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As the Republican primary race for Virginia’s U.S. Senate seat approaches the finish line on Tuesday, other than a recent call for transparency regarding allegations of campaign fundraising improprieties, analysts say things have been surprisingly quiet and polite among the five candidates.
After a recent Loudoun County Republican Committee debate, the moderator, Larry O’Connor of WMAL Radio, even characterized the candidates looking to unseat Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine as “cordial and respectful” with one another.
“The more moderate tone may reflect the general absence of key policy distinctions among the candidates as well as the candidates’ disparate levels of support,” said Karen Hult, a professor of political science at Virginia Tech. “Trying to avoid a ‘divisive’ primary with lasting hard feelings and public divisions likely also is part of the story as is many Virginians’ seeming antipathy toward negative or hostile candidate interactions.
“More persuasive to me, though, is that the candidates are looking beyond this election year — to other possibilities, including those in state or national Republican politics.”
Chapman Rackaway, chair of political science at Radford University, also noted the largely civil tone.
“In an age of bitterly negative rhetoric, there’s been very little personal attack content, which is surprising,” Rackaway said. “Accusations about [candidate Hung] Cao’s super PAC notwithstanding, there’s little in the way of attack. But since the other candidates don’t have a lot of money, they can’t conduct statewide ad programs that would allow them to go negative.”
Hung Cao is the leading fundraiser in the field; with nearly $2.5 million he far outpaces the other candidates, none of whom topped the $1 million mark. On Thursday, Eddie Garcia, the candidate with the lowest amount raised, at $308,000, issued a press release “demanding Hung Cao address the allegations contained in the pending FEC [Federal Election Commission] complaint and provide a basic accounting of exactly where the fundraising dollars were applied before the GOP primary closes on June 18.”
Garcia refers to an April 16 USA Today Network story that Cao’s Unleash America PAC, created to support Republican candidates in 2023, particularly those running in Virginia General Assembly races, did not benefit “a single Republican candidate for state or local office.” Instead most of the PAC’s money went to associates of Cao’s U.S. Senate campaign.
Garcia refers to FEC filing disclosures saying that Cao raised roughly $148,000 through the PAC. Of that, about $37,500 was paid to Cao’s campaign manager and $22,800 to his communication director’s firm, and the balance was used for consulting and legal fees for the PAC itself.
Rackaway was skeptical that Garcia’s Thursday call for accountability would gain traction before the primary. “If it does, it only has five days to take. We’ve known about this for a while,” he said.
“If you’re going to go negative with Election Day being so close, you’ve got to have a widespread attack. You’ve got to be able to run television ads and online ads. No one in this race seems to have enough money to do a wide scale enough attack campaign to bring that to the top of the agenda for people,” Rackaway said.
“Now, if they’re doing it quietly with a direct mail campaign, that’s harder to tell if those things are being done because they can control who accesses the message very well. They could be doing it, but not according to all the markers I’ve seen in the last decade that someone is going all-in on an attack strategy.”
Cao has the fundraising advantage and, in the contemporary Republican Party, the endorsement advantage having landed the support of former president — and presumptive party nominee for president — Donald Trump. He also picked up an endorsement from Virginia Del. Terry Kilgore.
“Although endorsements typically are less important than other factors, some do signal to lower-information voters whom the voters might support, or oppose,” Hult said. “Supporters of former President Trump may well take his endorsement, or criticism, of a candidate as a reason to vote for or against the candidate.”
“Similarly, an endorsement from Del. Kilgore might signal to Republican voters, particularly, but not only those in Southwest Virginia, that the candidate understands and knows something about the entire state, including the less densely populated, more conservative parts,” Hult said.
She said that this may help Cao in the primary in more rural parts of the state against Scott Parkinson, who has been criticized for being a “carpetbagger” and Washington insider with his position at Club for Growth, a conservative organization that has had open disagreements with Trump.
Even so, Parkinson has picked up about 30 endorsements from high-profile Republican senators and members of Congress, including Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas; Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah; Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Alabama; and Virginia’s own Rep. Bob Good, R-Campbell County.
“Rather clearly, the effect of endorsements will vary with who actually turns out to vote and possibly on whether an individual decides to vote because of another Trump endorsed or unendorsed candidate in their House district,” Hult said.
The candidates
Hung Cao
Hung Cao said it was “the honor of a lifetime” to get Trump’s support.
“Think about this: I was a refugee from communism at 4 years old. America literally saved my life,” he said. “I spent 25 years in the Navy trying to repay my debt to America. To be endorsed by the former and future president of the United States on Memorial Day weekend is simply amazing. It is truly a story that could happen only in America.”
From the start of this primary race, Cao has been widely considered the most formidable challenger to Kaine in the general election. Cao has also received the most media attention during this race, both because of the FEC complaint about his super PAC and because of his reaction to the news coverage, which has been to attack the messenger and call Staunton “podunk.” He also told an interviewer that it would be “just ridonkulus” for him to make the hours-long drive to visit Abingdon.
A retired U.S. Navy captain who came to the U.S. as a refugee from Vietnam in 1975, Cao said he takes pride in the Republican progress made in his failed run for the 10th Congressional District, which he lost to Democratic Rep. Jennifer Wexton. On a debate stage in his home of Loudoun County, Cao said that Joe Biden won the 10th District by 19 points in 2020 and Cao only lost by 6 points in 2022.
On the debate stage, he mentioned Southwest Virginia as an energy hub and noted his Navy experience with nuclear energy, calling it a safe and inexpensive option.
“We need a diversity in energy,” he said. “We rely on coal and hydroelectric. The pushes for solar and wind are premature because of the deficits in energy storage capabilities. Investments in nuclear energy, especially in small modular reactors, provide safe, clean and cheap energy to the commonwealth.
