Latest news with #SpiritofVirginiaPAC
Yahoo
22-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Virginia GOP lieutenant governor candidate launches a Substack
Republican Virginia lieutenant governor candidate John Reid launched a Substack on Tuesday in an effort to engage directly with supporters. The Hill was the first outlet to report on the Republican's Substack, which is called The Reid Revolution and will publish on a weekly basis. Reid is one of the first Republican candidates to launch a Substack. The launch comes as other politicians, including a number of potential presidential candidates, have explored new forms of media like podcasts to reach voters. In his first post on the platform, which went up early Tuesday morning, Reid noted that his Substack is not a campaign newsletter. 'It's a direct line from me to you that is unfiltered by media spin, untethered from political talking points, and free from the gatekeepers who've told candidates like me to stay in our lane, water it down, or wait our turn,' Reid wrote. 'I'm not interested in playing by their rules.' In a second post obtained by The Hill, which is slated to be published on Reid's Substack later on Tuesday, Reid compares his policies to his opponent state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi (D) and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger. 'Ghazala Hashmi and Abigail Spanberger support a vision where the government always knows best. I don't. I trust families,' Reid writes. 'This campaign isn't just about childcare or safety or schools. It's about freedom. It's about who makes the decisions: you, or them.' The Republican candidate previously hosted a talk show on WRVA for eight years. Reid found himself in the center of a political firestorm in April after Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R ) called for Reid, who is openly gay, to suspend his campaign after a report that Republican researchers came across sexually explicit photos on Tumblr posted by an account with the same username Reid uses on other sites. Reid has adamantly denied the allegations and went as far as to accuse Youngkin's team of extortion. Reid, who is openly gay, has also said the reason he is being targeted is because of his sexuality. A lawyer representing Reid sent a cease and desist letter to Matt Moran, then the executive director of Youngkin's Spirit of Virginia PAC, who later stepped down from his post. Virginia Republicans were quick to come to Reid's defense in the face of the controversy, calling Youngkin's move 'an unforced error' and laying blame on the Spirit of Virginia PAC. Last month, Youngkin acknowledged Reid as the party's lieutenant gubernatorial nominee, telling reporters, 'He has clearly made up his mind that he's going to stay in.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
22-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Virginia GOP lieutenant governor candidate launches a Substack
Republican Virginia lieutenant governor candidate John Reid launched a Substack on Tuesday in an effort to engage directly with supporters. The Hill was the first outlet to report on the Republican's Substack, which is called The Reid Revolution and will publish on a weekly basis. Reid is one of the first Republican candidates to launch a Substack. The launch comes as other politicians, including a number of potential presidential candidates, have explored new forms of media like podcasts to reach voters. In his first post on the platform, which went up early Tuesday morning, Reid noted that his Substack is not a campaign newsletter. 'It's a direct line from me to you that is unfiltered by media spin, untethered from political talking points, and free from the gatekeepers who've told candidates like me to stay in our lane, water it down, or wait our turn,' Reid wrote. 'I'm not interested in playing by their rules.' In a second post obtained by The Hill, which is slated to be published on Reid's Substack later on Tuesday, Reid compares his policies to his opponent state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi (D) and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger. 'Ghazala Hashmi and Abigail Spanberger support a vision where the government always knows best. I don't. I trust families,' Reid writes. 'This campaign isn't just about childcare or safety or schools. It's about freedom. It's about who makes the decisions: you, or them.' The Republican candidate previously hosted a talk show on WRVA for eight years. Reid found himself in the center of a political firestorm in April after Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R ) called for Reid, who is openly gay, to suspend his campaign after a report that Republican researchers came across sexually explicit photos on Tumblr posted by an account with the same username Reid uses on other sites. Reid has adamantly denied the allegations and went as far as to accuse Youngkin's team of extortion. Reid, who is openly gay, has also said the reason he is being targeted is because of his sexuality. A lawyer representing Reid sent a cease and desist letter to Matt Moran, then the executive director of Youngkin's Spirit of Virginia PAC, who later stepped down from his post. Virginia Republicans were quick to come to Reid's defense in the face of the controversy, calling Youngkin's move 'an unforced error' and laying blame on the Spirit of Virginia PAC. Last month, Youngkin acknowledged Reid as the party's lieutenant gubernatorial nominee, telling reporters, 'He has clearly made up his mind that he's going to stay in.'
