Republican Ed Gillespie, who is running for Virginia governor in 2017, carefully avoided taking sides in his party’s divisive presidential nomination contest — until now.
On Wednesday, with just one contender left standing, Gillespie said he would vote for Donald Trump.
Gillespie’s statement carries some risk in Virginia, where the political strategist and former Republican National Committee chairman will have to appeal to swing voters if he is to win the governor’s mansion. Polls show Hillary Clinton easily trouncing Trump in the purple state.
Gillespie kept it short. He offered a one-sentence statement in response to requests from reporters, in a tone that sounded resigned at best. And he suggested that he was weighing the fate of the Supreme Court as much as the impact of a comparatively fleeting presidential term.
“Republican voters have nominated Donald Trump for president,” Gillespie said, “and I will vote for him against Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, in an election that will not only affect control of the White House but the U.S. Supreme Court for a generation or more.”
Another Republican running for Virginia governor, U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman, also issued a statement indicating that he would support Trump. He managed to do so without ever using the word “Trump.”
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