-Republican advocacy group that does not disclose its donors on Thursday bought $616,000 worth of ads in Virginia’s four largest television markets attacking Kaine.
And the state Republican Party announced it would hold three debates next spring for its Senate candidates heading into the June primary.
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
