Election 2019: Money flowing to Virginia legislative races from both sides of gun control issue
RICHMOND — National groups on both sides of the gun control issue are pouring money into Virginia legislative races, with the NRA making an unusually large donation to a Republican leader and Everytown for Gun Safety escalating its contributions to Democrats.
Everytown’s Action Fund said Thursday morning that it was spending an additional $438,000 to help turn the Virginia legislature blue in November, on top of $135,000 in digital ad buys it announced last month. The gun-control group founded by former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has promised to spend $2.5 million this year in Virginia, where all 140 seats in the GOP-controlled state legislature are on the November ballot and the balance of power is at stake.
The announcement came two days after the National Rifle Association donated $200,000 to the political action committee of House Majority Leader Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah). That’s by far the NRA’s largest one-time contribution in Virginia in at least the past 20 years, according to the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project. The NRA has contributed a total of about $800,000 directly to candidates over that same time frame, according to VPAP.
The NRA traditionally wields power by mobilizing its network of members rather than through large donations. It also makes relatively small independent expenditures, advocating for or against candidates without going through a candidate’s campaign. So far in 2019, the NRA has reported just over $12,000 in such expenditures, according to VPAP.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/money-flowing-to-virginia-legislative-races-from-both-sides-of-gun-control-issue/2019/09/04/7971a008-cf52-11e9-8c1c-7c8ee785b855_story.html