That, he said, is why he’s supporting Democrat Terry McAuliffe over Republican Ken Cuccinelli in this year’s governor’s race.

Chichester and several other Republicans formally endorsed McAuliffe at a morning press conference in Richmond today.

They join other Republicans who are outspoken about their belief that Cuccinelli is too far to the right, and feel they’re becoming the GOP’s moderates as the party becomes more conservative.

“I’m looking forward to the time our party nominates someone I can support that is in mainstream Republican thinking,” Chichester said.

He was joined at the press conference by Republican former delegates Vince Callahan and Katherine Waddell, and by Judy Ford Wason, who backed Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell in 2009. Former Sen. Russ Potts and former Del. Jim Dillard are also part of the “Virginians for McAuliffe” group.

Chichester said he and McAuliffe had a “heart to heart” talk, and that McAuliffe “gets it.”

“It,” for Chichester, the former Senate Finance chairman, is an understanding that a governor has only four years to govern but those four years include two budget cycles with “horizons that go much beyond those four years.”

This is not the first time Chichester — and some of the others — have backed Democratic candidates over conservative Republicans. Chichester supported former state Sen. Edd Houck in 2011, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds in 2009, and Sen. Mark Warner in 2008.

The McAuliffe campaign is touting “Virginians for McAuliffe” as a “bipartisan coalition of supporters committed to electing a governor with mainstream solutions to the issues Virginians care about.” The group is holding a launch event in Richmond Monday morning.

Chichester, from Stafford, was the 28th state Senate district’s senator from 1978 to 2008. He served as chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

His endorsement of a Democrat isn’t that surprising — he also backed Democrat Edd Houck in 2011′s state Senate race against Sen. Bryce Reeves, endorsed Democrat Creigh Deeds in the 2009 governor’s race and cut an ad for Sen. Mark Warner in the 2008 Senate race.

Former Sen. Russ Potts will also join the group in backing McAuliffe. Former Republican delegates Jim Dillard, Vince Callahan and Katherine Waddell are also in the group.

The party’s voters nominated state Sen. Ralph Northam as their lieutenant governor candidate and state Sen. Mark Herring as their attorney general candidate in Tuesday’s primary elections. They join gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe as the party’s statewide ticket. All three, along with the two statewide candidates who lost Tuesday, appeared at a morning rally in Richmond on Tuesday.

There, they promised to run on an agenda focused on job creation and economic improvement, and accused their Republican rivals of being the “Tea Party ticket.”

“Their vision is way outside the mainstream” of Virginia, Herring said of the Republican ticket.

Referring to some controversial statements by Republican lieutenant governor candidate E.W. Jackson, Herring said his opponent, Mark Obenshain, is no more moderate.

“Mark Obenshain votes like E.W. Jackson talks,” he said.

It was McAuliffe who referred multiple times to “the Tea Party ticket” across the aisle.

“The Tea Party ticket focuses on issues that divide Virginians,” he said. “The Tea Party ticket views bipartisanship as betrayal.”

McAuliffe said Democrats back equal pay for women and protections for women’s health care access. The election, he said, is about creating jobs, especially given the future problems that could be created by sequestration and other federal budget cuts.

Republicans jabbed back by releasing audio of Democratic state Sen. Dick Saslaw on a conservative radio talk show urging McAuliffe to accept more debates with Cuccinelli. Cuccinelli has pushed for 15 — far more than is typical in a statewide race — all around the state, while McAuliffe says he has agreed to five. It was unclear from the audio whether the host was asking Saslaw about the Virginia Bar Association debate specifically — Cuccinelli’s campaign says they’ve accepted that debate and its rules but that McAuliffe doesn’t want the candidates to question each other — or more broadly about Cuccinelli’s 15-debate challenge. The audio and transcript do show that Saslaw agrees McAuliffe should be more open to debates and willing to answer questions.

“Terry does very well in a debate and I think that he would do quite well if he met him head on,” Saslaw said. “I think it’s a big mistake not to do that, and I would agree with you. Um, I don’t know the reasoning behind that, but, the advice I would give to him is go ahead and have a free and open debate.”

Republicans held a conference call with several party members — including Spotsylvania state Sen. Bryce Reeves and Louisa state Sen. Tom Garrett– in which they criticized the tax votes of the Democratic ticket and also called on McAuliffe to accept more debates.

“If you can’t answer the questions how are you going to be able to do the job?” Reeves said. “This isn’t just a media campaign, people in Virginia respond” to directly seeing candidates, he added.

