Republicans nominate Cifers for state Senate seat that McGuire is vacating

Republicans in Virginia’s 10th Senate District selected Luther Cifers, a Prince Edward County businessman new to politics, as their nominee in the upcoming special election in an upset mass meeting that ran into the wee hours Saturday morning. 

Cifers beat Duane Adams, chair of the Louisa County Board of Supervisors who has been a name in politics for years, in the third round of votes. Adams had run for the 10th District seat in 2023 but lost the Republican nomination to former state Sen. John McGuire.  Former Chesterfield County state Sen. Amanda Chase, who moved to Appomattox County to make a comeback bid, was eliminated after the second round of voting.

“All I can say is I don’t know of a better way to enter this arena than for the people to prevail over politics,” Cifers said during a victory speech delivered around 1 a.m.

Cifers will go up against Democrat Jack Trammell in the Jan. 7 special election, though Cifers is expected to win the seat in the Republican stronghold. The sprawling 10th Senate District encompasses 11 localities, and it can take longer than two hours to drive from top to bottom. 

Adams received the most applause during the series of campaign speeches offered to the crowd before voting began and had the most robust showing of support out of any of the seven candidates, but it was Cifers, a political newcomer, who eked out a win after the third round of votes. 

In his campaign speech before voting began, Cifers touted his rural roots and his ability to grow his business, YakAttack, from $2,000 to one that employs dozens of people. He told the crowd that he plans to bring his “real world experience and business acumen to the state Senate.”

Adams’ campaign had chartered three buses with a total of around 100 seats to bring voters in from Appomattox, Farmville and Louisa. Being an Adams supporter was not a prerequisite to get on any of the buses, a spokesperson for the campaign said. 

“This is a very rural district, a lot of people don’t like to drive at night; some folks had to come an hour and forty-five minutes, especially if they were a little bit older. We just wanted to make it as easy for them to participate in the process as possible,” Adams said. 

Voters on why they chose Cifers

Kenneth Hardaway, of Goochland, had voted for former state Sen. Amanda Chase initially, but after she was bumped from the running in the second round of votes, Hardaway threw his support behind Cifers. 

“Luther’s more for the people,” Hardaway said. “He’s more onto their level, more with the working people. I relate to him, I guess.”

Debbie Harkrader, of Louisa County, had also initially supported Chase but, like Hardaway, she threw her support behind Cifers when Chase was bumped. 

“When she lost, we reflected on the comments that [Cifers] made and talked to the people sitting around us,” she said. “I liked his business story and his openness to work with [all people] in the community and being open to the different counties in the 10th District.”

Voters packed the gymnasium at the Goochland Sports Complex on Friday night. Red campaign signs covered the walls of the room where the recount for the 5th Congressional District primary election took place over the summer. The likely successor to former state Sen. John McGuire, R-Goochland, was selected in the same place where his win over incumbent Rep. Bob Good, R-Farmville, was affirmed. 

Good was in attendance at the meeting on Friday. He wore a sticker in support of Duane Adams on his jacket. There was no sign of McGuire in the crowd. 

What’s the process? 

Mass meeting attendees, who are credentialed when they register at the door, vote in rounds for one candidate each round until a candidate receives the majority of the votes.

Hundreds of people stood in a line that extended out of the door of the complex, through the parking lot and onto the sidewalk that wrapped around the buildings at 6:30 p.m. That was the time credentialing for voters was scheduled to end, but as long as voters were in line, they were given the opportunity to register. The capacity of the gymnasium was 1,163 people, and organizers began to worry about exceeding that limit around 7 p.m., when the line still extended out the door and at least halfway down the parking lot. 

A total of 1,034 voters were credentialed by the time candidate speeches started around 8 p.m., and voting had begun by 9 p.m. Voters were called to a cordoned-off back corner of the gymnasium by sections to cast their ballot. Voting had completed by 10 p.m., and officials and observers marched the boxes of ballots to a room off the gymnasium to be counted. Those with the lowest number of votes were removed from the running for the second round. 

Candidates who were in the running Friday night were Adams, chair of the Louisa County Board of Supervisors; Amanda Chase, a former state senator who lost a primary election in the 12th District 2023 race to Sen. Glen Sturtevant; Alex Cheatham, a recent college graduate who said he’s seeking to motivate young Republicans; Luther Cifers, a businessman who launched YakAttack; Jean Gannon, former chair of the Powhatan County Republican Party; Bryan Hamlet, a member of the Cumberland County Board of Supervisors; and Shayne Snavely, a former legislative aide to Chase and Sen. Bryce Reeves.

No candidate received a majority of the votes in the first round. Cheatham, Hamlet and Snavely were bumped from the running, and Gannon withdrew. A second round of voting started around 11 p.m. By midnight, only Adams and Cifers remained after Chase was bumped from the race, as the third and final round of voting began early Saturday morning. 

Cifers was declared the winner after three rounds of voting. 

Who is Luther Cifers? 

Luther Cifers, 50, was homeschooled as a child and started working in tobacco fields in Amelia County at age 10. He said that his experience being homeschooled, at a time when it wasn’t as socially accepted as it is today, created a disadvantage for him.

“A lot of people considered that to be the equivalent of uneducated at the time,” he said.

He worked in construction and manufacturing jobs and eventually moved into engineering. He started YakAttack, a kayak and fishing product company, in 2009 with $2,000, he said, and grew it into a business that employs 70 people. He sold a large portion of that business in 2021 in pursuit of problems to solve, he said.

He decided to enter the race for the 10th District in October, after he began to look into ways to build affordable housing for first-time homebuyers and ran into a litany of regulations that halted his efforts.

“I’ve reached this chapter in my life where serving the people and trying to make sure that my children and future generations have the same opportunities that we had is much more important than just building the next business,” he said. “In the town that I live in, you can’t paint a storefront without asking the town’s permission, and I think we went from a place where the government was accountable to the people, and one piece of legislation at a time and one small cultural shift at a time, and we’ve landed in a place where the people are very much accountable to the government.”

Cifers, who will likely win the special election on Jan. 7 in the Republican stronghold, will enter into a chamber that is controlled by a Democratic majority. He has said he is willing to work across the aisle with his Democratic counterparts to pass legislation to support the people in his district, though he said he would not be willing to compromise his values. 

A husband and father of five, he has lived in Prince Edward County since 2019. He’s lived in the area since he was 2 years old, he said.

His campaign platforms include government deregulation, accessible homeownership for first-time buyers, resources for teachers and support for families who homeschool their children, and preservation of culture in rural communities.