The clock continues to tick and the calendar pages keep turning, but as yet, the Arlington County Republican Committee remains 0-for-13 when it comes to recruiting candidates for the November ballot.
Hope, however, springs eternal.
“If you’re interested in running . . . I encourage you to do so,” new party chair Matthew Hurtt said at the April 24 meeting of the GOP’s rank-and-file.
Giving the voters an alternate choice “is very important,” said Hurtt, the party’s former communications chairman who a month before was elected to succeed GOP chair Lori Urban.
Urban moved to Arizona to be closer to family; Hurtt will fill out the remaining 11 months of her two-year term.
Candidate recruitment has been a perennial challenge for the Arlington GOP in recent years. This year, however, opportunities have never been greater, with more than a dozen races on the ballot – the highest number in the county’s eight-year election cycle. Two County Board seats, a School Board seat, two state Senate seats, three House of Delegates seats and five constitutional offices (sheriff, clerk of Circuit Court, treasurer, commonwealth’s attorney and commissioner of revenue) are up for grabs.
Democrats have candidates lined up for all those seats, and are holding a School Board caucus in mid-May and a primary in mid-June in competitive races.
At the monthly GOP meeting, Hurtt cautioned members against voting in the Democratic caucus and primary, even though there might be some candidates running whose views were more in line with the GOP positions on issues and could be helped by the votes.
“Please don’t do that,” Hurtt said, noting that members of the Republican committee face possible sanctions for getting involved in another party’s nomination process.
Republicans have until mid-June to field candidates. Independents also have until mid-June to file paperwork to get on the November ballot.