The Republicans on the conference call were dismissive of Democrats’ efforts to paint the GOP ticket as out-of-touch because the three candidates are aligned with Tea Party positions.

In other news on the governor’s race, Democrats on Wednesday distributed a statement from former attorney general Mary Sue Terry, a Democrat, in which she criticized the involvement of an assistant attorney general in Cuccinelli’s office in a lawsuit over coal bed methane rights in Southwest Virginia.

Late last week a judge said she was “shocked” at emails from that assistant to two coal companies who are in a court battle with landowners who say they’re owed royalty money from the companies’ extraction of the gas. The judge was surprised that the emails appeared to show the state attorney assisting EQT Production Co. and CNX, the two energy companies involved in the lawsuit. The attorney, Sharon Pigeon, advises the Virginia Gas and Oil Board, and Cuccinelli said she was simply doing her job of defending the state’s Virginia Gas and Oil Act. He issued a lengthy statement on the matter earlier this week, after state Sen. Phillip Puckett, D-Russell, called for an investigation by the inspector general into whether the Attorney General’s office had violated any legal or ethical rules.

“The senior assistant attorney general did communicate with attorneys for the gas companies about the interpretation of the Gas and Oil Act because they shared a common interest with the commonwealth in protecting the law. The gas companies were using the law as their defense in the case, claiming they were following the law when they paid royalties to the property owners,” Cuccinelli said in his statement earlier in the week. “As long as there is the potential for the Virginia Gas and Oil Act to be attacked again (and the plaintiffs’ attorneys continue to challenge the act), sharing information with the attorneys from the gas companies to help uphold the constitutionality of Virginia law is an appropriate practice under the law and is something we are compelled to do to fully represent the interests the people of the commonwealth.”

Today, Terry — who was attorney general from 1986 to 1993, when she resigned to run for governor against George Allen — said Cuccinelli might have a conflict of interest because he accepted political donations from Consol Energy, parent company of CNX. Terry said in a statement that when she ran for re-election, she was very careful about not accepting donations from anyone who might have business before her office.

“In my opinion, the Attorney General should have never accepted $85,000 in contributions from the energy companies because of the potential of conflict of interest or the appearance of the same,” Terry said in her statement. “I ran for a second term as Attorney General and raised a good deal of money. We had systems in the office for ensuring that no contributor had business before the Office and I’m sure there were occasions where we declined contributions. It was and is vitally important that the Attorney General and the Office of the Attorney General serve the law, and only the law, within the boundaries of the Mission of the Office. I continue to be astonished at the number of occasions in which the Office has been used by this Attorney General in pursuit of his own personal mission.”

She also said she thought the assistant attorney general’s help to the gas companies in the lawsuit was “totally  inappropriate” and would not have happened during her own tenure as attorney general.

“I want to congratulate Senator Ralph Northam on his victory tonight in the Democratic Primary. Senator Northam and his staff should be proud of their campaign. While this was not the result that we hoped for tonight — I look forward to coming together to ensure the Democratic ticket wins a clean sweep in November. The work to bring fairness, equality, and opportunity to Virginia continues.”

9:05: Howell just issued a statement on the May/Sherwood losses:

Speaker Howell just issued a statement:

Virginia House of Delegates Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford) released the following statement on the results of the 29th and 33rd District primaries:

“For the last 20 years, Joe May and Beverly Sherwood have been a valued public servants, effective legislators and true leaders who have tirelessly served the people of their districts and the Commonwealth with integrity and dedication.

 ”They have worked for their constituents on key issues like economic development, transportation, education, agriculture and public safety. Joe and Bev have both been friends to me for the last 20 years. Like many others, I have seen first-hand how their expertise and knowledge on these issues have helped move the Commonwealth forward.

 ”On behalf of the entire House of Delegates, I would like to thank Joe and Beverly for their service to the people of Virginia and wish him them the very best in their future endeavors.

 ”David LaRock and Mark Berg have won the support of the Republican voters in their districts. Let me be the first to congratulate David and Mark on their victories. We look forward to their elections in November and know that they will be valuable members of the House of Delegates.”

 9: Sen. Ralph Northam wins the Democratic lieutenant governor’s race; rival Aneesh Chopra just congratulated him via Twitter on his victory: “Congratulations to Senator @RalphNortham on his victory tonight. I’m looking forward to working together to win in November”

Also, two incumbent House delegates from other districts — Del. Joe May of Loudoun and Del. Beverly Sherwood of Winchester — have lost their House races to challengers. In both races, the challenger made an issue of the incumbents’ support for the transportation reform bill.