New York Post
13-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Post
Virginia GOP's gay-porn disaster a lesson to Republicans: primaries matter
Don't blame President Donald Trump for the setback Republicans are facing this November. Ahead of next year's congressional midterms, the first big test of the GOP's strength since Trump returned to office comes this fall in New Jersey and Virginia. While Republicans always expect an uphill battle in New Jersey, Virginia ought to be favorable territory — after all, the GOP won every statewide office there just four years ago with Glenn Youngkin atop the ticket. Advertisement But it's Youngkin and company, not Trump, who are on the verge of forfeiting Virginia to the Democrats this year. What went wrong is a tale of botched succession and inadequate intra-party competition. Republicans nationwide need to pay heed to the Virginia party's self-immolation. Advertisement The big story isn't the sex scandal engulfing the GOP's openly gay candidate for lieutenant governor, John Reid. It's not even the role Youngkin and the head of his Spirit of Virginia PAC — who's since had to resign — played in promoting the scandal in a botched effort to force Reid to drop out. Sex and betrayal make great headlines, but the lieutenant governor's race — and Reid's apparent dalliances with drag queens and pornography — is a sideshow: The race that matters most is for governor. With term limits preventing Youngkin from succeeding himself, his lieutenant governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, expected to get her turn at the top of the ticket. Advertisement And she has: The primary isn't until next month, but because Earle-Sears' challengers dropped out before the deadline to appear on the ballot, she's the default nominee. In fact, there's no primary competition for any statewide office, although a challenger to Reid who gave up earlier, businessman John Curran, is now attempting a write-in campaign. Republicans in Virginia, like those in many other places, think competition is a fine thing except when it comes to their own races. And the major factions of the party, which until recently were the Christian right and country-club moderates, have long preferred to settle their differences in the close confines of party conventions rather than in primaries. Advertisement The rise of MAGA hasn't changed much: Reid seemed unbeatable before the Youngkin circle exposed his antics because he's a talk-radio host popular with the populist right. But the party's habit of quashing competition applied even to him, until Youngkin's coterie changed their mind (and changed it too late — Reid is still probably unbeatable in the primary, only now much weaker in the general election). Each well-managed faction preferred not to have a primary fight, so all of them together avoided one, deferring to Earle-Sears as the next in line for the marquee spot on the ticket. That was a mistake. Earle-Sears was reassuring to the party's right wing four years ago, as a black woman (and immigrant from Jamaica) in the post-George Floyd era who'd served in the United States Marine Corps and was outspokenly anti-abortion and supportive of gun rights. Moderates might have perceived her as inexperienced — she'd served two years in the House of Delegates in the early 2000s — but Youngkin's coattails with centrists carried Earle-Sears and the rest of the ticket to victory. Once in office, however, Earle-Sears made some rookie mistakes, looking ahead to running for governor in her own right by trying to court the moderates who weren't so keen on her — while losing support with right-wingers, especially once she started to opine on national politics. Advertisement 'I could not support him. I just couldn't,' she told Fox News in 2022 about the possibility of another Trump bid for the White House. 'A true leader understands when they have become a liability,' she said. She felt differently by the time Trump locked up the GOP presidential nomination last year, but the damage with MAGA voters was already done. The result was that Earle-Sears remained too well-positioned to challenge, but is ill-prepared to maximize conservative turnout or win moderates the way Youngkin did. Advertisement Her response to the Reid controversy has also been alienating both supporters of the man who hopes to succeed her as lieutenant governor and those who want to cut him loose: 'John Reid is the Republican nominee for Lt. Governor. It is his race and his decision alone to move forward,' she stated on Facebook. 'We all have our own race to run.' Advertisement She trails the presumptive Democratic nominee, Abigail Spanberger, in all early polls by an average of nearly 7 percentage points. Earle-Sears and Reid both needed the kind of close scrutiny they would have received in a competitive primary. A tough primary might have weakened the eventual nominees — but they would hardly be weaker than they are now, and early exposure of their vulnerabilities might have allowed the party to pick better. Primaries can be unruly, but if the GOP wants to avoid a rout next year, it will have to put its candidates to stricter tests than they've faced in Virginia. Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review.
