A House Republican is suing Youngkin's campaign and 317 votes in total decided two House elections

Virginia Political Newsletter

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A House Republican is suing Youngkin's campaign and 317 votes in total decided two House elections

The latest in Virginia politics.

Brandon Jarvis

Oct 20, 2021

(The audio at the top of this episode is from an interview with HD-27 Democratic candidate Debra Gardner.)

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A Republican House candidate filed a civil lawsuit against Glenn Youngkin’s gubernatorial campaign

A Republican House candidate who was present on the Capitol steps Jan. 6 has filed a civil lawsuit against Glenn Youngkin’s campaign for allegedly disposing of campaign materials without permission. Philip Hamilton (R-Charlottesville) says that after he expressed support for allowing the third-party gubernatorial candidate Princess Blanding to participate in debates, his campaign literature and signs that he was storing at the Youngkin campaign office in Charlottesville were never returned to him.

Blanding, the Liberation Party nominee, interrupted the second gubernatorial debate last month calling for her inclusion since she qualified for the general election ballot. Hamilton says he made a Facebook post expressing support for allowing Blanding to participate. He was not allowed into the Youngkin campaign office after that, allegedly.

“McAuliffe and Youngkin were quiet as a Black woman running for governor was escorted from the stage,” Hamilton said in an interview, noting he doesn’t just support Republicans but third-party candidates as well.

After entering the office and asking where his materials were, the Youngkin campaign staffer allegedly told him they removed it. “He said, ‘well because of your support of a third party candidate we decided to remove all your campaign literature and other pieces.’”

Hamilton says they told him he was no longer welcome at the office and they would not allow him to inspect the backroom before leaving.

He then contacted the political director who allegedly told him that the materials were actually given to volunteers, but would not provide him with the names of the volunteers who received them.

Hamilton then waited two weeks before filing the lawsuit on Oct. 15 against the Youngkin campaign and his staffer, Sam Long. He is asking for $2,500 with 6% interest.

The Youngkin campaign did not provide comment for this story.

Hamilton is currently running against Sally Hudson, a one-term delegate that took over the blue seat in HD-57 in 2019. So far, Hudson has raised $155,354 for the election compared to the $9,605 from Hamilton.

Hamilton says he wants to make sure that Youngkin knows his party’s base is not a sure bet for him at the polls this year. He used Youngkin’s comments about the recent removal of the Robert E. Lee Statue in Richmond as an example. “Youngkin can’t just assume that he has the vote of his base, including candidates if he alienates them on certain important issues. He never consulted me about removing the monuments. He lost my faith in that regard.”

Hamilton, a historian, says he supports adding more monuments in honor of the union, instead of removing confederate statues.

“I was very disappointed that Youngkin agreed with Northam and McAuliffe,” Hamilton continued.

Youngkin’s comments at the time were not exactly in line with McAuliffe, who fully supported the removal of the Lee statue.

“First and foremost, there’s no place for violence and tearing down statues,” Youngkin said in September. “And in fact, we can’t airbrush away our history. Our history is our history. So, the Supreme Court, in fact, has ruled on this. And the statue is going to come down and I hope they move it to a battlefield or museum, so we don’t lose the fact that we have a history, we all need to know it.”

Hamilton says he didn’t vote for Youngkin this year. He voted for Sergio de la Pena as a protest vote. “One vote is not going to change an election,” Hamilton said in an interview.

Hamilton has faced criticism in the past for photos and videos he has posted online from the Capitol steps during the Jan 6. Riot in D.C. In an interview, Hamilton told Virginia Scope that he was there to film and only went onto the steps of the Capitol, not inside the building.

Election day is Nov. 2.

Gubernatorial links

Campaign Geography

Terry McAuliffe and Glenn Youngkin will be participating in a forum with WRIC on Thursday at 8 p.m.
Terry McAuliffe will be touring small businesses in Charlottesville today.
Attorney General Mark Herring, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Virginia, and Planned Parenthood Texas Votes are holding a virtual press conference today.

Gubernatorial money

According to data from the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP), Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin has received 59% of donations from Virginians when you remove the $16.5 million he loaned himself.

For Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe, 36% of donations to his campaign came from within Virginia.

Excluding his personal loans, Youngkin has raised a little more than $25 million.

Both candidates raised nearly an identical percentage (27% and 28%) from Washington D.C. residents.

McAuliffe has raised over $42 million for his gubernatorial campaign in total (excluding in-kind donations).

317 votes decided this delegate race in 2017 and 2019 combined. Can the Democrats finally flip it?

The difference in votes between Del. Roxann Robinson (R-HD27) and her Democratic opponent for the last two elections combined is 317 votes. But after losing by 189 votes in 2019, Democrats are hoping that their efforts this year will help them defeat Robinson, the Chesterfield district’s representative in the House since 2010.

Chesterfield has been trending left in recent years with a blue wave in 2017 and 2019 that resulted in 21 House seats flipping from Republican to Democrat. But while momentum was on their side with Donald Trump in office, Democrats were still unable to win in this district. Debra Gardner is the candidate looking to get them over the hump this year, even as strategists fear lower Democratic turnout across the commonwealth.

Gardner began her career as a social worker and eventually worked at state agencies serving as a liaison to the General Assembly. “I have spent my 30-year career working to help marginalized communities, advocating for fair and equal rights for everybody and just trying to make the quality of life better for the people in my community,” Gardner said in an interview with Virginia Scope Tuesday.

Her plan for making up the small margin of votes that Democrats have repeatedly lost by is to increase the number of voters participating in the next election. “I started out by trying to bring more voters into the fold because, in all honesty, this is a 50/50 district,” Gardner said. “So what we needed to do in my opinion was expand our voter base.”

She says her campaign has been assisted by the grassroots activists in Liberal Women of Chesterfield County (LWCC), a group that grew to prominence under the leadership of Kim Drew Wright when she began meetings after Trump’s election. LWCC’s membership expanded quickly and mobilized to help both the Democrats in 2017 and Abigail Spanberger in 2018 as she won a historically Republican congressional district. The group is still functioning today, knocking doors and writing postcards for Democrats across the area.

“We have mobilized that contingency of LWCC and got them out knocking doors,” Gardner said. “We have one of the most extensive postcard writing organizations that is out here.”

She also noted that the Texas abortion ban that went into effect last month really helped motivate Democrats and galvanize the grassroots. “Choice is a major issue in this area,” Gardner said of tracking polls from the district.

Republicans are optimistic heading into the November statewide elections after losing the previous two governor races. Additionally, the Democrats have won every Senate race during the same time period, leaving Republicans in a statewide victory drought since 2009. But with two years of complete Democratic control in the state government and a Democratic White House, Republicans hope the enthusiasm on their side can help them make up for the 10 points that Biden defeated Trump by last year.

The GOP ticket has narrowed its focus on education issues in the suburbs. “If this election is about the battle for the suburbs, Chesterfield county is Ground Zero,” said Richard Meagher, associate professor of political science at Randolph Macon College. “This race is really about the broader political environment. If the Republicans have any hope of winning in this state in the future, then this is exactly the kind of race they need to win.”

Gardner hopes that her lived experiences will help her get an edge on Robinson. “My lived experience is much different than hers,” Gardner noted, saying she will focus on community outreach and speaking for the people impacted by the General Assembly’s decisions.

“I want to be a voice for our community, “Gardner said. “This is about the people.”

Robinson did not respond to multiple interview requests for this article.

Biden endorses a slate of House Democrats in Virginia

With all 100 House of Delegate races up for election this November, President Joe Biden announced his endorsement of several Democrats across the commonwealth Tuesday.

“Building back better starts in the states,” said President Biden. “Since flipping the legislature in 2019, Democrats in Virginia have been a model of progress – from helping us vaccinate folks and beat the pandemic, strengthening voting rights and expanding reproductive rights, to creating tuition-free community college and an environment for workers and businesses to thrive. To continue the progress, as we work to elect Terry McAuliffe as Governor, we need to elect Democrats up and down the ballot to keep the Virginia House blue this November.”

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