Perriello to Challenge Northam for Democratic Nomination

Former Rep. Tom Per­ri­ello (D) an­nounced Thursday he will run to suc­ceed Gov. Terry McAul­iffe (D) in 2017.

Per­ri­ello: “I’m run­ning for Gov­ernor of Vir­gin­ia be­cause our state must be a fire­wall against hate, cor­rup­tion and an as­sault on the Vir­gin­ia val­ues of de­cency and pro­gress. That is a wall worth build­ing!”

Per­ri­ello prom­ised if elec­ted he would “block … rad­ic­al re­dis­trict­ing” and “de­mand bet­ter wages, more time with fam­ily, paid fam­ily leave and bet­ter, more af­ford­able edu­ca­tion.” (re­lease)

Per­ri­ello will cam­paign in Dan­ville, Char­lottes­ville, Ar­ling­ton, and Al­ex­an­dria today. (re­lease)

BIG PIC­TURE. Spokes­men for McAul­iffe and Sens. Tim Kaine (D) and Mark Warner (D) re­it­er­ated their sup­port for Lt. Gov. Ral­ph Northam (D), for whom “[m]uch of the state’s Demo­crat­ic lead­er­ship is already lined up.”

“A run by … Per­ri­ello will ex­pose the ten­sions between the mod­er­ate and pro­gress­ive wings of the Demo­crat­ic Party in Vir­gin­ia, which is in­creas­ingly dom­in­ant in a once-con­ser­vat­ive state.” (New York Times)

“After win­ning the sprawl­ing, Char­lottes­ville-centered 5th Dis­trict in 2008, Per­ri­ello was closely al­lied with Pres­id­ent Barack Obama due to his un­apo­lo­get­ic em­brace of Obama’s sig­na­ture health care over­haul des­pite the dangers it posed in a Re­pub­lic­an-lean­ing dis­trict. Per­ri­ello served just one term in Con­gress be­fore los­ing the seat to Re­pub­lic­an Robert Hurt in the tea party wave of 2010. … After Con­gress, Per­ri­ello worked as pres­id­ent of the pro­gress­ive Cen­ter for Amer­ic­an Pro­gress Ac­tion Fund. In 2015, the Obama ad­min­is­tra­tion ap­poin­ted him as a spe­cial en­voy to Africa.” (Rich­mond Times-Dis­patch)

“Per­ri­ello once praised the NRA as the ‘epi­tome of people-powered polit­ics’ and op­posed tax­pay­er-fun­ded abor­tion.” (Na­tion­al Journ­al)

BRING IN THE BIG GUNS. Prince Wil­li­am County Board of Su­per­visors Chair­man Corey Stew­art (D) on Thursday an­nounced he has hired Vin­cent Har­ris, Rory Mc­Shane, Tim Ber­tram, and Jessie Mar­kell — all of of Har­ris Me­dia — to run di­git­al me­dia for his cam­paign. They have pre­vi­ously worked for former state At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Ken Cuc­cinelli (D); Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Rob Port­man (R-OH); and Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Net­an­yahu. (re­lease)