How the far-right Virginia governor could be stopped by a loyal MAGA follower

The balance of power in the Virginia State Senate comes down to a campaign this November where a member of his own party is waging a war against the Republican Party's candidate.

Matt Strickland lost the June primary race by 14 points, but that doesn't count him out. He wants to run a write-in campaign for November," explained Virginia Scope.

"The seat is competitive and has big implications for control of the state Senate and whether or not Gov. Glenn Youngkin can fully implement his agenda," the report said.

Strickland argues that the GOP establishment has been fighting him for far too long and he is refusing to be quiet about it anymore.

“Folks have started a write-in campaign for me for state senate and delegate. I can’t take credit for the idea, but I support it,” he tweeted Monday. “The Republican Establishment accepts millions of dollars in donations from corrupt corporations just as my opponent Tara Durant did. Pfizer and Dominion Energy just to name a couple.”

The small Facebook group "The Write Matt In Initiative" appeared over the summer. It has fewer than 150 people in it, but it's a movement that could ultimately help the Democrat in the race win by splitting the GOP into establishment vs. MAGA. The group is no longer available online, the report explained.

Strickland said that the "establishment Republicans" told him after he lost he must support the GOP nominee.

“We always blindly support the Republican nominee, and they always screw us over,” Strickland said. “I will no longer blindly vote Republican. I’ll never vote for a Democrat, but I will most definitely write in a true candidate for The People [from] now on.”

Strickland isn't a fan of Gov. Glenn Youngkin either, calling the far-right lawmaker a RINO, or Republican In Name Only. It's a commonly used insult used by former President Donald Trump.

“I’m fighting the war on two different fronts: fighting Democrats and fighting these establishment Republicans in Name Only,” he said to conservative talk radio host John Fredericks in May.

Strickland isn't just the MAGA candidate, he said on Tuesday that he firmly believes that the 2020 election was "rigged. If we had free & fair elections Trump would be President right now.”

Democratic opponent Joel Griffin thinks it could be beneficial to have Strickland in the race.

State Delegate Tara “Durant barely broke 50% in Spotsylvania in her primary and a Strickland write-in campaign will be more than enough to doom her in a Biden +5, Spanberger +2 seat,” Griffin campaign manager Jeremy Levinson, told Virginia Scoop. “Joel Griffin looks forward to defending a woman’s right to choose once elected as the next state senator from the 27th state Senate district.”

Read the full report here.