Shaun Kenney, executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia, spoke at a University College Republicans meeting Wednesday evening. Kenney discussed the upcoming November elections for Virginia’s state Senate and other offices.
Kenney said he is focusing his efforts on the Senate race between Republican candidate Ed Gillespie and Democratic incumbent Sen. Mark Warner.
A recent poll from the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University shows Warner leading Gillespie by a 22-point margin with only a few weeks left until election day. Despite this deficit, Kenney believes Gillespie could still win the race.
"Does anyone here actually believe that Gillespie is down 25 points?" Kenney asked the group of College Republicans. The response: a resounding "No".
"Gillespie is probably down about 10 points, which sounds horrible; but Cuccinelli was down about 10 points at this point, and that race ended up being much, much closer," Kenney said.
Kenney said many of Gillespie's strengths are drawn from Warner's weaknesses.
"Mark Warner was at 68 percent [approval rating] a year ago," Kenney said. "Today, he can't break 50. … The question is: can Ed sell himself as the alternative to Mark Warner?"
Kenney also spoke about health care, a recurring theme in this year's election campaign:
As many as 250,000 Virginians were affected by recent changes in guidelines for the Affordable Care Act. Republicans in the General Assembly defeated Gov. McAuliffe's efforts to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act in June, leaving many Virginians in a "coverage gap" because their income is too high for Medicaid eligibility but too low to qualify them for federal subsidies under the ACA.
"The coverage gap is a concern," Kenney said. "But do you meet that with a socialized medicine plan, or do you let the free market do its job? We think the latter."
A Republican stronghold for decades, Virginia has recently become more open to Democrats, electing Democratic McAuliffe last November. Still, Republicans maintain majorities in both houses of the General Assembly and Kenney said he believes the conservative spirit is alive and well in the Old Dominion.
"Three issues have dominated this campaign: jobs, Obamacare and foreign policy," Kenney said. "Now, there is still a down economy, and we just had a quarter-million Virginian policyholders lose their coverage. That hurts pretty badly."
Kenney pointed to the overwhelming Republican majority in the House of Delegates as evidence Virginians can still elect Republicans.
"Virginia is not a blue state by any stretch of the imagination," he said.
Kenney urged College Republicans to keep up phone-banking and door-knocking efforts in the lead-up to what he believes will be close elections this November.
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