As the GOP continues its all-out effort to retake the Virginia Senate, a challenger has emerged to 25th District Senator–and the Democratic Party’s 2009 gubernatorial nominee–Creigh Deeds.
Thomas Aldous (“TJ” to his friends), an estate planning and business law attorney who practices in Charlottesville, announced his candidacy on Tuesday at a two-stop announcement tour in Buena Vista and Charlottesville. After Del. Rob Bell introduced Aldous as a family man and the kind of partner the Gov. McDonnell and the House of Delegates needs in the Senate, the candidate addressed his assembled supporters at the Albemarle County courthouse:
He framed the race as “a committed conservative versus a believer in big-government policies,” and outlined a platform focused on proper management of public resources, private-sector job growth, strong families, personal freedom and education.
“I can no longer sit back and watch as irresponsible career politicians recklessly squander our children’s future,” Aldous said. “I’m very concerned that the politics of today look only at the present. I don’t want our children to call us the selfish generation because we squandered their inheritance for our own needs and gain.”
Aldous went on to outline his agenda: fiscal management, cutting regulations, plus Virginia’s perennial issues of education and transportation.
The newly announced candidate also wasted no time going on the offensive, strongly criticizing the district’s incumbent senator:
“It’s time for a change. The differences in this race could not be clearer: Creigh Deeds supports more taxes, and I think increasing taxes will only harm our personal abilities to make ends meet …,” Aldous said.
…“I want — as our Founding Fathers did — citizen legislatures,” Aldous said. “Not consummate political insiders always looking for higher office.”
The 25th District will be a difficult pick-up for the GOP: although the last time Creigh Deeds faced a challenger in a Senate race was 10 years ago when he won a special election to fill the seat vacated by the late Sen. Emily Couric, Deeds bested Bob McDonnell by eight points in the district in 2009. The McDonnell campaign hammered Deeds on his affiliation with national Democrats who supported Cap-and-Trade, yet still lost the factory town of Covington and surrounding Alleghany County whose primary employer would have been devastated had the Cap-and-Trade regime been enacted. Jody Wagner and Steve Shannon also won comfortably in the district while they were losing by double-digits statewide.
Anything is possible in a lower turnout off-year election. Sen. Deeds has a reputation as a weak, gaffe-prone candidate, so in a Republican year with a disciplined candidate who sticks to his positive, pro-growth agenda, Sen. Deeds might be taken off the table in November.
The greater significance of Thomas Aldous’ announcement, though, is now every Democratic senator in western Virginia is facing opposition–a distinct GOP advantage the Roanoke Times noted last weekend. By being forced to defend longtime incumbents like Sens. John Edwards, Phil Puckett, Roscoe Reynolds and now Creigh Deeds from vigorous Republican challengers will mean that just to cling to their tenuous majority, the Democrat Caucus will have to make some tough calls on who to support. Democratic challengers might receive less help from the party than they had envisioned when initially deciding to run. This, of course, gives the Democrats a smaller margin for error: miscalculate who needs assistance and who should be safe and the GOP gets that much closer to regaining its lost majority. Furthermore, the fact that the GOP is on offense in western Virginia–a region where the party has done particularly well during the past two election cycles–means that the possibility exists for multiple upsets on election night.
