Voters will be heading to the polls, or casting absentee ballots, next month in a Republican primary to take on incumbent Senator Mark Warner.
This is a time of the year when candidates would normally be out knocking on doors, explaining their views to voters and trying to build support in advance of the statewide primary next month. But now candidates are forced to find other ways to reach out to voters, like appearing in a recent virtual candidates forum hosted by Fairfax Republicans. The three candidates tried to make a case for why they were the best choice to go up against incumbent Senator Mark Warner.
Daniel Gade is a combat-wounded veteran who’s now a college professor at American University. He says he’s the best candidate to take on Warner, and he drew a distinction with how he would respond to the emergency spending bills now under consideration in Congress. He says, for example, he would oppose infrastructure spending as a part of a coronavirus relief package. “Of course in an emergency you want to have the capability to spend a little extra on the emergency relief that’s required. Of course you do," Gade argued. "But what we don’t need is an unlimited open credit card for every wishlist nonsense thing that Democrats and Republicans have been colluding to do for many years.”
In terms of President Trump, Gade says he supports the president but adds he’s willing to tell Trump when he’s wrong. “There are times when the president does the wrong thing, and that’s fine. Everybody is human. And so what we need is politicians who are willing to do the hard work of addressing those things, not people who are from the legislative branch blindly saying, ‘Oh yeah. I’m going to rubber stamp everything the executive does.’”
Thomas Speciale is a chief warrant officer in the Army Reserves. He says he’s the best candidate to take on Warner because he can use his experience in the intelligence community to talk about investigations into the president. “I know what went wrong in those investigations, and I know what questions to ask, what paperwork to ask for, and I will go after prosecuting anyone who is culpable in the coup against our president. And that’s what it was, folks. That’s what it was, and I’m the guy who will go after them.”
Speciale says he’s also willing to tell the president when he disagrees, although he adds that he agrees with Trump on key issues like immigration and trade. “I’m going to do what’s in the best interest of America despite what the Republican establishment party wants me to do or what the political consequences might be," Speciale said. "Because doing what’s right is more important, and that’s what our president does.”
Alissa Baldwin is a civics teacher who describes herself as a Christian conservative. She says she might end up supporting some of the economic recovery bills now under consideration in Congress, although not all of the spending items. “I would support legislation like what passed with the CARES Act, but it should not ever get so political and quagmired with all of the pork and special interest projects. What does the Kennedy Center have to do with people who work in small businesses and own small businesses,” Baldwin asked.
She says she supporters Trump’s America First agenda. “I don’t think that we would be as well of today with the Coronavirus situation in this global pandemic if we were still back at the Obama economic recession levels. So thank God for President Trump and his strong leadership.”
Campaign finance records show Gade has raised the most money by far, almost half a million dollars. Speciale has raised about $80,000 and Baldwin has raised about $8,000. The senator they're hoping to unseat has about $8 million in his campaign war chest.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
