On May 8th, Saturday, Republicans in Prince William County will be voting for their nominees for the Commonwealth of Virginia’s statewide offices: Governor, Lt Governor, and Attorney General (see 2021 State Convention Delegate Filing Form – PWCGOP). Yesterday we considered the Attorney General candidates, REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL | Prince William-Manassas Family Alliance (familyallianceonline.org). This post reviews the qualifications of the candidates for Lieutenant Governor. Tomorrow we will look at the candidates for Governor.

Candidates for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia

Who are the candidates? Virginia lieutenant gubernatorial election, 2021 (May 8 Republican convention) – Ballotpedia and Elections: Lt. Governor (vpap.org) provide lists.

Virginia lieutenant gubernatorial election, 2021 (May 8 Republican convention) – Ballotpedia briefly discribes the nomination process and provides biographical information on each of the candidates. In addition, you may find it worthwhile to read this link, Lieutenant Governor of Virginia – Ballotpedia, which describes the powers of the office and what the office holder is supposed to do.

Take note of Ranked-choice voting (RCV) – Ballotpedia. This article describes how rank-choiced voting works. When you come to vote, make certain you are prepared to rank each of the candidates. That is, which candidate is your second choice, third choice, fourth choice, and so forth. In a large field, no candidate is likely to win the majority of First-preference votes in the “first round”. Therefore, who wins the nomination is likely to be determined by who does well as everyone’s second or even third choice.

Virginia lieutenant gubernatorial election, 2021 (May 8 Republican convention) – Ballotpedia also provides a link to articles on each of the candidates. These articles include links to all their social media sites.

Nevertheless, here are the names of the candidates and links to their campaign websites.

• Puneet Ahluwalia
• Lance Allen
• Glenn Davis
• Tim Hugo
• Maeve Rigler
• Winsome Sears

What does Elections: Lt. Governor (vpap.org) provide? The focus here is who is financing each candidate’s run for office. Whether we like it or not, when someone runs for public office, they can be effectively in the pay of the people who finance their campaign. If a candidate gets a disproportionate amount of money from just one or two sources or occupational groups, that should definitely concern us.

Latest News Articles

The news media is not especially useful theses days, but WMAL did try to interview all the candidates. So, I have linked to some of their interviews. Also included are a few articles on ranked choice voting.

• Six Republicans running for Lt. governor (wdbj7.com)
• Confusion, infighting set stage for GOP’s May 8 convention | Chesterfield Observer
• GOP Lieutenant Governor Candidate Winsome Sears Makes Stop in Roanoke – The Virginia Star
• ‘Gay Democrat’ Text Spurs Republican Candidate To Sue ‘Jane Doe’ | Fredericksburg, VA Patch
• Lawsuit filed over ‘gay’ attack in Virginia GOP race | WMAL-FM
• Local Republicans host annual Ronald Reagan Legacy Dinner | InsideNoVa Culpeper – Culpeper Times | insidenova.com
• Wilson: Lessons for Virginia Republicans Learned from Ranked Choice Voting in Australian Elections – Bearing Drift
• ‘Obviously, this is a lot of work’: Virginia GOP set for a very different convention | WTOP
• WMAL Interview – PUNEET AHLUWALIA – 05.05.21 – Mornings on the Mall – Omny.fm
• The Larry O’Connor Show – Tim Hugo 04.30.21 – The Larry O’Connor Show – Omny.fm
• The Larry O’Connor Show – MAEVE RIGLER 05.05.21 – The Larry O’Connor Show – Omny.fm

Voter Guides

Please take note that two of the candidates responded to our questionnaire (see SURVEY RESPONSES FROM THE CANDIDATES RUNNING FOR GOVERNOR, LT. GOVERNOR, AND ATTORNEY GENERAL IN THE 2021 ELECTION | Prince William-Manassas Family Alliance (familyallianceonline.org))

Also note these voter guides.

• Virginia Election Information | iVoterGuide.com
• Virginia Lt Governor Race 2021 | Chasing Freedom – Virginia (chasingfreedomvirginia.com)

Observations

All these candidates have interesting stories.

• Puneet Ahluwalia. Running as an immigrant who loves and fears for his chosen country.
• Lance Allen. Running as an Air Force veteran fighting to preserve our liberties.
• Glenn Davis. A technology entrepreneur with considerable political experience. Wins elections. Regarded by some as too “moderate.”
• Tim Hugo. Military veteran who rose to be the third ranking member of the House of Delegates the Virginia House of Delegates.
• Maeve Rigler. Running as a lawyer/entrepreneur who rose from humble beginnings. Styles herself as a fighter.
• Winsome Sears. The only black Republican woman ever to serve in the Virginia House of Delegates. Running as a Conservative who can win in a majority Black legislative district.

Because of ranked-choice voting, choosing between these candidates will be especially difficult. In addition to determining the criteria for their choices and researching the qualifications of the candidates, the delegates to the convention must rank each candidate, not just pick the one they like best. The advantage is that going through that process is that the election is finished in one round of voting, and the winner is effectively someone the majority would have supported in a runoff election.