Keep Your Eyes on Juan Pablo Segura on Tuesday
The torch of human freedom is burning brightly heading into November. Republican grassroots are the reason why -- and we have chosen our candidates very well indeed.
For the last few weeks, TRS has seen very little that would force us away from our initial predictions of a 21-19 Republican majority in the Virginia State Senate and a 53-seat majority in the Virginia House of Delegates.
Recent numbers from the latest filing deadlines should not encourage Virginia Democrats in the slightest.
Thus far, Spirit of Virginia PAC has spent $1.6 million on various races in Virginia, including a massive $500,000 ad buy in SEN-30. Brandon Jarvis over at Virginia Political Newsletter has the numbers:
$500,000.00 to Bill Woolf’s Senate campaign in his race against Del. Danica Roem.
$450,000.00 to the Republican Party of Virginia
$215,000.00 to Danny Diggs in his race against Sen. Monty Mason
$195,000.00 to Del. Emily Brewer’s Senate campaign in her race against Del. Clint Jenkins.
$100,000.00 to Del. Tara Durant’s Senate campaign in her race against Joel Griffin (D) and Monica Gary (I).
$100,000.00 to Lee Peters’ House campaign in his race against former Del. Josh Cole.
$65,000.00 to Josh Stirrup’s House campaign in his race against Josh Thomas.
$25,000.00 to Del. Karen Greenhalgh in her race against Michael Feggans.
What should bother Virginia Democrats isn’t the Hail Mary play in SEN-30 — though to continue the metaphor, Bill Woolf’s campaign is running down the field in open coverage and the Senate Dems humbled to the point of watching the ball sail towards the end zone — but where Virginia Republicans are not spending money, particularly in the Fredericksburg area.
Case in point is the Peters-Cole race in HOD-65, where a race that was supposed to be Lean-D has now turned into a Tilt-R. Both Durant and Brewer are considered to be firmly Republicans bets at this rate, while Danny Diggs has pretty much put the race beyond the reach of Monty Mason.
Which leaves two Virginia Senate seats up for question.
Thus far, Siobhan Dunnavant’s race in SEN-16 has been the center of the political contest, with millions of dollars being spent against the moderate Republican. Dunnavant’s penchant for compromise and consensus notwithstanding, her vocation in the community as an OBG/YN — having delivered nearly half of western Henrico — has to count for something.
Which leaves Juan Pablo Segura’s campaign in SEN-31 as the marvel of the 2021 campaign season.
Juan Pablo Segura and the Coming Republican Renaissance
This is not a seat where Republicans should be doing well. Yet Segura’s campaign is doing two things needed for victory: (1) reinventing the Republican coalition to embrace minority voters and minority values as integral parts of the GOP, and (2) being unafraid to take on the political left — both in their content and their tone.
This second part stems from the first. Segura is being branded as all sorts of things by Virginia Democrats — racist, bigoted, anti-choice (meaning pro-dead babies), hateful, sexist, anti-alphabet people. The “magic words” aren’t working anymore, and Segura’s supporters know it.
Segura’s campaign has all the marks of a happy warrior — a guy who loves campaigning and loves being around people. Naturally, the Segura campaign has grown organically. This is not a coalition built on force and connections, Segura’s campaign is a movement built on relationships and shared values, a mood which Segura’s personality and leadership are more than happy to give a voice.
I think there’s something else about Juan Pablo Segura’s campaign that appeals, and it is that the man exudes sincerity.
Not in the manufactured sense where Segura is all-things-to-all-people, but rather in the sense that all the people — literally, all of them — are so heavily invested in their campaign against the institutionalized and sclerotic left.
Which is something Virginia Republicans need to keep in front of us as we move into 2024 and beyond.
The Times They Are A’Changin…
One of the great things about being a conservative is that we are inherently an anti-ideology. As the late William F. Buckley Jr. once put it, the great task of the modern conservative movement is to stand athwart history yelling STOP!
Yet in a wider sense, it is far easier for conservatives to tack with the wind than our counterparts on the left. Liberals tend to wed themselves to institutions and then find themselves besieged by conservatives who continue to ask why and progressives who demand more on the what and how.
One of the particular demands on the conservative movement at present is whether or not we are a big tent or a fortress.
More particular is this. Do we have to surrender what we believe in order to become more palatable to the wider public?
Or is there simply a better way of packaging what we believe and describing why it matters to working class families? In short, if what we believe has a kernel of truth to it, isn’t persuasion better than fighting?
The truth is that Republicans are far better at adapting what we believe to the times than our counterparts on the left precisely because we keep asking the same question over and over again: Does this expand the cause of human freedom — or not?
For Virginia Republicans, the sentiment is as old as there has been a Republican Party of Virginia — thank you General William Mahone. The maxim was best articulated by one Richard D. Obenshain, who by sheer force of will resurrected what we know as the present-day Virginia GOP from mere footnote to statewide conscience, serving as state party chairman in 1972 before his U.S. Senate bid in 1978.
To some degree, one will be hard pressed to find a Virginia Republican chairman who has interrupted this spirit, each one serving it in some way. Patrick McSweeney might be one name we could mention; Kate Obenshain’s tenure would certainly be another — by land and title, a continuation of her father’s leadership and vision.
Certainly the four chairmen whom I served followed in these footsteps, and Rich Anderson is most certainly proudly holding aloft the same torch.
In 2021, Virginian Republicans nominated and elected the most diverse ticket in the Commonwealth’s 400-year history.
In 2023, Virginia Republicans yet again delivered an even more diverse ticket of state candidates — each one carrying the fire in their own way, but all of them on the same theme — that there is a better way to do politics in Virginia, that crazy isn’t normal, that parents matter, and that Virginians deserve something better than to be called a bigot, hater, racist, sexist, or homophobe — all “magic words” designed to stifle debate — when objecting to the policies of the political left.
Virginians are catching on — conservatives, independents, moderates all, and from every race, ethnicity, and class background.
Whether the Democrats figure it out is their problem. They can play the scold; Republicans have a duty to find the energy Segura, Durant, Brewer, Woolf and Diggs are discovering among the electorate — and champion those values in Richmond and in the public square.
Good luck, guys.
We are winning this one. I’d rather be us than them right now, that’s for sure. Good luck as well to Juan Pablo Segura — I bet on his campaign early and you guys are absolutely crushing it right now. KEEP HAMMERING.
Shaun Kenney is the editor of The Republican Standard, former chairman of the Board of Supervisors for Fluvanna County, and a former executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia.