Head of Virginia GOP is moving on

RICHMOND, VA. >> John Whitbeck resigned Saturday as chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, weeks after Corey Stewart won the party’s nomination to take on Democrat Sen. Tim Kaine in the November election.

“Other political opportunities have arisen for me that I am thinking about pursuing,” he told members of the party’s governing board at a meeting. He did not elaborate.

Whitbeck has presided over a particularly dismal stretch for Virginia Republicans, who lost all three statewide offices last year and saw their overwhelming majority in the House of Delegates dwindle to the narrowest possible margin.

Virginia also is the only Southern state Donald Trump lost in 2016 presidential election, and the last statewide election Republicans won was 2009, when Robert McDonnell was elected governor.

Despite electoral losses, fellow Republicans credit Whitbeck with pulling the party out of debt and acting as a stabilizing force after a succession of chairmen came and went during the 2000s.

There is speculation Whitbeck does not want to spend the next four months answering for Stewart, who is known for provocative campaign antics and likes to say he was “Trump before Trump was Trump.”

Stewart, who narrowly lost the GOP nomination for governor in June after attacking illegal immigration and calling for protection of what he called “Confederate heritage,” has promised a “ruthless” and “vicious” campaign against Kaine.

A recent Quinnipiac University survey found that Kaine leads Stewart by 18 points, with 54 percent of voters supporting the Democrat while 36 percent backed Stewart.

Asked if he would vote for Stewart, Whitbeck said, “The party supports all nominees.”

In the days after Stewart’s primary win, two party leaders resigned, but neither would say why.

Kevin Gentry, the vice president for special projects and development at Koch Cos., left his position on the executive committee of the party’s governing board, and Davis Rennolds stepped down as chair of the Richmond GOP.

The Koch-funded group Americans for Prosperity has said it will not support Stewart’s campaign.

Whitbeck took over as chairman, an unpaid position, in January 2015 when the party was in financial debt and deeply divided over Dave Brat’s defeat of then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.