Free Republic

A critical race in the battle for control of the Virginia Senate has entered a new dimension for state legislative races with a national gun-control group’s announcement that it is buying $700,000 of political advertisements for Democrat Daniel A. Gecker in his race for the 10th District seat in Richmond and its suburbs. Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund, backed by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said Wednesday it will begin airing a television ad today in the Richmond media market that features the father of Alison Parker, a 24-year-old Roanoke television reporter gunned down with her cameraman, Adam...

A state Senate candidate from Virginia Beach said he misrepresented his military record, an error that could dim Democrats’ hopes of unseating an entrenched Republican incumbent and winning control of the chamber. Campaign materials for Gary T. McCollum, a cable television executive challenging Sen. Frank W. Wagner (R-Virginia Beach), had said he was “currently a Major in the Army Reserve.” But Army records show he was discharged 14 years ago, in September 2001, according to Ray Gall, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Human Resources Command in Fort Knox, Ky.

FREDERICKSBURG, Virginia — Susan Stimpson is hoping the anti-incumbent mood that helped a little-known economics professor unseat the second most powerful member of the U.S. House last year is still strong among Virginia's Republican voters. The tea party favorite Stimpson is trying to upset long-time Virginia House Speaker William J. Howell in the June 9 GOP primary, a victory that would be of similar magnitude on a state level to Dave Brat's stunning defeat of then-U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor last year. Stimpson said Republicans in Howell's Fredericksburg-area state House district, which is near Cantor's old Richmond-area congressional district,...