RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia Republicans have chosen a primary rather than a convention for 2017 as a way to elect candidates for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.
The State Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia narrowly voted Saturday to have a primary for the first time since 2005, scoring a win for the party’s establishment wing.
John Whitbeck, chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, said the primary will allow candidates to expand the party’s outreach.
“We can’t afford anymore to exclude anybody from the Republican Party,” he said.
More conservative Republicans favor conventions, which give the party’s grassroots activists more sway in picking the party’s nominees. Establishment Republicans said primaries help elect more mainstream Republicans who have a better chance of success in the general election.
But Corey Stewart, chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, is critical of the party going back on its promise to hold a convention next year. He said that this move could “split the GOP in Virginia even further” and build further distrust from party faithfuls.
The tight vote for a primary could exacerbate long-running tensions in the state party, tensions that erupted in 2014 when Tea Party favorite Dave Brat defeated then U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a GOP congressional primary.
WTOP’s Dick Uliano contributed to this report.
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