Virginia's 8th District Republican Committee

We mourn the passing of Helen Blackwell, a lifelong Republican and former member of the 8th District Republican Committee. Please find below her obituary and details on funeral services this upcoming weekend.

Helen (Reddy) Blackwell, lifelong conservative activist and leader, passed away on September 8, 2019.

Mrs. Blackwell was a tireless champion for her principles. She served as the Virginia State Chairman of Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum for 25 years and, for many years, wrote a regular, national newsletter, “News and Notes” for Eagle Forum. She was also director of the Virginia Conservative Alliance and the Voting Integrity Project, of which she was the original chairman.

A dedicated political activist, Mrs. Blackwell was elected chairman of the Arlington County, Virginia Republican Committee three times and was the Republican captain of the Lyon Village precinct in Arlington for 41 years. She served on the State Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia and was a Delegate from Virginia to a Republican National Convention.

Virginia Governor Jim Gilmore appointed Mrs. Blackwell to the Board of Visitors for James Madison University; she served in that role from July 1999 to June 2004.

Mrs. Blackwell was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She attended one year at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College and received her B.A. in History of Art and M.B.A., both from Louisiana State University, where she was the co-founder and secretary of Students for Conservative Government. She spent a year of post-graduate studies in art at the University of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana). She was a volunteer docent for many years at the National Gallery of Art. Since 1972, she resided with her family in Arlington, Virginia. She was an active member of Columbia Baptist Church in Falls Church and the Eleanor Wilson Chapter of the D.A.R.

Mrs. Blackwell was a beloved wife, mother, and grandmother. She is survived by Morton, her husband of 47 years, her sons Charles Attaway and William Blackwell, her daughter-in-law Wendy, and two grandchildren, Isabel and Paxton Blackwell.

Visitation will be held on Friday, September 13 from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm at Advent Funeral & Cremation Services (7211 Lee Highway, adventfuneral.com) in Falls Church.

The funeral service will be held on Saturday, September 14 at 11:00 am at Columbia Baptist Church at 103 West Columbia Street in Falls Church. A graveside ceremony will follow immediately at Columbia Gardens Cemetery at 3411 Arlington Boulevard in Arlington.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be sent to the Leadership Institute or to Columbia Baptist Church.

With two dozen Democrats in the race against President Trump, the 2020 presidential election is already well underway.

But 2019 is still right in front of us, and the Virginia General Assembly hangs in the balance by just 3 seats.

Flipping just one seat in the Senate and two in the House of Delegates is all that is standing between us and the liberal agenda put forward by the Democrats in Richmond. The Democrats stand ready to pass tax hikes, massive spending increases and even extreme new abortion laws.

And despite the cloud of controversy surrounding him, Governor Ralph Northam will sign into law every radical piece of legislation the Democrats want to send to his desk for the next two years.

There are several Republicans challenging Democrats in and around Northern Virginia. And you should be sure to help the Republican running in your General Assembly or Senate district.

But today I want to highlight one member of the Virginia General Assembly who needs us to think beyond our district.

Tim Hugo is the only Republican serving in the House of Delegates from Northern Virginia.

Delegate Hugo won his 2017 election by just 106 votes out of 30,214 cast during the blue wave that crashed on Virginia. And Tim Hugo is the top target for Democrats in 2019.

I can tell you that Tim is working hard to win. But just as in 2017, millions of dollars and bus loads of out-of-state “volunteers” will flood into Virginia from around the country to flip Richmond blue.

Please consider clicking on this link and sending Delegate Hugo your most generous contribution right now to fight back against the onslaught mounting against him.

We have to defend this seat.

Mark Kelly
Chairman, 8th District Republican Committee

Note: The 46th District comprises most of the western part of the City of Alexandria and small parts of Fairfax County. Click here to view the district map and see if you are in the district.

OFFICIAL CALL

Party Canvass of the 46^th House of Delegates District of the Republican Party of Virginia

As Chairman of the 46^th House of Delegates Legislative District Committee of the Republican Party, and pursuant to the Plan of Organization and as recommended and directed by the Committee, I, Sean Lenehan, do hereby issue this call for a Party Canvass to be held in the auditorium of the Minnie Howard Campus of T.C. Williams High School, 3801 W. Braddock Rd., Alexandria, VA 22302, starting at 7:30 pm local time on Thursday June 6, 2019 for the following purpose:

a) Nominating a Republican candidate for the office of the 46^th House of Delegates District to be voted for in the General Election on 11/05/2019.

Qualifications for Participation

All legal and qualified voters of the 46^th House of Delegates District under the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, regardless of race, religion, national origin, or sex, who are in accord with the principles of the Republican Party and who, if requested, express in open meeting either orally or in writing as may be required, their intent to support all of its nominees for public office in the ensuing election, may participate as members of the Republican Party of Virginia in its mass meetings, party canvasses, conventions, or primaries encompassing their respective election districts.

