For full disclosure, I worked for Del. Berg as his legislative assistant for ten months last year. As a result, I have been watching his primary challenge by former supervisor Chris Collins with interest. Last night when I was crawling through campaign finance reports, I found some interesting things.[read_more]
Chris Collins fundraising haul was pretty impressive raising over $28,000 in less than two months, however the devil is in the details. The nice thing about VA transparency laws is that we can see everyone who donated over $100 to a campaign. This report has a number of names that jump out because of their known opposition to Republican candidates.
This list includes some of the strongest opponents of Republicans in the western portion of the 10th Congressional District. Mary Daniel was the Democrat nominee to run against Dave LaRock in 2013. LaRock defeated her by over 2,700 votes. William Daniel is her husband. Vince Dibenedetto was a Republican who was removed from the Republican Party for publicly and actively opposing Republicans in the November 2013 election. Roberta May is the wife of Joe May. Joe May is the former Republican delegate from the 33rd District. Following his primary defeat, he refused to support the nominee, and then believed ran as an independent against current RPV Chairman John Whitbeck, in a state senate special election.
While it is important to build coalitions when campaigning and governing, reaching out to Democrats to win a Republican nominating contest should be alarming.
A Democrat candidate, and two prominent former Republicans who undermined the party are supporting Chris Collins primary challenge. While Chris Collins is telling people he is conservative, Republicans should ask what it is about him that has won the support of those who oppose and undermine the Republican Party.
If Chris Collins can get financial support from active Democrats and vocal Republican opponents, what other support is he quietly gathering from those who oppose the party? If Mary Daniel and Joe May believe Chris Collins is worth supporting, how can he be relied on to fight for Republican principles in Richmond?
Mark Berg is a hard worker who deserves to win the Republican Primary over someone who is actively courting the support of Democrats to win a primary.
Update: After posting this article, I was alerted to another relevant bit of information about Collins support. Collins sure is doing an impressive job inspiring Democrat support.
