Virginia Republicans voted to nominate a Senate candidate with deep connections to white supremacists and anti-Muslim coalitions Tuesday evening. Corey Stewart, a former gubernatorial candidate, confederate statue defender and praiser of anti-Semites clinched the nomination in a fairly close race. He will now run against incumbent Democratic Senator Tim Kaine in the general election. 

President Donald Trump praised the outcome in a tweet Wednesday morning. “Congratulations to Corey Stewart for his great victory for Senator from Virginia,” he wrote. “Now he runs against a total stiff, Tim Kaine, who is weak on crime and borders, and wants to raise your taxes through the roof. Don’t underestimate Corey, a major chance of winning!”

Stewart has called Republican congressional candidate Paul Nehlen his “personal hero.” Nehlen’s campaign has posted anti-Semitic memes, tweeted out a list of Jewish journalists, and promoted a book by neo-Nazi Kevin MacDonald.

A number of white nationalists are running for Republican party bids across the country, but most of them have little to no chance at the actual nomination. Republican strategist Ford O’Connell says that Stewart’s win doesn’t suggest a change in that trend.

“The number one thing when running in a primary is name identification, and Stewart has that from running for governor,” he explained. “In terms of setting a national precedent, you’ve got battles all over the country and people aren’t paying that much attention to the Virginia race.”

“You’d see more uproar on the Republican side if this were a race that Republicans had a fighting chance on,” explained O’Connell. “Republicans nationally won't talk about this and outside of media markets in Washington D.C., Democrats won’t talk about it either.”

Still, Trump’s endorsement of Stewart carries some weight. “Stewart has been a dogged supporter of Trump and the president understands that you have to reward those who have been loyal,” said O’Connell. “The thing with Stewart is that he fires up the base and the more base voters you can turn out the better; maybe Democrats will have to spend some money defending Kaine.”

O’Connell, who worked as an adviser to Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, says that there is no moral dilemma when it comes to Trump supporting Stewart publicly. “We’re in an era where the rules are out the window—right now both sides are just trying to win,” he said. “Republicans have tried the Romney strategy and it didn’t work, and now they’re just going to try to throw up anything at the wall and see what sticks.”

Read more from Nicole Goodkind at Newsweek

The three Virginia Republicans vying to square off against Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine have taken three distinct approaches to mobilizing the state’s pro-Trump Republican base ahead of Tuesday’s primary.

Prince William County Board of Supervisors Chairman Corey Stewart has billed himself as the only true pro-Trump candidate, saying people want a “Republican with balls” and launching attention-grabbing stunts such as waving toilet paper outside the state Capitol to criticize fellow Republicans.

State Delegate Nick Freitas has been more muted, saying he supports key aspects of the president’s agenda but that senators don’t sign a “loyalty oath,” and that he is the candidate who can be trusted to advocate for reducing the size and scope of government.

Chesapeake Bishop E.W. Jackson, the only black candidate in the race, said his background can pull together the broad coalition that will be needed to deliver Republicans their first statewide election win in an increasingly diverse Virginia in nearly a decade.

Polling has shown a good number of voters are still undecided, but Mr. Stewart — who nearly won the Republican nomination for governor last year over Republican nominee Ed Gillespie — has led Mr. Freitas and Mr. Jackson in terms of name identification, which could be critical in a potentially low-turnout primary contest Tuesday.

Republicans will also have to overcome a rabid anti-Trump fervor in the Democratic base — which helped propel Ralph Northam over Mr. Gillespie in the governor’s race last year and a number of Democrats in statehouse races — if they want to pick up their first win in a major statewide race since 2009.

“This is no longer a purple state,” said Republican Party strategist Ford O’Connell. “[Mr. Kaine‘s] definitely sitting in the catbird seat.”

Read more from David Sherfinski at the Washington Times

Virginia Republicans lack a consensus frontrunner to take on Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), setting the stage for a brutal primary where the top contenders are likely to run hard to the right.

Republicans fear that the campaigns of two controversial figures —minister E.W. Jackson and frontrunner Corey Stewart, the chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors — will wind up alienating moderates and squandering any long hopes Republicans had of winning in a state that's increasingly trending blue. 

And even if state Delegate Nick Freitas is able to catch fire, most Republicans and analysts don’t think he’ll have a real shot against Kaine, either. 

Those 2017 defeats weigh heavily on the Senate primary. Republicans are shell-shocked by a blowout that was driven in part, according to exit polls, by President Trump’s low approval ratings.

“Northam over-performed because Virginia is not that big a fan of Donald Trump and northern Virginia was fired up,” said Ford O’Connell, a GOP strategist who has worked in Virginia, referring to the D.C.-area suburbs that tend to power Democratic wins in the state.

