UPDATE 9:18 p.m.: Prince William County chairman Corey Stewart has been eliminated in the third round of balloting for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor.

That leaves Baptist minister E.W. Jackson and entrepreneur Pete Snyder as the remaining candidates, and delegates are now off voting in their fourth and final ballot.

Jackson nearly ended things in the third ballot — he got 49.7 percent of the vote, so close to the 50 percent needed to finally win, but not close enough.

UPDATE:

Stafford supervisor Susan Stimpson was eliminated in the second round of balloting for the Republican lieutenant governor’s nomination. But her staffers say they tried to protest the vote because delegates were misled into thinking she did poorly in the first round.

In the first round of balloting, Stimpson came in second, behind E.W. Jackson. But those numbers weren’t available immediately, and when the names were initially read out, Stimpson’s name was read fourth.

According to supporters Bob Thomas and Scott Hirons, many of Stimpson’s supporters thought that meant she came in fourth in the seven-candidate field, and that she wasn’t a viable candidate. Those supporters then voted for other candidates, putting Stimpson fourth in the second, five-person round of balloting and thus out of the race. By the time the actual vote totals were announced, showing Stimpson in second place, many delegates had already voted in the second ballot.

Thomas and Hirons said Stimpson tried to protest the results of the second round of balloting before the results were announced, but to no avail.

She said on Twitter that she will not endorse any of the remaining three candidates in the third round of balloting.

Earlier:

The Virginia Republican convention is still going on at this hour, as delegates (a dwindling number; many seem to have left) are just starting their third round of voting to pick a lieutenant governor candidate.

The local candidate, Stafford County Board of Supervisors chair Susan Stimpson, came in strong on the first ballot, coming in second to surprising front-runner E.W. Jackson. But her support fell in the second round of balloting, and she has been eliminated as one of the two lowest vote-getters. The other in this round was Del. Scott Lingamfelter, who is throwing his support to Pete Snyder.

Earlier, Jeannemarie Davis and Sen. Steve Martin were eliminated as the bottom two in the first round.

In the second round, Jackson was still the front-runner, with Snyder coming second and Stewart third.

The attorney general’s race was much quicker — state Sen. Mark Obenshain won the nomination, against Del. Rob Bell.

Convention delegates are due to choose their candidates for lieutenant governor and attorney general today as well.

Cuccinelli’s nomination wasn’t in doubt, at least after Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling dropped out of the race late last year, citing the party’s switch to a convention method of nomination.

That has left Cuccinelli free to run a general election campaign aimed at his Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe.

Democrats are seeking to focus the campaign on Cuccinelli’s conservative positions and activities on social issues, particularly abortion and women’s health.

A few dozen protesters stood outside the convention hall Saturday morning, holding signs criticizing Cuccinelli for interfering in women’s reproductive choices.

Cuccinelli himself is trying to focus his message away from social issues and on an economic and social-justice agenda.

Those issues made up the bulk of the platform he outlined in his convention speech today, promising to push for streamlined and fewer government regulations, a fairer tax system, more school choice for parents, and “an active and ongoing commitment to protecting the most vulnerable in our society.”

Cuccinelli did mention his pro-life beliefs, saying he would protect the elderly and unborn as part of a “deep and abiding respect for all human life.”

He also promised to be an advocate for “the innocent who languish in prison because no one will hear their plea, and caring for Virginians who struggle with mental illness.”

He said he would defend right-to work laws, and criticized “a fad-driven energy policy that leaves Southwest Virginia behind.”

In his speech, Cuccinelli didn’t shy from going after McAuliffe, characterizing him as a Washington insider who doesn’t understand Virginia.

“I’m running for Governor because I’m well suited to fight and achieve these priorities, and I’m the only one who won’t need on-the-job training,” Cuccinelli said. “Because while my opponent knows Washington, I know Virginia.”

He questioned McAuliffe’s much-publicized decision to locate a green-technology car company in Mississippi instead of Virginia, saying that McAuliffe’s “only deep and abiding belief about Virginia is that he should be our Governor.”

Cuccinelli said Democrats will say he’s too conservative, and joked that he can’t be because he hasn’t been audited by the IRS – a reference to news this week that the IRS targeted Tea Party political groups.

He characterized his record in office as attorney general as one in which he worked to protect private property rights, stop human trafficking, and protest what he views as excessive federal government regulation and overreach.

“My record is one of fighting for the people I serve,” Cuccinelli said. “Even my detractors will tell you that what you see is what you get.”

Cuccinelli also said he wants to debate McAuliffe – not just the three or so debates that are usual in statewide races in Virginia, but debates all around the state.

“In the months ahead, the people of Virginia will have a clear choice to make between two very different visions of our future, and it’s a debate that everyone should see,” Cuccinelli said. “That’s why I want to debate my opponent in every corner of the state. Not simply joint appearances where scripted sound bites are all we are expected to deliver, but actual real, honest debates where we can have a frank discussion about the issues that are important to Virginia and let the people decide.”