Daily Mail
05-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Trump's presidential 'heir' plunged into gay porn scandal
A MAGA favorite to become president after Donald Trump is facing a growing crisis over a gay porn scandal. Last Friday, Virginia Gov Glenn Youngkin asked Republican nominee for lieutenant governor John Reid to drop out of the race amid allegations he ran a social media page filled with naked pictures of men. Reid, who is gay and married, denied that the page was his and refused to resign, claiming the page was created in an effort to sabotage his bid to become lieutenant governor. Now Youngkin is stuck in a bind between needing to publicly back the Republican candidate in Virginia's statewide elections and not wanting to align himself with the man hit by controversy. The crisis, which could damage Youngkin's chances on the national stage in '28, escalated further over the weekend as one of the governor's top aides resigned. Matt Moran, who ran Youngkin's Spirit of Virginia PAC, stepped down after he was accused of pressuring Reid to remove himself from the GOP ticket. Moran has publicly denied he pushed Reid to step aside. It comes after a GOP top brass tried to pressure Reid to quit over the alleged lewd social media page. Under Virginia law, Youngkin cannot run for a second consecutive gubernatorial term in the commonwealth. Many feel that instead, he could launch a 2028 presidential bid as President Donald Trump completes his second term. Coincidence? The candidate's Instagram handle is 'jrdeux,' the same username a Tumblr account has used to repost hundreds of explicit images But Youngkin is not an early frontrunner when it comes to the 2028 race. Instead, Republicans seem to prefer the likes of VP JD Vance or the President's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, to take over Trump's political legacy, polls show. In an interview with NBC News on Sunday, Trump named Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as his potential replacements. Reid is the first openly gay candidate for statewide office in Virginia. Youngkin is unable to run for a second consecutive term for governor under Virginia law. His Republican lieutenant governor Winsome Earle-Sears is running to be the next leader of the commonwealth. 'The Governor was made aware late Thursday of the disturbing online content,' Youngkin's Spirit of Virginia PAC wrote in a statement. 'Friday morning, in a call with Mr Reid, the Governor asked him to step down as the Lt Governor nominee.' Reid was connected to explicit posts on a Tumblr account with the handle 'jrdeux', which the candidate has used on other social media sites like Instagram and Threads. Reid's husband, Alonzo Mable, has tagged his spouse in social media posts using the 'jrdeux' moniker. The Tumblr account includes a litany of gay pornographic images and kinks. The former radio host says that Youngkin's political operation is threatening him with further damaging information in an effort of hurting his chances at election to be Virginia's next lieutenant governor. 'I can tell you that's not my account,' Reid said in a five-minute video posted on X last week addressing the controversy. In the clip, Reid notes he was approached by individuals who warned him the account could be damaging to his campaign. 'I demanded to see the evidence, and someone created a social media account with my Instagram name, a name, which I've had for years, but this fake account reposted nude pictures of other people, models, and porn models,' he says. 'That's not my account, and anyone on the Internet can open accounts with the same or similar names as other people.'
Daily Mail
04-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Trump's presidential 'heir' plunged into gay scandal
Virginia Republicans were plunged into scandal after their candidate for lieutenant governor was revealed to allegedly be running a social media account where he posted images of nude men. Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Friday asked Republican nominee for lieutenant governor John Reid to drop out of the race. But Reid, who is gay and married, refused to cave to a week of pressure to step aside. Reid maintains he was not connected to the photos and claims they are an extortion tactic related to what he says are efforts to remove him from the Republican ticket because of his sexual orientation. The controversy could hurt Youngkin in his future political endeavors. Under Virginia law, Youngkin cannot run for a second consecutive gubernatorial term in the commonwealth. Many feel that instead, he could launch a 2028 presidential bid as President Donald Trump completes his second term. But Youngkin is far from an early frontrunner when it comes to the 2028 primary race. Instead, Republicans appear to prefer the likes of Vice President J.D. Vance or the president's eldest son Donald Trump Jr. to be the heir to the Trump political legacy, according to multiple polls. In a Sunday interview with NBC News, Trump named Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as potential figures to continue his MAGA agenda. Once leaders within Virginia's GOP became aware of the explicit photos and Reid's social media activity, they tried to force him out of the race. But these efforts appeared to backfire in some cases. For example, Matt Moran, who ran Youngkin's Spirit of Virginia PAC, stepped aside when he was accused of pressuring Reid to remove himself from the GOP ticket. Moran has publicly denied he pushed Reid to step aside. Reid is the first openly gay candidate for statewide office in Virginia. Youngkin cannot run for a second consecutive term for governor under Virginia law. His Republican lieutenant governor Winsome Earle-Sears is running to be the next leader of the commonwealth. 'The Governor was made aware late Thursday of the disturbing online content,' Youngkin's Spirit of Virginia PAC wrote in a statement. 'Friday morning, in a call with Mr. Reid, the Governor asked him to step down as the Lt. Governor nominee.' Moran did not say if he would campaign on behalf of Reid, but told Politico that he will 'support the nominees and their ticket.' 'At the end of the day, Republicans need to win. And that's the bottom line,' Moran said. Reid was connected to explicit posts on a Tumblr account with the handle 'jrdeux', which the candidate has used on other social media sites like Instagram and Threads. Reid's husband, Alonzo Mable, has tagged his spouse in social media posts using the 'jrdeux' moniker. The Tumblr account includes a litany of gay pornographic images and kinks. The former radio host says that Youngkin's political operation is threatening him with further damaging information in an effort of hurting his chances at election to be Virginia's next lieutenant governor. 'I can tell you that's not my account,' Reid said in a five-minute video posted on X last week addressing the controversy. In the clip, Reid notes how he was approached by individuals who warned him the account could be damaging to his campaign. 'I demanded to see the evidence, and someone created a social media account with my instagram name, a name, which I've had for years, but this fake account reposted nude pictures of other people, models and porn models,' he says. 'I can tell you, that's not my account, and anyone on the internet can open accounts with the same or similar names as other people.'
