Garrett-Helgeson race to be decided in Republican primary in June

Lynchburg-area Republicans will choose their candidate for the House of Delegates in a primary election June 9, party chairman Mark Peake said Wednesday.

Scott Garrett and Jeff Helgeson, both members of Lynchburg City Council, have said they would seek the party’s nomination to run for the 23rd House District seat in the November general election.

Incumbent Del. Shannon Valentine, D-Lynchburg, will be on the Democratic ticket in her party’s primary on the same day, according to the state Board of Elections.

Peake said he and other party leaders decided Tuesday night to use the primary election instead of other methods of choosing a candidate, which can include a mass meeting, canvass or “firehouse primary.”

Peake said the primary election gives college students who may have returned home by June an opportunity to vote by absentee ballot, and potentially include more students than a mass meeting.

Student votes could involve more than 3,000 on-campus students, mostly at Liberty University, who registered to vote in last fall’s presidential election.

However, Liberty’s academic year ends May 8, which is also the earliest date the party could have held a mass meeting under rules set by the state Board of Elections.

“I think a primary will be more helpful about involving Liberty students than a mass meeting,” Peake said.

“If there were a mass meeting on May 8, which is a Friday, most Liberty students will have gone home for the summer at that point,” Peake said.

LU’s graduation is scheduled for the next day, and although seniors would be around, “they aren’t likely to attend a mass meeting” on Friday night, Peake said.

Garrett said mass meetings offer candidates an advantage in that “you have a gathering of ideologically like-minded individuals and they get to speak frankly and freely about how they perceive issues and candidates.”

A potential disadvantage of mass meetings, Garrett said, is that the discussion never moves beyond ideological issues.

“The advantage of a primary is that you will get the pulse of the community and have a citywide perspective and more than likely get a broader insight and input.”

Helgeson released a statement through his campaign spokesman, Joe Glover.

“We’ve been looking forward to taking our campaign for limiting government and fighting taxes throughout the 23rd District — regardless of the process for winning the Republican nomination for House of Delegates,” the statement said.

“The benefit of having a primary will be having our campaign organization in place for a trial run five months ahead of the general election contest in November.”

Garrett said that regardless of which candidate might benefit from the decision, “I think a primary should help the district, and help people to hear both Jeff and I, and get a better sense of where we are” on issues.

Peake said a mass meeting was the only other option he considered.

“A primary gets the most people involved, opens it up to the largest amount of people and is the fairest way to determine our candidate,” Peake said.

In addition, Peake said, Democrats will hold their own primary election June 9 to choose candidates for governor and lieutenant governor, and possibly attorney general.

“They have got important decisions to make on the Democratic side, so there should not be any crossover” by Democrats voting in the other party’s primary to skew its results, Peake said.

Republicans also will gather data on voters who show up on June 9 and add it to the turnout for the presidential primary in 2008. That should produce a solid list of Republican voters to use in encouraging voter turnout in November, Peake said.

Party rules gave Peake, as city Republican chairman, the strongest voice in choosing a primary, although the district’s three precincts in Madison Heights required participation by Amherst County Republicans.

“There were no disagreements within the district” about having a primary, Peake said.

“I had consulted with numerous people,” Peake said — local officials, party members, local party leaders and the 6th District Republican chairman.

There was little disagreement about a primary among most of those contacts, Peake said.