“As a U.S. senator, I would help the governor push SMRs and help streamline the lengthy certification process through the Department of Energy.”
Cao lives in Purcellville with his wife and five children.
Jonathan Emord
Jonathan Emord has practiced constitutional law for nearly four decades and served as an attorney for the Federal Communications Commission during the Reagan administration.
He touts his record of successfully fighting the “administrative state,” also referred to derogatorily as the “deep state,” including “defeating the Food and Drug Administration eight times in federal court on constitutional grounds.”
He published all eight of the “constitutional cases against acts of censorship” by the FDA and says his winning record has earned him the moniker “FDA Dragon Slayer.”
Emord is endorsed by former Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who mentions working with Emord on “important health freedom legislation.” In 2009, Paul introduced the Congressional Responsibility and Accountability Act, which was written by Emord. This act would allow no regulation proposed by a federal agency to have any force or effect unless passed into law by Congress.
“This would substantially reduce the power and scope of the administrative state,” Emord told the debate audience.
“The administrative state makes three-fourths of federal law, and you really have to understand it if you’re going to save our nation. I understand it,” he said. “We are on the last days of our constitutional republic unless we fundamentally change the direction of our nation,” he said.
On education issues, Enord said he fears that “cultural Marxism” is “sexualizing children in preschool all the way through high school with the whole agenda of gender fluidity. This is the planned destruction of our kids.”
One of his solutions is to make it a federal felony to aid or cause the transitioning of anyone under the age of 18. Another is to audit all educational institutions to determine whether or not they are engaged in critical race theory. “If they are, we will cut off their funding,” he said.
Emord lives in Fairfax County with his wife, with whom he has two children.
Eddie Garcia
“I’m the son of a ranch hand. I’m originally from a small country town in South Texas. I come from working people and I think my strength is just that — I have a blue collar, bottom-up, working-class background,” said Eddie Garcia, whose website and campaign message has been one of grassroots coalition building and unity.
“If we’re going to win across Virginia we’ve got to have a candidate who can unite the party, that can unite the farmers in Southside. We’ve got to have a candidate who can win veterans,” he said.
“Something that often gets lost in this conversation are the people across Southwest Virginia. Over the last couple decades, the population has become increasingly concentrated in Northern Virginia, but that does not mean that all of our time, talent, energy and resources should be centered there as well,” he said.
Garcia believes that he was endorsed by the Virginia College Republicans because his platform addresses the concerns of college students and recent graduates.
“Housing affordability is the number one issue on their list,” he said. “This is a matter of basic economics: We need to create more housing and drive down the astronomical costs of home ownership. We need to establish Day One jobs for our graduates. There are numerous areas where Virginia can lead the way in job creation, across industries like semiconductors, pipelines, cybersecurity and nuclear energy.”
A 22-year U.S. Army veteran, Garcia has completed six combat deployments, three in Iraq and three in Afghanistan. He is the founder of the MIL-VETS mobile integration app built for connecting veterans, military spouses and veteran-business owners with resources.
He lives in Arlington with his wife and two children.
Scott Parkinson
“For a long time I’ve been the guy behind the guy,” Scott Parkinson — who has worked for three U.S. senators, as Ron DeSantis’ chief of staff and as vice president of government affairs for the Club for Growth — said during the debate.
Parkinson, who lives in Arlington with his wife and four children, said he decided to run for office because of the government’s reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“COVID hit and I watched them trample all over our God-given constitutional rights,” he said. “I have four little kids. We need more parents to stand up and fight. We need fighters in Washington.”
He told the story of his daughter, who said she was feeling pressured in her public school to get vaccinated against COVID. Her parents did not believe the vaccine was safe and told her she would not be allowed to get it. Believing that her public school was encouraging the girl to go against their wishes, Parkinson and his wife enrolled her in a private school.
He said he supports a national universal educational savings account similar to an Arizona program that provides for universal educational savings accounts, “where the federal dollars follow the backpack and the parent, not the educational institution.”
Another factor in Parkinson’s decision to put his name on the ticket was the election of Gov. Glenn Youngkin in 2021.
“He came out of nowhere and won. He paved the way for us to defeat Tim Kaine, and so my wife and I started praying about running,” he said.
On his campaign website, Parkinson said he would be “a warrior for the middle class, honing in on the fiscal insanity in Washington, championing economic growth policies, defending parental rights in education and restoring public safety on our streets.”
Chuck Smith
At 17, Chuck Smith enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, where he served from 1968 to 1976. He then earned his bachelor’s and law degrees from North Carolina Central University. He went on to receive a commission from the U.S. Navy JAG Corps and served in the Navy as an attorney for two decades.
While in the Navy, Smith served as a prosecutor, defense counsel and special assistant to a U.S. attorney, including time in Roanoke. In 2012, he sought the Republican nomination in Virginia’s 3rd Congressional District but withdrew before the primary. In 2021, he was an unsuccessful candidate for the party’s nomination for attorney general.
“I’m the only Marine in this race, I’m the only Navy JAG commander in this race and I’m the only guy born on the fourth of July,” Smith told the debate audience.
Having practiced immigration law and military law, he said he has “the right tools we need for the problems at the border,” and supports the building of Trump’s border wall. He said he believes that enforcement of current immigration laws is what’s needed, rather than writing new legislation.
His top platform position is reverence for the U.S. Constitution. If elected, he vows to stop “the shredding of the U.S. Constitution, the greatest document written by man, and to ensure its provisions are equally enforced at all levels of government.”
On the question of abortion, Smith is resolute that part of his role as senator is to “protect life from conception until natural death” and told the debate audience that “this will not change.”
Smith and his wife live in Virginia Beach, where Smith once served as the chairman of the city’s Republican Party Committee, one of the state’s largest. They have five children.