Verrry interesting: “Rep. Denver Riggleman, a Republican representing Virgina’s 5th congressional district told Bloomberg’s Kevin Cirilli he is seriously considering a run for Virginia governor.” Check out a short snippet of the interview, below, in which Riggleman says:
“You know, most people want me to run statewide…I didn’t have much of a real election…I sort of got booted out of in the Dairy Queen type of scenario [in the VA05 GOP convention]…those people are like, you would have won a primary…’you’re very popular in the state, why don’t you run for governor,’ and I’m sort of considering it….Well you know, it’s tough to run as an independent, but I’m pretty independent-minded, and there’s certainly a lot of people who would ask that I run as an independent...it’s going to be a hard decision for me. You know…real Republican ideals, that’s me, but right now the Virginia Republican Party is so broken that I’ve got to make a tough decision…We shall see…I’m going to make that decision by, I don’t know, September, October, somewhere around that time.”
Of course, Riggleman isn’t nearly as “independent-minded” as he likes to claim, voting with Trump 93.8% of the time…and also FAR to the right of his district. Also, note that Riggleman’s rhetoric has been hard-right and hard-edged, such as Audio: More Looniness, Courtesy of Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA05), This Time on Impeachment, the USMCA and “Far-Left Twitter Trolls”; Audio: Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA05) Demonstrates the Depths to Which Republicans Have Sunk in Defense of Trump’s Indefensible (Riggleman rants about media, “socialism,” the “far left,” “justice Democrats.”); Audio: Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA05) Mocks AOC as a “Kid,” “Far-Left Idiot”; Says It’s Likely She’ll Be Primaried and Lose in 2020 (note – that did NOT happen!); Party Before People, Fealty Above All: Denver Riggleman and VA-05; etc. In short, so much for Riggleman being anything other than another cookie-cutter, hard-right Republican, even endorsed by “Gym” Jordan and Donald Trump. Keep all that in mind if he runs as an “independent” for Virginia governor in 2021…