Richmond Times-Dispatch - Editorial: Virginia Republicans fuel suspicions
Washington Post - Ken Cuccinelli will not run for Virginia governor in 2017, he says
Ken Cuccinelli II, the polarizing former Virginia attorney general, said Saturday that he will not run again for governor, scrambling the contest and opening the door for a far-right conservative to vie for the Republican nomination in 2017.
Daily Press - Ress: Virginia Politics: a 2017 reprise of the GOP presidential wars?
Looks as if next year's battle for the Republican nomination for the gubernatorial race will be a reprise of this year's presidential primary and national convention delegate wars -- Donald Trump's Virginia campaign manager Corey Stewart left this weekend's state convention saying he'll be running for governor.
Richmond Times-Dispatch - Cuccinelli rules out run for governor in 2017
Corey Stewart, state chairman for Trump’s campaign, denounced the slate as a product of the “tired, weak, uninspired, uninspiring, weak-kneed and weak-jawed” party establishment. Speaking to the convention of nearly 2,000 party faithful, Stewart — who plans to run for governor next year — urged them to vote down the slate and “send a message to the establishment in Virginia that the time has come, the bell has tolled and the end of the Republican establishment is today.”
Repeated appeals for Republican unity weren’t enough to stop a bitter floor battle for presidential delegates Saturday at the Virginia GOP convention in Harrisonburg, where supporters of Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas used their overwhelming numbers to secure 10 of 13 delegate slots up for grabs. Supporters of front-runner Donald Trump — who won the state’s March 1 primary with almost 35 percent of the vote — cried foul early and often, accusing the “establishment” of defying the will of Virginia voters by packing the slate with Cruz supporters.
Bearing Drift - Corey Stewart's Exclusion from RNC Slate Hurts Cruz, Fuels Infighting
Following many long hours of waiting, wrangling, and party infighting, Saturday’s quadrennial convention of the Republican Party of Virginia concluded with the controversial election of a slate of at-large delegates to the Republican National Convention favoring Senator Ted Cruz by a margin of 10-3 over GOP frontrunner Donald Trump. [...] Shockingly, the slate could have been an even worse public relations disaster: at the opening of the convention, some Cruz leaders and many of his grassroots supporters were advocating for a clean sweep of Virginia’s 13 at-large RNC delegates – far more than the 10 which Cruz won. [...] The circular firing squad must stop.