Gilmore Defeats Marshall For U.S. Senate GOP Nomination

By Tim Craig, Anita Kumar

Saturday, May 31, 2008

RICHMOND -- Former governor James S. Gilmore III narrowly won the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate Saturday in a surprisingly close race at the GOP convention here that could foretell challenges for the state party in the fall.

Gilmore, after squeaking past state Del. Robert G. Marshall (Prince William), is likely to face the Democrat who succeeded him in the governor's mansion in a Senate election that will be closely watched nationally. Marshall's district includes much of southern and eastern Loudoun County.

Former governor Mark R. Warner, the expected Democratic Senate nominee, will head toward the fall as the consensus choice to represent his party in the election to succeed retiring Sen. John W. Warner (R). The incumbent, a fixture in Virginia politics for decades, is no relation to the Democratic candidate.

In recent years, Republicans have suffered several setbacks in Virginia, losing the governor's mansion, one of the state's two U.S. Senate seats and control of the Virginia Senate.

Gilmore, 58, hopes to reverse that trend. As governor from 1998 to 2002, he has solid name recognition around the state -- an asset he used to help force retiring Rep. Tom Davis, a moderate Republican from Northern Virginia, to stay out of the Senate race. But today's result showed Gilmore has plenty of work to shore up his base even as he pivots to face Mark Warner.

The vote total for the GOP nomination announced at the convention was 5,222 for Gilmore and 5,156 for Marshall. The Prince William lawmaker sought to capitalize on some Republican disaffection toward Gilmore, especially among social conservatives, and almost pulled off a huge upset.

A handful of convention delegates voted for a third candidate, Robert D. "Bob" Berry, who took his name off the ballot at the last minute. Though Berry's support was not enough to turn the contest, Marshall supporters shouted for a recount.

Many Republicans here predicted the party would rally behind Gilmore.

"The ones for Marshall will come around,"' said John Meyer, a delegate from Arlington who supported Gilmore. "Gilmore is a solid Republican, conservative leaning with accomplishments. All the people will come around."

Convention officials expected close to 5,000 delegates but many seats remained empty. The vote was not strictly based on the number of delegates in attendance, but instead relied on a complicated formula that gave more weight to those counties that have supported Republican statewide candidates in larger numbers in the past.

Voting began just before noon. While delegates voted on cards, the loudspeaker played Frank Sinatra's "The Best is Yet to Come."

Gilmore's allies say he has the political instincts to defeat the Democrat.

"Jim Gilmore has been an underdog in every election he has been in," said Linwood M. Cobb III, chairman of the 7th District Republican Committee, which includes a part of Richmond and central Virginia counties. "He is a fighter. I would say Jim Gilmore is one of the most determined people I have ever met."

Democratic strategists say they assume Gilmore will put up a strong fight.

"We've underestimated him in the past and we've got burned," said C. Richard Cranwell, a former state delegate who chairs the Virginia Democratic Party. Cranwell said he almost lost his 1997 House race because Gilmore was such a formidable candidate for governor that year. "I don't intend to get bit by Gilmore a second go-around, and I have told our candidates to take him very seriously."

Ana Gamonal, a Gilmore spokeswoman, said the Republican nominee will come out swinging against Warner.

"We are going to continue to hammer Mark Warner and smoke him out on substantive issues and policy," Gamonal said.

Meantime, Warner's campaign announced the launch of a statewide television commercial statewide Monday night.

The 60-second ad will feature his "bipartisan success in balancing Virginia's budget while responsibly addressing record revenue shortfalls that ultimately reached $6 billion,'' according to the Democrat's campaign. It will feature former state Senate President John H. Chichester, a Republican who was chairman of the Finance Committee.

"This initial positive ad spells-out governor Warner's track record in bringing all kinds of people together to find bipartisan, common-sense solutions, and that is the same approach he will take to the U.S. Senate," Warner campaign manager Mike Henry said.

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