Lynchburg House race gets high profile

RICHMOND — The election for Lynchburg’s seat in the House of Delegates will be one of the most expensive and hotly contested races in the state next fall, political analyst Robert Holsworth, of Richmond, said Tuesday.

Party control of the House, and of redistricting in 2011, potentially could depend on the outcome of the contest for the seat held by Del. Shannon Valentine, D-Lynchburg, Holsworth said.

Lynchburg City Council members Jeff Helgeson and Scott Garrett announced Monday that they will seek the Republican nomination to oppose Valentine in the district that includes Lynchburg and Madison Heights.

“It’s not bad for a party when two people with relatively substantial stature decide to compete for a position,” Holsworth said. “The party believes it has a real shot at this seat.”

“It’s going to be one of the marquee races in the General Assembly this year, regardless of who gets the nomination,” said Holsworth, former dean of Virginia Commonwealth University’s College of Humanities and Sciences.

“There’s going to be an extraordinary sum of money put into this race,” he said.

Democrats in the House said they weren’t impressed by Holsworth’s analysis.

Republicans said they thought it was accurate.

House Minority Leader Ward Armstrong said predictions about tight races can be wrong.

“In all due respect, they said that about my race in 2005, and it wasn’t,” Armstrong said, referring to an election in which he defeated Republican David Young by 2-1 in vote margin and 3-1 in fundraising in the Martinsville area.

Morgan Griffith, the House majority leader, said Helgeson and Garrett “are both great candidates. They are seen as coming from two different wings of the party,” while Valentine is “to the left of her district.”

“It’s interesting,” Griffith said. “Today she voted with her district. She voted to allow guns in restaurants,” on SB 1035, a bill that would allow people with handgun permits to carry a firearm into places where alcohol is served. The House approved the bill 66-33.

Republican delegates who sit near him in the House noted the vote and ”said that ‘when you have an opponent, you start voting different,’” Griffith said.

Griffith couldn’t cite how Valentine had voted on other gun-related bills, but he said “she’s been fairly liberal in her voting. She’s not voting the way I think her constituents would want.”

Armstrong, while acknowledging that Lynchburg has voted sometimes Democrat and sometimes Republican in the past eight years, said he thought its people wanted “thoughtful representation.”

“She has led the fight on CSO, on additional rail transportation to Lynchburg, and a number of other things,” Armstrong said. CSO was a reference to state funds that, in previous years, have been provided for Lynchburg’s combined sewer overflow projects.

“She has the governor’s ear, and she has been a very effective advocate on behalf of Lynchburg and her House district, and I think people recognize that,” Armstrong said.

Valentine said she was concentrating on legislative work Tuesday and planned to start thinking about the election next week after the General Assembly adjourns.

Holsworth said there will be only a few competitive House of Delegates races this year, and Republicans are hoping to take back the Lynchburg-area district. Griffith said last week that House District 23 was drawn up for a Republican in 2001 when former Del. Preston Bryant held the seat.

“This is one that obviously the Republicans are targeting,” Holsworth said. “They have always believed they can take this district because it leans a little their way.”

Lynchburg gave a majority of its votes to Democrats in the 2001 and 2005 governor’s elections, and voted Republican in the 2006 U.S. Senate election and again last fall in the presidential election.

A major factor to watch in next November’s election will be voter turnout in Lynchburg, Holsworth said.

“The voter registration drive that took place at Liberty University last fall was the one place in the state where Republicans really believe they’ve got an advantage with young people,” Holsworth said.

“They want to see if they can turn young people out again in a state race, which has never been done before, but they believe they have an opportunity to do it,” Holsworth said.

In the Republican Party, “they’re smiling about that,” Holsworth said.