8:48: The SBE, in a press release, officially acknowledged technical problems. Apparently they’ve got the data, the problems are getting it online. In the meantime, while VPAP isn’t up either, they’re at least tweeting out some updates from SBE numbers.

Thus, the latest from the VPAP Twitter feed in the two statewide Democratic races:

In the attorney general race: SBE reporting with 90.6 % precincts reporting, Herring 51.5%, Fairfax 48.5%

In the lieutenant governor race: SBE reporting with 90.8 % precincts reporting, Northam 54%, Chopra 46%

8:37: According to VPAP’s Twitter feed (@vpapupdates), with 83% percent of vote in, AG race appears to be narrowing. Herring 51% Fairfax 49%. In the LG race, Northam’s lead has widened slightly – 53.55 % of vote vs. Chopra 46.45.

8:32: While SBE and VPAP are both now officially broken (VPAP says it’s adding bandwidth and to stop hitting refresh please), the AP has officially called the 28th House Race for Speaker Bill Howell. As noted below, he had better than 90 percent of the vote in the last numbers we saw.

8:13: The State Board of Elections’ website doesn’t seem to be updating as it should be, so we’re getting numbers from VPAP, which now seems to be hitting the overload point on its servers.

But, as of the last time I was able to see numbers a few minutes ago, Northam was leading Chopra, 52% to 48% with 58 percent of precincts reporting.

In the attorney general race, Herring was leading Fairfax,  52% to 48%, with 68% of precincts reporting.

In the 54th House race, with 75 percent of the vote in, Orrock was at 55%  to Curtis’ 45%.

In the 28th House race, with 19 out of 23 percents (83 percent), Howell  had 92 percent of the vote to Ennis’ 8 percent. I’m not authorized to call a race or anything but I think you can draw your own conclusions on that one.

7:52: With 52 percent of precincts reporting, House Speaker Bill Howell, R-Stafford, is leading with 92.5 percent of the vote to Craig Ennis’ 7.5 percent.

In the 54th House district, things look closer for now. With 25 percent of the precincts reporting, Del. Bobby Orrock has 53 percent to Dustin Curtis’ 47 percent.

7:43: Not many numbers yet. Vpap.org has some, currently showing Ralph Northam slightly ahead of Aneesh Chopra in the Democratic lieutenant governor’s race. (51 percent to 49 percent with 30 percent of results in). Vpap is also showing Mark Herring a bit ahead of Justin Fairfax in the Democratic attorney general’s race (53 percent to 47 percent).

7:20: Polls for today’s Democratic and Republican primaries closed about 20 minutes ago. We’ll post updates here as the numbers come in, both for the two Democratic statewide races (attorney general and lieutenant governor) and the two House Republican nomination races in the Fredericksburg area (Speaker Bill Howell vs. Craig Ennis, and Del. Bobby Orrock vs. Dustin Curtis).

The State Board of Elections also posts real-time updates at sbe.state.va.us, as will vpap.org.

Above, Del. Bobby Orrock talks to voters outside the polling place at Courtland Elementary School in Spotsylvania County.

Voters are turning out for today’s primary, although not in droves.

Primaries are typically low-turnout and, at least anecdotally, today’s primaries are not seeing a huge number of voters.

Statewide voters can vote in the Democratic primary, to choose candidates for lieutenant governor and attorney general. Or, in some localities, they can choose instead to vote in Republican House primaries.

In the Fredericksburg area, there are two Republican primaries — the 28th House District, in Stafford, and the 54th House District, in parts of Spotsylvania and Caroline counties.

The 54th House race pits incumbent Del. Bobby Orrock against challenger Dustin Curtis.

Orrock said he has spent the day touring precincts in the district. Around 1:30 he was at Courtland Elementary School, greeting the trickle of voters coming in. At the driveway, signs for and against Orrock were stuck into the grass, but no signs for the statewide Democratic candidates could be seen.

Orrock said he’s just out “greeting folks, excellent response, talking over some issues.”

He said turnout has been “very low,” adding that about 130, 140 voters had voted at Courtland by that point.

Orrock said he spent three hours at the Brock Road precinct in the morning and that he felt most voters who came there were voting in the House primary, not the Democratic one. He said 120 voters had voted at Brock Road by 1:30.

If we catch up with his opponent, Curtis, today we’ll update this post.

Spotsylvania County registrar Kellie Acors said it has been a slow day. One precinct that’s not in the 54th, she said, had only 13 voters as of midafternoon. She said she’s hearing of higher turnout in precincts that are in the 54th district.

