Primary day

Virginia residents are expected to stay away from the polls in droves during Tuesday's rare off-year state legislative primaries during the dog-day vacation season of August. Candidates will square off in 16 primaries including nine in Northern Virginia.

A handful of intraparty nomination fights, particularly in some state Senate battleground districts, will set the roster for November general elections with total GOP control of state government and a rightward shift in state policy at stake.

For Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican takeover would give him the chance to enact the sweeping conservative social and fiscal reforms during his last two years in office he pledged as a candidate in 2009.

Already, McDonnell's Opportunity Virginia political action committee made large contributions to Republicans in races he considers critical. From July 1 to Aug. 10, he gave Republican Senate candidates Mickey Chohany, Adam Light and Bryce Reeves $50,000 apiece and gave Bill Stanley $58,000 for his marquee bid to unseat incumbent Democrat Roscoe Reynolds.

"I'm going to invest in those races I think we can win," McDonnell said in an Associated Press interview last week. "Things will continue to evolve and develop as candidates hit their stride."

The results will be critical for the Republicans' quest for a net gain of two seats in the 40-member state Senate, effectively ending four years of Democratic rule of the chamber. Republicans hold seven primaries Tuesday for Senate seats while Democrats will hold two.

Control is not an issue in the House where Republicans hold 59 of the 100 seats, not counting two conservative independents who caucus with them. Democrats control 39 seats.

With low turnouts likely, predicting winners is often difficult, and those most likely to vote are hardcore ideologues from both parties, possibly yielding some nominees too far out of the mainstream to be viable in the fall elections, said Robert D. Holsworth, a retired political scientist who now edits Virginia Today, a political blog.

Nor has a compelling theme or issue galvanized Virginia's electorate in this year's legislative contests, Holsworth said. "This doesn't appear to be a big message year," Holsworth said. "A lot of challengers that people thought would emerge from the tea party did not materialize on the Republican side. So the turnout might be so low that the primary may not have much of a broad meaning."

But the campaigns have not been without sizzle on either side.

In Senate contests, the Republicans feature a five-way free-for-all for an open Senate seat that stretches from Lynchburg nearly to Richmond, a former delegate and outspoken abortion opponent who dismayed his own party's leadership nine years ago by sending them plastic fetus dolls, and ousted state party chairman Jeff Frederick taking on Colombian immigrant and contractor Tito Munoz for a seat from Prince William.

In the GOP Senate primary for Va-22, the conservative political blog Bearing Drift noted that

the two frontrunners are Mark Peake with significant evangelical support from Lynchburg, and Goochland attorney Bryan Rhode, who I have to admit has run one of the better campaigns I have seen in this part of Virginia. Despite Garrett's support from among the Tea Party, two factors are killing him at the moment: (1) the "Tom doesn't live in the district" mantra, and (2) his lack of support for [U.S. Senate candidate George] Allen. Simple as that - and folks are repeating it . . . The good news is that we have five good candidates in VA-22 State Senate. The bad news? They're all so closely aligned to one another's politics that the hair splitting creates the gossip and nastiness in the race.

The most rancorous race is between Democrats Barbara Favola, an Arlington County supervisor, and corporate lawyer Jaime Areizaga-Soto. The winner will attempt to keep retiring Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple's seat in Democratic hands.

Areizaga-Soto accused Favola, who has deep connections in the local Democratic establishment, of taking campaign contributions from companies with issues pending before the county board, a claim Favola fervently denies.

Favola conducted polling in which those who were surveyed by telephone were falsely told Areizaga-Soto is a Republican. The poll was discontinued and the misinformation described as a mistake.

The tone has gotten so angry that some Democrats fret that it has opened wounds that can't be healed by November, giving the Republicans a boost in a heavily Democratic suburban Washington district.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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