“Virginia is no longer a purple state, it’s a blue state, and your candidate has to come up with an issue that resonates with southern Virginia and northern Virginia.”

Read more from Ben Kamisar at The Hill

Democrats enter 2018 hoping it will be the last year they are shut out of power in Washington. The midterm election campaign gives them a real shot at a place at the table — and, depending on the trajectory of the Russia probe, maybe even an opportunity to impeach President Trump.

Democrats only need to pick up two seats to retake the Senate, thanks to an upset victory in the Alabama special election last month, and 24 to control the House for the first time in eight years. Despite a larger GOP majority, the House is actually the easier bet. The party in power has lost seats in 18 of the last 20 midterm elections and when the president’s job approval rating is under 50 percent — Trump has been hovering around 40 percent — the average loss is 36 seats. Go all the way back to the Civil War and 35 out of 38 midterms have gone against the president’s party.

Democrats did go 0-4 in the special House races where both parties committed significant resources in 2017 (Trump likes to count Georgia's 6th Congressional District runoff to bump that total up to 0-5). But they capitalized on Republicans nominating a flawed candidate for Senate in Alabama to win a seat there for the first time since 1992 and did even better than expected in the Virginia gubernatorial election.

“Virginia is a blue state, period,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist. “Since 2005, Republicans have posted a dismal 1-10 record in major statewide elections (governor, senator and president). Going forward, Republicans may pick off an election here or there in the commonwealth but for the most part statewide offices are out of their reach for the foreseeable future, unless of course Northern Virginia somehow gets annexed to D.C.”

Nevertheless, the suburban uprising against Republicans bears watching. “[Republican Ed] Gillespie didn’t underperform; [Democrat Ralph] Northam outperformed,” O’Connell added. “You shouldn’t run from the president who is of the same party. But Virginia is not exactly Trump country, and Trump did not defeat Clinton last year in the commonwealth. So the overall notion that if Gillespie were somehow ‘Trumpier,’ he would have won, doesn’t hold water. What gets lost in all of the post-election hoopla is that Gillespie garnered more votes than the gubernatorial winners in 2001, 2005, 2009 and 2013 as well as the 2014 U.S. Senate victor, but in 2017 it was just not enough because Northam captured the most votes in Virginia gubernatorial history and really did well in suburbs and with voters 18-29.”

Read more from W. James Antle III at the Washington Examiner

The most vulnerable blue-state House Republicans are stuck between a rock and a hard place on the tax reform.

Democrats are pounding them for legislation that potentially would make some voters pay more in high-tax blue states. And, if history is a guide, voting against the bill won’t necessarily protect GOPers in next year’s midterm elections.

“With a lot of those blue-state Republicans, they are in trouble no matter what,” said GOP strategist Ford O’Connell. “There is a blue wave coming. We are going to lose seats in the House. The only question is: How many?”

Indeed, the party in power has lost an average of 25 House seats in midterm elections since World War II. In the nine elections before which the president’s party controlled both chambers of Congress, as is now the case, it has lost an average 33 House seats.

In 2018, Republican would only have to net a loss of 24 seats to lose the majority.

Rep. Barbara Comstock is one of the House Republican in a no-win situation on tax reform. President Trump lost in her district in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., by 10 percentage points.

“Whether she passes it or doesn’t pass it, Barbara Comstock is in the path of that wave,” said Mr. O’Connell.

Read more from S.A. Miller at The Washington Times

Seven years after Obamacare crushed Democrats at the ballot box, the party is using health care to launch a revival, saying President Trump and congressional Republicans are paying a price for their fumbled repeal effort and will sink further next year.

Voters in Maine last week opted into Medicaid expansion, a key plank of the 2010 law, and Virginia voters pointed to health care as they swatted aside Mr. Trump’s endorsement of the Republican candidate for governor and chose Democrats up and down the ballot.

Meanwhile, Obamacare is polling better than ever, enrollments are outpacing last year’s and progressive groups are plotting to turn the fight over Obamacare into electoral wins, blanketing social media and selling $25 T-shirts and $15 coffee mugs to anyone who pledges to be a “Health Care Voter.”

It’s a major turnabout from 2010, when President Obama’s heavy mandates and D.C.-centric reforms sparked talk of “death panels” and a “government takeover” of health care.

Some Republicans say Democrats are boasting much too early.

Virginia has become a reliably blue state over the past decade, and it’s not as susceptible to economic swings because of federal jobs in the northern part of the state, so Mr. Trump’s populist message didn’t resonate as much as in other states, said Republican Party strategist Ford O’Connell.

“Democrats would be wise to not overinterpret what happened last week in the commonwealth,” he said. “Heading into 2018 midterms, overall health care is not the political liability it once was for Democrats. That said, the 2018 Senate map is decidedly pro-Trump and anti-Obamacare.”

