Virginia GOPs gay-porn disaster a lesson to Republicans: primaries matter

Don’t blame President Donald Trump for the setback Republicans are facing this November.Ahead of next year’s congressional midterms, the first big test of the GOP’s strength since Trump returned to office comes this fall in New Jersey and Virginia.While Republicans always expect an uphill battle in New Jersey, Virginia ought to be favorable territory — after all, the GOP won every statewide office there just four years ago with Glenn Youngkin atop the ticket.But it’s Youngkin and company, not Trump, who are on the verge of forfeiting Virginia to the Democrats this year.What went wrong is a tale of botched succession and inadequate intra-party competition.Republicans nationwide need to pay heed to the Virginia party’s self-immolation.The big story isn’t the sex scandal engulfing the GOP’s openly gay candidate for lieutenant governor, John Reid.It’s not even the role Youngkin and the head of his Spirit of Virginia PAC — who’s since had to resign — played in promoting the scandal in a botched effort to force Reid to drop out.Sex and betrayal make great headlines, but the lieutenant governor’s race — and Reid’s apparent dalliances with drag queens and pornography — is a sideshow: The race that matters most is for governor.With term limits preventing Youngkin from succeeding himself, his lieutenant governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, expected to get her turn at the top of the ticket.And she has: The primary isn’t until next month, but because Earle-Sears’ challengers dropped out before the deadline to appear on the ballot, she’s the default nominee.In fact, there’s no primary competition for any statewide office, although a challenger to Reid who gave up earlier, businessman John Curran, is now attempting a write-in campaign.Republicans in Virginia, like those in many other places, think competition is a fine thing except when it comes to their own races.And the major factions of the party, which until recently were the Christian right ...