Danette Moen, registrar in Caroline County, said she’s seen a slow day as well, but did hear anecdotally that turnout was higher in the one county precinct that is in the 54th House district.

In parts of Stafford County, voters can choose the Republican primary to vote in the 28th House district between House Speaker Bill Howell and challenger Craig Ennis. Registrar Greg Riddlemoser said he doesn’t ask his precincts to report turnout during the day.

The polls close at 7 p.m. tonight. Results should start coming in shortly thereafter — you can track those results online at sbe.state.va.us or at vpap.org.

Campaign finance data posted online at the Virginia Public Access Project shows that Howell’s Commonwealth Transportation PAC has made $31,707 in cash or in-kind contributions.

He has give $10,000 to Del. Joe May of Loudoun, who’s in a high-profile primary against challenger David LaRock. Another $10,000 has gone to Del. Tag Greason. Greason doesn’t have a primary opponent, but he does have a Democratic opponent for November’s election. That’s also the case with Del. David Yancey, who received $5,000 from the PAC.

Del. Bobby Orrock, R-Caroline, and Del. Beverly Sherwood, R-Winchester, are both being challenged in Tuesday’s primary over their votes for the transportation bill. They didn’t receive cash donations from Howell’s transportation PAC — at least, not through the end of May — but both received in-kind contributions. Sherwood received help with voter contact calls worth $3,494. Orrock got the same help, worth $1,151. And Howell’s PAC gave $2,061 worth of voter calls to his own delegate campaign. Howell has a primary opponent himself, Craig Ennis, who has said the transportation bill is one of the reasons he wants to defeat Howell.

In an interview when he set up the PAC, Howell said he created a specific PAC to entice donations from people whose interest was primarily the transportation bill, and who might otherwise not be comfortable donating to his other, more general PAC fund.

Bolling announced today that his newly-formed Virginia Mainstream Project is endorsing Orrock, House Speaker Bill Howell, Del. Joe May, Del. Beverly Sherwood and Del. Todd Gilbert. All but Gilbert had voted for the transportation reform bill in the 2013 legislative session.

Bolling has also made a radio ad for Orrock, which is playing on several Fredericksburg radio stations. You can listen to it here. In it, Bolling says he’s worked with Orrock to cut spending and “hold the line on taxes,” and urges voters to support him in Tuesday’s primary. The ad is valued as a $5,380 in-kind donation, dated June 4, in a campaign finance report from Orrock.

Orrock faces Tea Party challenger Dustin Curtis, who decided to run against Orrock because of Orrock’s vote for the transportation reform bill — pushed by Gov. Bob McDonnell and Howell — and because Orrock supported creating a legislative Medicaid reform commission to evaluate the state’s progress in getting permission to reform the Medicaid system before deciding whether to move forward with expansion of eligibility under the Affordable Care Act. The Free Lance-Star will have more on the Orrock-Curtis race in Friday’s newspaper.

May, Sherwood and Howell’s challengers have also cited the same two issues — transportation and Medicaid expansion — as reasons for their campaigns.

Bolling had sought the Republican nomination for governor before the party switched its nomination method to a convention late last year. Saying he didn’t believe he could beat now-nominee Ken Cuccinelli in a convention, Bolling dropped out of the race. Since then, he has been vocal about his belief that the Virginia GOP is becoming too ideological, too impractical and too far out of the mainstream of Virginia voters.

The Virginia Mainstream Project, a PAC Bolling announced last month, was founded to help elect moderate Republicans.

In a press release today announcing his endorsements and the radio ads for Orrock and for Sherwood, Bolling said his PAC backs candidates “who understand what it takes to govern Virginia effectively, candidates who will keep their focus on responsible public policies to control spending, create a pro-business environment in Virginia and find bi-partisan solutions to the most important issues facing our state.”

But $2 million of McAuliffe’s money came from a May 13 donation from the Democratic Governors Association, while $1 million of Cuccinelli’s cash came from a May 8 donation from the Republican Governors Association.

Including the $2 million, McAuliffe reported raising $3.7 million between April 1 and May 29, and ending the period with $5.4 million cash on hand. He spent $3.5 million.

Cuccinelli reported raising $2.15 million during the two months (including the $1 million from the RGA), ending up with $2.7 million cash on hand. He spent $2.4 million.

The DGA also made several in-kind contributions to McAuliffe — totaling more than $124,000 — and he reported about $64,000 of in-kind help from Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

Cucinelli’s in-kind contributions included $11,044 from Consol Energy.

