Special Election to Replace Sen. Kiggans Expected to Be Close

Governor Glenn Youngkin and Senate President Pro Tempore Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth) have called a January 10 special election for Virginia’s seventh state senate district, filling a vacancy that will be left by Senator Jen Kiggans (R-Virginia Beach) after she takes office as representative of Virginia’s second congressional district.

Local nominations for the race will be made this weekend, with a Republican canvass and a Democratic caucus scheduled for Saturday. Two Democrats have filed for the nomination: former NFL player Aaron Rouse who is a Virginia Beach City Council member, and former Delegate Cheryl Turpin who was the first Virginia Democrat to flip a Trump district in 2017, according to her city council campaign website.  So far, only one Republican has filed for the nomination, Navy veteran Kevin Adams, but candidates can file by 4 p.m. Thursday.

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Gubernatorial Candidate Chase Claims More Convention Corruption

Senator Amanda Chase (R-Chesterfield) is firing more claims of corruption at her gubernatorial opponent Pete Snyder and Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) officials, based on Snyder’s campaign hiring staffers with roles in the RPV. Snyder’s campaign and some RPV officials say the claims are baseless.

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Chase Says Convention Rigged, Will Run as Independent if Snyder Wins Nomination

Senator Amanda Chase, candidate for the GOP nomination for governor, says she will run as an independent if Pete Snyder is nominated. Chase appeared on The Jeff Katz Show on Tuesday, where she said that the convention process selected by the Republican Party of Virginia is rigged.

“After all the conventions that I participated in for over a decade, I can tell you, that these conventions are rigged. It’s voter suppression,” Chase said.

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Virginia GOP Leadership Votes to Hold Drive-In Convention at Liberty University

The Republican Party of Virginia (RPV) State Central Committee (SCC) voted 37 to 31 to issue a call for an in-person drive-in-style nominating convention to be held at Liberty University (LU) on May 8 at 9 a.m. Before passing that vote, the SCC voted against changing party rules to allow an unassembled convention, and voted against holding a canvass. The nearly four-hour-long Tuesday evening Zoom meeting hit the same notes of exasperation as previous SCC Zoom meetings and again highlighted a sharp divide between the pro-convention faction, led in the meeting by Mike Ginsburg, and the pro-primary faction, led in the meeting by Jeff Ryer.

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Lynchburg Registrar’s Office on Allegations of Improper Absentee Ballot Counting: ‘We Will Do Better in the Future’

The Lynchburg Registrar’s Office maintains that allegations of improper absentee ballot counting were a result of an unintentional oversight of ballot law. No Republican officials were present per The Code of Virginia.
On Monday, the only workers present to process absentee ballots were “non-party affiliation.” Emails shared with The Virginia Star reveal that some of these workers had identified as Democrats up until last year.

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