Filing Requirements

Candidates for the nomination or election at said Canvass shall file a packet including:

1) A written statement of no more than 500 words on the candidate’s interest in the office and that provides proper contact information;

2) At least 25 valid signatures of voters registered in the 46^th House of Delegates District (using the Petition of Qualified Voters form from Virginia State Board of Elections.)

3) A non-refundable $100 filing fee in the form of a check payable to the Alexandria Republican City Committee.

These three (3) items must be submitted by mail to Sean Lenehan at 24 Fendall Ave., Alexandria VA 22304 and must be received (postmarks do not count) no later than May 20, 2019.  The purpose of this deadline is to allow sufficient time for the 46^th House of Delegates Legislative District Committee to validate the signatures submitted and to process materials for the Party Canvas.  As a result of these requirements, nominations will not be taken from the floor of the Party Canvas.

Registration Fee

There will be no registration fee to participate in this Canvass.

Paid for and authorized by the 46^th House of Delegates Legislative District Republican Committee.

Dear Party Member,

Simply put, this Tuesday’s results were devastating. While some will want to play the blame game, we as a Party do not have the time to engage in that useless dialogue. Our defeated candidates are not to blame, every single one worked their hearts out and left everything they had out on the field. President Trump is not to blame, the sad fact is that we have been losing statewide elections in Virginia long before Trump was elected President. Our issue is a simple math problem: the Democrat voting base is larger than the Republican base in Virginia. It has been since the Obama campaign registered hundreds of thousands of new voters in 2008, and their base has turned out at a higher rate than our base.

Some may think this is making an excuse, but the proof is in the numbers. Tim Kaine, as of this writing, has over 1.9 million votes. Why is that number important? It is over 150,000 more votes than President Trump received in Virginia in 2016. Put another way this year Tim Kaine received 90,000 more votes than ANY Republican candidate in Virginia history!

For all of the scorn heaped upon Corey Stewart by the mainstream media, his vote total of 1.375 million would beat any other previous midterm US Senate nominee in Virginia. Corey’s vote total was 300,000 more than Mark Warner’s winning total just 4 years ago in 2014!

A similar trend of truly unprecedented Democrat turnout was observed in the Congressional races. In Virginia’s 10th, Barbara Comstock received 30,000 more votes Tuesday than in 2014 when she won with 57%, and ended up losing by over 10 points. Both the Democrat candidates in the 10th and 2nd districts got within 6,000 votes of Hillary Clinton’s raw vote totals in a midterm. In the 7th district, Abigail Spanberger, in a midterm, actually received more votes than Hillary Clinton did in 2016!

While the results were grim, my message is not. We can win in the future, but we as a Party must change if we are to survive in Virginia. Here are the 3 areas of focus I will be pushing our leadership to explore in the coming months:

1.) Unity – We must stop the infighting. After our nomination methods for office are over, we all must get behind our nominees. For the last 4 straight statewide elections, we have had losing candidates for the same office, or significant portions of their support base, refuse to get behind the eventual nominee. This practice needs to end. It has only helped the Democrats. As the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” He was right and we must do that to succeed statewide. In the 2 months I have had the privilege of as serving as Chairman I have been vocal about this and will continue to do so.

2.) Voter Registration – Prior to 2008, Democrats used to regularly lose statewide elections in Virginia. When they did win, they did so by campaigning as “conservative” or “moderate” Democrats. This changed in 2008 mainly because the Obama campaign registered over half a million new voters and turned them out. Since 2008, Democrat Presidential nominees have ended up with around 1.9 million votes and our Party’s nominees have finished with around 1.7 million votes. Our vote total is nearly the same number as Bush’s total in 2004. We as a Party must do more than pay lip service to voter registration. We must develop a strategy to register our voters in a systematic and continuous fashion. Our periodic, haphazard approach has failed us and our candidates. This must happen quickly to close this statewide structural gap we have with the Democrats.

3.) Growing the Party – In 2016, 2017, and this year, approximately a third of the electorate was non-white. In those same years, roughly those 40 years and under made up nearly 40% of the vote. With both groups, non-whites and those under 40, our Party lost by massive margins. Such showings are not sustainable if we are to win again statewide. We must devote significant time and resources to outreach to these voters and communities. We must work with our candidates to develop positive messages that show how we can address in a conservative manner the issues these voters see as important. The same is true of the suburban voters we clearly lost this year.

While we are down we are NOT out. Virginia Republicans still hold the majority in the state legislature and we WILL fight to hold and grow it in 2019! We will also build towards 2020 starting NOW! Some pundits say that we are on an inexorable path towards becoming Maryland or Massachusetts. I can’t predict what the future holds, but I do know that I will fight with my every fiber to prevent that from happening. I hope you will join me in this fight. We we can only rebuild our Party with your help!

Sincerely,

Jack Wilson
Chairman
Republican Party of Virginia