Six candidates involved in a Republican nomination process earlier this summer are now running for Lynchburg City Council as independents, bringing the total number of candidates on November’s ballot to 10.
Patricia Jones, Lynchburg’s general registrar, said in a phone interview Tuesday that the 10 confirmed candidates for three seats are:
- Veronica Bratton, running as an independent
- Marty Misjuns, running as an independent
- James “Trae” Watkins, running as an independent
- Stephanie Reed, running as an independent
- Larry Taylor, running as an independent
- Chris Boswell, running as an independent
- Eli Rybinni, running as an independent
- Christina Delzingaro, running as a Democrat
- Nathaniel “Nat” Marshall, running as a Democrat
- Dave Henderson, running as a Democrat
Misjuns, Reed and Taylor are the incumbents with seats up for grabs this fall.
On May 30, more than 1,600 voters participated in a nomination process run by the Lynchburg Republican City Committee, called a firehouse primary, to name Bratton, Misjuns and Taylor as the party’s nominees for the November election.
Reed, Boswell and Watkins also sought the Republican nomination but did not secure it.
On June 13, in a 55-17 vote, the Republican Party of Virginia’s State Central Committee upheld appeals protesting the firehouse primary and approved a list of remedies. Earlier that week, an appeals committee within the state party also sided with the appellants, who claimed the local party made multiple violations of party rules in executing the firehouse primary, in a 3-2 vote. Reed and Boswell were both appellants, along with city council member Chris Faraldi and voters who attended the firehouse primary.
Among the approved remedies were an order to nullify the results of Lynchburg’s nomination process and allow all interested candidates to file as independents in the general election.
The deadline to file as an independent candidate was June 16. The six candidates who did so stem from two slates that ran against each other in the firehouse primary — Misjuns, Bratton and Watkins on one side and Reed, Taylor and Boswell on the other.
The other four candidates who initially sought the Republican nomination — Greg Berry, Farid “FJ” Jalil, Zach Melder and Ryan Thomas — did not file to run as independents in November.
Two other remedies approved Saturday were orders to declare the Lynchburg Republican City Committee defunct and direct state party chairman Jeff Ryer to appoint replacements for the local party’s executive committee.
Last week, Ryer announced in a news release that he appointed Melder as the new chair of the Lynchburg Republican City Committee. Ryer added that he’ll work with Melder and other Lynchburg Republican leaders to fill out the rest of the executive committee.
Lynchburg’s firehouse primary was the first to be executed since a new state law that favors, but doesn’t explicitly require, state-run primaries was enacted. Lynchburg is the only place in Virginia that used the process for its general election nominations, making it subject to the state law, unlike special elections, which are exempt.
Known as Helmer’s Law, the legislation took effect in 2024 and requires nomination methods to make provisions for absentee voters. It left little room for party-run nominations to operate, as absentee voting is an element that they have never included or aren’t logistically able to.
Earlier this month, Attorney General Jay Jones sent the Lynchburg Republican City Committee a letter saying his office had “opened an inquiry into the conduct of the recent firehouse primary election” to assess the party’s compliance with Helmer’s Law. The letter requested that the party submit 10 documents regarding the firehouse primary and its absentee voting provisions by June 29 as part of the investigation.
When asked about the status of the investigation last week, Rae Pickett, spokesperson for the attorney general’s office, said she “cannot share information about an ongoing investigation.”
Meanwhile, campaigns continue.
Rybinni is running as an independent candidate but was not involved in the local Republican party’s nomination process.
Delzingaro, Marshall and Henderson are running as a slate of Democrats. The local Democratic party did not need to run a primary because only those three candidates announced their plans to seek the Democratic nomination.
