County GOP Candidates Get Extension to Run

Loudoun County Republicans were given several more days last week to jump into local political contests as candidates or delegates, and county Democrats got a first look at their party's final slate of office-seekers.

Loudoun Democratic Chairman Thom Beres announced that his party would not have a candidate in the countywide race for Board of Supervisors chairman or the contest for Blue Ridge district supervisor, saying that Democrats have been satisfied overall with the jobs done by incumbents Scott K. York (I-At Large) and James Burton (I-Blue Ridge).

"No one felt they wanted to split the vote between the Democrat and the independent," Beres said.

York and Burton have favored limiting home building in the fast-growing county and have run previous campaigns successfully on that theme. The question of how best to manage Loudoun's swift development is a perennial issue in county elections.

Beres said he stepped aside in the Potomac district, where he had made preparations to run, and that growth-control activist Andrea McGimsey instead will be the Democratic nominee against incumbent Supervisor Bruce E. Tulloch (R).

The Loudoun Republican Committee, the local GOP governing body that has more than 300 members, voted Wednesday to issue a new set of nomination rules after the party's earlier "convention call" was rejected by the leadership of the Republican Party of Virginia for being too restrictive. The new rules give Republicans until May 6 to jump into nomination races.

The new GOP rules also dramatically increase the number of delegates who can participate in the party's June 9 convention. Under the old rules, some districts, including Broad Run, were oversubscribed, meaning that more delegates had signed up than there were spots available. A system of fractional voting will mean that more delegates can be seated.

Delegates who already are registered do not need to do so a second time, Loudoun Republican Chairman Paul Protic said. New delegates will have until next Sunday to sign up.

The full convention call was scheduled to be published in the public notice section of The Washington Post yesterday, Protic said.

A proposal for a firehouse primary was "voted down pretty substantially" at Wednesday's meeting, Protic said. The convention will cultivate campaign volunteers for the November election, he said.

"We've got 1,900 delegates, and we're sure to have more delegates, and that's always a good thing," Protic added. "We've kept the board [of supervisors] when we do a convention."

Beres said he is "very confident" in the Democrats' prospects in November. "Basically we have a very united slate" with candidates and supporters already teaming up to try to take control of the county board, he said.