In the lieutenant governor’s race, Republican E.W. Jackson — who wasn’t nominated out of a field of seven until near the end of the reporting period — raised $120,806, including a $25,000 loan in May from a Donald Lee Woodsmall.

A local candidate for that nomination, Susan Stimpson, reported raising $69,000 during the period, including a $25,000 loan to her campaign from the campaign account of Sen. Richard Stuart,  R-Stafford.

Among the two Democratic candidates for that office, who will face off in a primary election next week, Aneesh Chopra raised the most, reporting $522,826 in donations and $427,265 cash on hand. Ralph Northam reported bringing in $334,102, but that includes a $100,000 loan from himself to his campaign, and a $9,000 donation from his state Senate campaign account. He ended with $151,505 cash on hand.

In the attorney general’s race, state Sen. Mark Obenshain — also nominated toward the end of the reporting period — brought in $218,937 (including a $10,000 donation from Friends of Mark Obenshain) and ended with $68,132 cash on hand.

Two Democrats are contesting the nomination in next week’s primary. Justin Fairfax reported $133,392 in donations and $92,715 cash on hand. Sen. Mark Herring reported $179,962 in donations and $229,180 cash on hand.

The ad sounds like an oblique reference to Republican rival Ken Cuccinelli’s positions on social issues, and perhaps even more directly to Republican lieutenant governor candidate E.W. Jackson’s controversial comments from the past. Since Jackson’s nomination less than two weeks ago, his past statements about homosexuality, abortion and other social issues have provided Democrats a lot of fodder for criticism.

“There are some out there who are focused on a divisive, ideological agenda, and that’s just not helpful,” McAuliffe says in the new ad. “It’s taking time away from the things that Virginia families want us to be focused on. Job growth, economic development.”

You can see the ad here.

Cuccinelli’s campaign responded in a statement that said McAuliffe is “stretching the truth” and calling his record on job creation “a string of broken promises.” The statement, from Cuccinelli spokeswoman Anna Nix, refers to McAuliffe’s GreenTech car company, which located in Mississippi rather than Virginia and has yet to provide the kind of production and jobs promised. Nix also refers to questions about a wood pellet company in Franklin that McAuliffe is involved with.

There has been a lot of dispute this week about a McAuliffe ad, but it’s not this one. Instead the debate has centered over an ad McAuliffe released last week, touting his efforts to convince Democrats in the legislature to vote for Gov. Bob McDonnell’s transportation reform bill during this year’s General Assembly session.

Cuccinelli opposed the bill. Sen. Walter Stosch put out a statement responding to McAuliffe’s ad, calling it “self-puffery” and saying McAuliffe is claiming far more credit than he deserves. Stosch points out that McAuliffe — who is not a member of the legislature — had nothing to do with developing or negotiating the bill.

At the time, in February, McAuliffe did come to Richmond at least one day and media reports noted his support for the transportation bill.

In this latest question of how much or how little he was involved, various Democrats have told press outlets (such as here) that McAuliffe did lobby some on the bill, although it isn’t certain whether his efforts made a material difference in the bill’s passage and some Democratic legislators said he never called them.

Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, a rival of Cuccinelli’s, told a Washington D.C. TV station yesterday that during the transportation debate, McAuliffe was indeed an ally, calling Democrats to urge support.

Republican lieutenant governor candidate E.W. Jackson says those who are criticizing him for comments on gays, abortion and Planned Parenthood are also attacking other Christians who agree with him.

Within minutes of Jackson’s nomination at the Republican convention Saturday night, Democrats began publicizing videos of his more controversial comments in recent years.

Those comments include statements that gay people are  ”very sick people” and said that Planned Parenthood has been more dangerous to black people than the KKK.

Asked about those comments at a rally in Fredericksburg today, Jackson said he stands by them, but that they don’t paint the full picture of who he is.

He said those criticizing him aren’t putting his comments in the context of his faith, and suggested that such criticism is an attacks on Christian beliefs that homosexuality and abortion are sins.

“I think that it’s incumbent upon people to understand the values that emanate from folks,” Jackson said. “I say the things I say because I’m a Christian. It’s not because I hate anybody. But because I have religious values that matter to me. So attacking me because I adhere to those principles is attacking every churchgoing person, every family that’s living a traditional family life, everybody that believes we all deserve to live. I don’t have anything to rephrase or apologize for. People should not paint me as one dimensional. I have a whole lot of concerns.”

Those other concerns, he said, include the economic message being touted by gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli.

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