The chair of Arlington’s GOP is seeking 15% more local votes for statewide candidates in 2025 than the party received in 2021.
Party chair Matthew Hurtt hopes the ticket with gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears, alongside lieutenant governor candidate John Reid and incumbent Attorney General Jason Miyares, can earn more than the 21,548 Arlington votes that Republican Glenn Youngkin earned in the 2021 governor’s race.
“I’m looking for about 25,000 votes for Winsome and the ticket,” Hurtt said on Monday at the monthly Arlington County Republican Committee meeting, held in Clarendon.
Youngkin trailed Democrat Terry McAuliffe by a significant margin in Arlington, as McAuliffe received 73,013 votes — 76.7% of the total. Youngkin carried the statewide vote by a mere 66,000 out of nearly 3.3 million ballots cast.
Asked if Arlington Democrats had a desired vote total in mind for their gubernatorial candidate, Abigail Spanberger, party chair Steve Baker told ARLnow at a Sept. 19 early-voting event that Democrats were focused on turning out every possible voter.
County Republicans recently mailed 23,000 pieces of campaign literature to households identified as Republican-leaning. Though fewer than the approximately 60,000 copies of the Democratic Committee’s “Messenger,” delivered to voters by mail and by hand, this is a marked increase from 2021 Republican mailings at the local level.
Republicans are also rebuilding efforts to connect with voters at the county’s 54 precincts on Election Day. Hurtt acknowledged that county Democrats have their own precinct-operations efforts down to a science.
“That is a massive effort they undertake,” he said. “We had almost no sample-ballot coverage [in past years]; they have full coverage.”
Early voting began Sept. 19, with Election Day set for Nov. 4.
‘Candi-dating’ forum to return: The League of Women Voters of Arlington and Alexandria City will hold its annual “candi-dating” forum with candidates for office on Saturday, Oct. 11 from 1 to 4 p.m. at Walter Reed Community Center.
During the event, candidates meet with small groups of voters in sessions lasting 10 to 15 minutes, “creating direct, meaningful conversations,” organizers said.
“It’s like speed-dating,” they said.
There is no charge, but registration is requested.
Already looking to 2027: At the Arlington GOP meeting, Hurtt also took a quick look ahead to races two years in the future.
Noting that the party had fielded candidates for two of three Arlington-based House of Delegates’ seats this year, Hurtt said he wanted to make sure all races had GOP candidates the next time those seats were on the ballot.
“Alfonso Lopez gets a free ride this year, but not next time,” Hurtt said. “I’d really like to run someone against him in two years.”
On the 2025 ballot, Lopez (D-3) is running unopposed, while Dels. Patrick Hope (D-1) and Adele McClure (D-2) have Republican challengers.
The seats are almost guaranteed to remain in Democratic hands, but having Republican challengers helps build GOP enthusiasm, party leaders believe. That, in turn, supports the statewide ticket.
“The raw votes from Arlington matter,” Hurtt said.
Another 2027 race Hurtt is eyeing is the one for commonwealth’s attorney, particularly if Democratic incumbent Parisa Dehghani-Tafti seeks a third term.
Republicans have not fielded a candidate for county prosecutor since 1983, when Henry Hudson — technically running as an independent but with GOP backing — defeated Democrat Brendan Feeley to win a second term.
GOP leader gives his stamp of approval: Arlington GOP chair Matthew Hurtt is known for mailing personal notes to those supporting Republican efforts at the local level.
Now, he has a new way to add a stamp of approval to the effort.
Hurtt is set to begin using a new commemorative stamp issued by the U.S. Postal Service honoring conservative icon William F. Buckley.
The stamps were issued Sept. 9, and Hurtt will begin using them when his current stock of postage is depleted.
“I’m so excited,” the party chair told the rank-and-file.
The stamps — 12 million in all — were issued about two months in advance of the centennial of Buckley’s birth. He died in 2008.
Buckley was the founder of National Review and of television’s “Firing Line.”
He was a “friend to many people across the political spectrum” and “was a fierce believer that democracy is strengthened by engaging seriously with those who have different perspectives and ideas,” Postal Service executive vice president Isaac Cronkhite said at the first-day-of-issue ceremony, held at Yale University.
