WASHINGTON _ Former U.S. Rep. Scott Taylor announced Monday he will challenge Virginia Sen. Mark Warner for his seat in 2020.
Taylor released a campaign launch video on YouTube on Monday highlighting his upbringing in a single-parent home, his rough pre-adolescent years, his career as a Navy SEAL and his experience as a lawmaker in Virginia and the U.S. House.
"We have a leadership crisis in Virginia," Taylor said Monday on Fox News morning show "Fox & Friends," echoing a talking point in his campaign announcement video. "We need a fresh start in the Senate."
Taylor, a one-term Republican from Virginia's 2nd District, lost to Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria in the 2018 midterms, amid an investigation by a special prosecutor assigned to investigate claims of election fraud by aides on his campaign team.
The commonwealth's special prosecutor, Don Caldwell, indicted one of those Taylor staffers in May, and he said at the time that his investigation remains ongoing "due primarily to the lack of cooperation of key individuals."
Taylor's announcement video was largely devoid of political statements, though he did briefly allude to scandals involving sexual assault and racism allegations surrounding the top three Democrats in Virginia state politics: Gov. Ralph Northam, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax and Attorney General Mark Herring.
Instead of politics, Taylor focused most of his attention on conveying his personal background, though he did not mention the ongoing investigation into his 2018 reelection campaign.
Warner is a political institution in Virginia. He was governor of the commonwealth from 2002 to 2006 and won election to the Senate in 2008. He is the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee that has investigated President Donald Trump's ties to foreign countries, including Russia during the 2016 presidential election.
Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the 2020 Virginia Senate race Solid Democratic.
Taylor seems to know a Republican challenge to Warner is a long shot, should he emerge from the GOP primary to face off against the third-term incumbent.
"No matter what pundits or polls predict, this race is on and all bets are off, because we need a change in Washington and that starts with what will be a stunning upset of Mark Warner in 2020," Taylor said in a Facebook post Monday. "I wouldn't be in this race if I didn't know it was possible."
Taylor lost his reelection bid in Virginia's 2nd District to Luria by 2.2 percentage points, and he later blamed that defeat on negative coverage stemming from the signature forgery controversy.
"Given the positive polling before the petition issue came to light and the close loss we suffered on Election Day, it is clear the millions spent by the dishonest Democrats (promoting negative press coverage) impacted the outcome of the race," he said in May.
Taylor has said since the controversy first surfaced that he did not know his campaign staff had allegedly forged the signatures of dozens _ possibly hundreds _ of people in Virginia's 2nd District to help ex-Democrat Shaun Brown get her name on the 2018 ballot as an independent in order to siphon off votes from Luria in the hotly contested race.
Investigators later learned that Taylor had been involved in the effort to get Brown on the ballot, but they have not found any evidence that the ex-congressman directed his subordinates to commit election fraud to achieve that goal.
