Election 2019: Va. House speaker in fight in redrawn district

RICHMOND — Republican House Speaker Kirk Cox, running for reelection in a district radically altered by a court decision, unleashed a sharply negative ad this week that his opponent says twists her stance on police in schools.

The ad quotes a snippet from a two-year-old radio interview to suggest that Democrat Sheila Bynum-Coleman wants police removed from schools.

Bynum-Coleman, the daughter of a former Richmond police officer, was clear in the interview that she wants police at schools to ensure safety but doesn’t think they should handle minor disciplinary matters.

The ad represents a departure from Cox’s mostly upbeat messaging, suggesting that the speaker is feeling pressure from his underdog challenger in a pivotal election year, with all 140 House and Senate seats on the ballot and Republicans defending razor-thin majorities in both chambers.

Cox is running for a seat he has held for a generation but he’s in unfamiliar territory: As a remedy to racial gerrymandering, a federal court ordered more than two dozen House districts redrawn. The speaker’s district, a suburban-rural mix just south of Richmond, became significantly less white and less Republican.




https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/out-with-the-moon-bounce-in-with-the-attack-ads-vas-gop-house-speaker-in-a-fight-in-redrawn-district/2019/10/11/d742c3d8-ec3f-11e9-9c6d-436a0df4f31d_story.html