Despite a positive Senate map, Mr. O’Connell said, health care might be a liability for some House Republicans next year, particularly in the Northeast, so the party will need a near-perfect replacement to get something through the Senate and fully change the narrative.

Read more from Tom Howell Jr. at The Washington Times

It’s been a year since President Trump shocked the world by winning the White House in an election most political observers were certain was going the other way, a fact Trump continues to regularly tout in his public speeches and telephone conversations with world leaders.

And to many of Trump’s allies inside and outside the White House, much of what has happened since remains an unqualified success despite the first-year president’s historically low approval ratings. TrumpWorld sees a deregulation-fueled spurt of economic growth that is driving stock market gains and low unemployment, quality conservative judicial appointments highlighted by Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, progress toward greater border security and immigration control, battlefield victories against the Islamic State, and promises kept to social conservatives. 

Democratic victories in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as a spate of local elections across the country, told a different story. Republicans got shellacked as the suburbs turned hard against them. And 85 percent of those who disapproved of Trump’s job performance voted for Democrats. Now a special election for the Alabama Senate seat formerly held by Attorney General Jeff Sessions isn’t looking like such a sure bet, thanks in part to the controversies engulfing Roy Moore, the Bannon-backed GOP nominee.

“There is no question about it, Democrats flat-out took the Republicans to the woodshed … in Virginia,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist who worked on some campaigns in the state. “Republicans should be nervous ahead of 2018, but Democrats would also be unwise to misinterpret the results.”

Democratic gains on the Hill would make that fight harder. “The notion of Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi again should put the fear of God in House Republicans,” O’Connell said. But he argues that’s no reason to stop enacting Trump policies.

“Trump’s approval ratings, the dismal GOP brand and the perception of a ‘do-nothing Congress’ were certainly a factor” in Democratic wins, he added. “That said, these numbers aren’t static, so this should put them on notice to pass tax reform and other key Trump agenda items before the 2018 elections.”

Read more from W. James Antle III at the Washington Examiner

No question, Democrats took Republicans to the woodshed on Tuesday night in Virginia. They won all three statewide offices and nearly captured the Virginia House of Delegates.

Ed Gillespie, the Republican candidate, captured more votes than any Republican gubernatorial candidate in Virginia history. But Ralph Northam, his Democratic opponent, captured more than any gubernatorial candidate in state history

Republicans are right to be nervous about what happened in the Old Dominion on Tuesday, but Democrats would be wise not to overinterpret.

Yes, a shellacking a year out from the 2018 midterms is not good for Republicans, and yes, that it happened because of a large turnout of enthusiastic voters for the other party is doubly bad.

But Virginia has been trending blue for 20 years. Republicans there are just 1-10 in major statewide races since 2005. Hillary Clinton carried it over President Trump. President Barack Obama carried it twice. Both senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, are Democrats.

Read more from Ford O'Connell at the Washington Examiner

Republican strategist Ford O'Connell is skeptical that Democrats' victories on Tuesday will translate to wins in 2018. 

Democrats notched wins across the country in the off-year election, including the victory of Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam over Ed Gillespie in the race to be Virginia's next governor.

"I think there's a great misnomer out there, and we're only about twelve hours after the election, and that is Gillespie didn't underperform, Northam overperformed," O'Connell told The Hill. 

O'Connell acknowledged Republicans should be nervous heading into the 2018 midterms, but added, "Democrats would be unwise to misinterpret the results." 

Watch the video and read more from Alexandra Oliveria at The Hill

After coast-to-coast victories Tuesday and a romp in a key swing state, Democrats smell blood in the water for a 2018 election that could deal a body blow to President Donald Trump and the GOP.

Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam’s (D) blowout victory in Virginia’s gubernatorial race — the biggest election since Trump’s victory one year ago today — was the capstone of an impressive night that showed Democrats’ burning hot hatred of Trump can translate into sweeping electoral victories across the country. 

His sweeping win was coupled with a Democratic sweep of statewide offices and huge gains by Democrats in the statehouse no one thought possible that have put the House of Delegates teetering on the edge of their control. Democrats have picked up at least 15 seats in the chamber, double the number most of them thought likely, and turned a two-to-one GOP edge in the chamber into a virtual tie. Control of the chamber hangs in the balance, with recounts still pending in some races.

GOP strategist Ford O’Connell said he wasn’t surprised Northam won, but the lopsided numbers worried him.

“What surprised me was the margin — Gillespie got crushed in suburbs and with millennials,” he said. “Democrats are fired up and Republicans are facing some tough headwinds and how they try to hold on to House will vary from district to district.”

Read more from Cameron Joseph at TPM