I live in Virginia Beach and am the Democratic nominee running against a 39-year incumbent for Virginia Beach Treasurer. I have one request for each and every voter. Please vote for all the offices on your ballot in November. Too often, down-ballot candidates experience a drop-off of votes. What is vote drop-off? It happens when voters go to the polls and vote for the President, a Congressional candidate, or gubernatorial candidate at the top of the ballot and neglect to vote for candidates running city/county races. In other words, they vote at the top of the ballot and do not make choices for the races at the bottom of the ballot. We voters must not allow that to happen anymore.
For the first time in almost 20 years, Virginia Beach has Democratic candidates in all seven of the state delegate seats and three out of four constitutional office races. We have until June 13th to get a candidate in that fourth race. Our candidate recruiting effort was two-fold. First, we tried to have no incumbent Republican go unchallenged. Second and most importantly, we wanted to have qualified and viable candidates running. Last year we were able to get enough Democrats elected on the school board to have a majority. We are building that bench.
A lot of attention has been paid to the Virginia House of Delegates elections on Daily Kos. I want to keep that focus while widening it to include the city and county elections. Virginia is truly a bellwether for the 2018 elections. For too long, the GOP has been given an easy ride down-ballot. And it sets them up for moving up to state legislatures and Congressional offices later on, using verbiage in their campaigns about their vast legislative experience in a lower office.
I ask each of you to financially support local candidates as well as the state candidates all over Virginia. Please contribute directly to the candidate’s campaigns. That way you will insure that your contributions go directly to support the candidate you wish to fund. While PACs have their place in politics, too often contributions are not equitably distributed to candidates as the donor desires.
Democrats in Virginia have a golden opportunity to succeed in November with all the anti-trump sentiment in the country. In Virginia Beach candidates have stepped up to the plate and are running to replace complacent Republicans who do not legislate in the best interests of their constituents. We will see a blue wave wash over the city this November.
Susan Hippen for Virginia Beach Treasurer
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