WASHINGTON _ State Delegate Nick Freitas has won the GOP nomination to take on Rep. Abigail Spanberger in Virginia's 7th District, a battleground that went Democratic in 2018.
Freitas beat five competitors, including fellow delegate and veteran John McGuire, on the third ballot at a party convention, The Richmond Times Dispatch reported. Republican Rep. Denver Riggleman, who lost his party's nomination for another term at a 5th District convention last month, congratulated Freitas on Twitter, saying the Congress needs "strong free market conservatives like him!"
In a field of political newcomers who struggled to raise money during the coronavirus pandemic, Freitas and McGuire benefited from their networks and name recognition as state lawmakers.
Freitas has served in the state legislature since 2016 and ran for U.S. Senate in 2018, narrowly losing the GOP nomination to Corey Stewart.
He was the lead fundraiser in the Republican race, pulling in $1 million, and had $350,000 left on June 28.
Freitas led in endorsements, which can carry more weight in conventions when delegates are looking for signs of support from party leaders. He was endorsed by the Club for Growth and the anti-tax group and the affiliated Club for Growth Action spent more than $295,000 mailings, digital ads, phone banking and get-out-the-vote efforts in the field. He was also endorsed by former GOP Rep. Dave Brat, a tea party activist who was ousted by Spanberger in 2018.
A former Green Beret who served two tours in Iraq, Freitas has a reputation as a staunch libertarian in the statehouse. He focused on Spanberger's House voting record during the last weeks of his campaign, saying that she could no longer pitch herself as a moderate because she had voted the same way as other House Democrats 96% of the time.
In fact, CQ Vote Watch data show Spanberger had the eighth lowest "party unity" score in the Democratic caucus since the beginning of 2019. She voted against the majority of the members of her party on 65 of the 571 votes tracked, giving her a two-year party unity score of 88.6%.
President Donald Trump won the district by 7 percentage points in 2016. Spanberger beat Brat by 2 points in 2018.
His opponents have criticized Freitas for missing a June 9 filing deadline to get his name on the November ballot, an oversight that was especially embarrassing after he made the same mistake in his 2019 race for the House of Delegates and ran as a write-in candidate. The state board of elections issued a blanket extension earlier this month to every candidate who missed the deadline.
Freitas is known for his fundraising prowess, but he enters the general election well behind Spanberger. She had $4 million in the bank at the end of June and was unchallenged in the Democratic primary. Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales rates the race Tilt Democratic.
Spanberger issued a statement early Saturday touting her ranking as one of the most bipartisan members of the House.
"No matter which candidate is nominated by Republican insiders today, my commitment to the issues that matter most to the people of Central Virginia won't change," she said.
