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Analysts: Relative Anonymity Could Be An Asset For Republican Statewide Ticket

AP Photo/Steve Helber

Republicans now have a slate of candidates to head into the fall election season.

And, as Michael Pope reports, you might not have heard their names before.

Now that all the votes have been counted from the Republican convention, the party has a slate of candidates for November: Glenn Youngkin for governor; Winsome Sears for lieutenant governor and Jason Miyares for attorney general. You might be saying to yourself: Who?

Mark Rozell at George Mason University says the relative anonymity of Glenn Youngkin is an asset for now. "He can be all things to all people at this point since people don't really know where he stands on a number of issues," Rozell surmises. "The Trump Republicans can say this is somebody we can win with. The mainstream conservatives can say he's just like us, a successful businessman. But at a certain point he will be forced to stake out clear positions on issues."

Jatia Wrighten at Virginia Commonwealth University says Republicans have an opportunity to create a new narrative about fresh faces.  "These are the sorts of things that we heard when Donald Trump was running against Hillary Clinton, this idea that because we don't know how they're going to run or how they're going to govern that's very exciting to a lot of people."

One more asset for Republicans, they get a head start on raising money and crafting a general election strategy. Democrats are still fighting themselves in an expensive primary that won't be over until next month.

This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.

Michael Pope is an author and journalist who lives in Old Town Alexandria.
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