L
EGACY Yesterday. Today. Tomorrow.
WEDNESDAYS • Sept. 30, 2015
INSIDE
Human trafficking discussed in Newport News - 2 Business group supports GRTC’s rapid transit- 5 Black pastors in Va. seek ‘Christian awakening’ - 9 No troop pay in likely government shutdown- 15
Richmond & Hampton Roads
LEGACYNEWSPAPER.COM • FREE
Senate race puts McAuliffe’s influence to the test
VIRGINIA BEACH — When Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe and state Democrats recruited Gary McCollum to take on longtime senator Frank Wagner in Virginia Beach, they liked their odds. An African American business executive who overcame adversity and served his country, McCollum seemed poised to capitalize on Wagner’s vulnerabilities in a diverse district that leans conservative yet elected President Barack Obama in 2012. Then came some stumbles: McCollum earlier in the month misstated his military record, a potentially catastrophic error in a district neighboring the world’s largest naval base. Then his longtime cable-company employer suddenly severed ties last week. What started as a promising effort for McAuliffe to unseat an entrenched incumbent now faces a series of unexpected hurdles, and it has left observers wondering whether the governor’s campaign cash and influence can make the difference for a wounded candidate in a district that Democrats have made a priority for taking back the Senate — a goal he has called key to delivering Virginia for his friend Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2016. Publicly, the governor’s support is unwavering. Asked recently whether he was still behind McCollum, he said: “One hundred percent. You bet.” McAuliffe has made two appearances in Hampton Roads for the candidate but canceled a third scheduled after the governor said he had to attend a funeral. But six weeks ahead of the election, many voters are just beginning to pay attention, and McCollum’s military service error may be the
Left: Gary McCollum, Right: A packed house at McCollum HQ over the weekend, where attendees said they were “fired up and ready to go.” thing that sticks. “The perception would be by the time Joe Six Pack goes to vote, it’ll be, ‘Oh yeah, he’s the one who lied about his military service,’ and that’s a shame,” said Moody E. “Sonny” Stallings Jr., a former Democratic state senator from Virginia Beach. “He’ll never overcome that perception with a lot of voters.” Instead, McCollum is running on his personal narrative and trying to create a contrast — “I’m not a politician,” he says often — with Wagner, who has been in the General Assembly for 24 years. McCollum says he was raised in a Richmond housing project by a mother who died when he was 10 and an illiterate father. An ROTC scholarship to James Madison University was his ticket out, and until Sept. 24, he was general manager at Cox Communications. The story resonated with voters who filled the historically black First Lynnhaven Baptist Church recently
for a candidates forum that opened and closed with prayer. About 120 people filled wooden pews that held well-worn Bibles. Some cooled themselves with cardboard fans. They quizzed him on Medicaid expansion, mass transit, alternatives to jail for first-time offenders and restoration of voting rights for felons. Police violence against minorities came up, too. “I’ve been pulled over, and it’s a scary thing,” he said. Yvonne Leonard, a Wagner constituent who is active in the Virginia Beach Democratic Committee and was handing out “#TurnVaBchBlue” pens, called the hubbub around the misstatement of McCollum’s record “ridiculous.” She said she couldn’t express the full breadth of her anger at McCollum’s opponents in the sacred setting. Wagner skipped the event, citing a scheduling conflict, and McCollum made the most of his absence. If elected, he said, he will have “the political courage to show up, to do
what’s right instead of what’s in the interest of special interests.” Bruce Williams, a founder of the African American Political Action Council, one of the event organizers, said Wagner has an obligation to black voters who make up nearly a quarter of the district. “It’s beyond a disappointment,” he said. “Frankly, it’s an insult.” The next day, seven miles east and near the waterfront, Wagner wooed friends of his own at Princess Anne Country Club. At the GOP women’s club luncheon, forks clinked on china in a softly lit dining room with butter-yellow walls. Golf carts were parked outside. During his speech, Wagner said his district runs the gamut “from very, very high income right on down to, you know, up to and including rentassisted places and that type of thing.” “So it’s a very diverse district. I wish sometimes I represented this
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