While it doesn’t get too specific, the plan focuses on decreased government regulation and broader powers for the state to pursue natural energy resources like coal and offshore oil and gas. Cuccinelli cast it as a pro-jobs proposal, saying he advocates “an all-of-the-above energy strategy to enable job creators to responsibly capitalize on the Commonwealth’s vast energy resources in order to create jobs and keep energy prices manageable for consumers.”

Cuccinelli said he wants to “reduce excessive regulation … so more energy resources can be explored,” and “prevent excessive energy taxes that could destroy jobs.”

According to his press release, he chose the location – Electro-Mechanical Corporation in Bristol — for a reason.

“While newer sources of energy are core components of the plan, we also know coal and other more traditional resources are essential to a sound energy policy,” Cuccinelli said in the release. “We unveiled the plan in Southwest Virginia because unlike my opponent, I’ve consistently believe Virginia’s coal industry is not just a key part of Virginia’s history, but also its future.”

Cuccinelli said he supports cleaner energy sources as well, and that the environment must be protected, but that such protections must also be balanced with the jobs potential of energy sources.

He also said he would pursue waivers for Virginia to opt out of federal ethanol requirements. Gov. Bob McDonnell has already sought ethanol waivers (and been rejected) — the federal requirements for increasing use of ethanol, which is corn- and soy-based, are straining resources needed by farmers and livestock producers, according to McDonnell’s administration. Sen. Mark Warner and former senator Jim Webb had also asked the administration to waive the ethanol standards.

Cuccinelli’s press release lists the following proposals for energy:

• Prevent excessive energy taxes that could destroy jobs, cost consumers, and restrict development of the Commonwealth’s natural resources;
• Fight for Virginia’s right to responsibly explore our abundant offshore energy resources, and streamline related regulations so quality jobs can be created in the immediate term;
• Protect the environment, while balancing this protection with the critical need to increase energy production, improve and modernize energy technology, and bolster job creation;
• Oppose federal overreach in the energy and environment sphere, such as the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) effort to treat water like a pollutant;
• Request all available waivers to opt Virginia out of federal ethanol fuel requirements;
• Support development of a wide range of alternative and clean power options, including nuclear, wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, without relying on government subsidies, and encourage research in clean coal technology.

The University of Virginia’s Center for Responsive Politics today posted a look at nativity rates, based on census data, and how those rates can relate to a state’s shifting political persuasions. It’s an interesting read, particularly if you’re interested in demographic shifts.

In Virginia — where the percentage of residents born here dipped below 50 percent for the first time in 2010 — the shifting nativity rate is largely driven by people moving into the D.C. suburbs, the Center’s report says.

The full report, complete with charts and analysis, can be found here: http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/

Bolling has been vocal about his feeling that the GOP is shifting too far to the right, and has criticized Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli — who will formally receive the gubernatorial nomination Bolling coveted at the party’s convention this Saturday — as too ideological.

His new PAC, dubbed the Virginia Mainstream Project, will work to help elected moderate Republicans.

“As I’ve said many times over the past several months, there is a growing need in the Republican Party in Virginia to recruit and elect mainstream, conservative candidates to state and local office and promote responsible policy solutions to the most important challenges facing Virginia,” Bolling said today in a press release announcing his new PAC.

He said the group will focus on recruiting and supporting “mainstream Republican candidates” at the state and local level, with a special emphasis on the 2013 House of Delegates races and 2015 state Senate races.

Bolling said the PAC will also “provide a platform” to discuss “the need for mainstream approaches to governing in Virginia that put policy ahead of politics and seek to promote compromise and bipartisan cooperation.” He also plans to use it to promote “responsible conservative policy solutions” on issues, particularly fiscal policy, economic development, health care and tax and education reform.

Bolling said he filed the paperwork to create the PAC on Tuesday, and gave it all the remaining money from his campaign committee — he had $492,384 cash on hand in his gubernatorial account as of March 31, according to records at the Virginia Public Access Project.

He’ll also raise more money for the PAC, he said.

“It’s really a matter of private property,” McDonnell told reporters today. “Would I prefer that he be buried somewhere else, sure.”

He said the state doesn’t regulate burials on private property.

Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout with police a few days after the bombings at the Boston Marathon, which killed three people. He and his brother allegedly planted the bombs; his brother was arrested after the shootout.

The ad, which you can watch here, refers to proposals Cuccinelli announced last week to cut income and corporate taxes and evaluate the elimination of a vast range of tax preferences the state gives out to corporations and other groups.

In the ad, he says he would increase job growth by cutting taxes on “job-creating small businesses and middle-class families” and pay for it through eliminating tax preferences for “the powerful and well-connected.”

Last week Cuccinelli proposed lowering the corporate income tax rate from 6 percent to 4 percent, and the individual income tax rate from 5.75 percent to 5 percent over four years. Doing so, he said, would cut about $1.4 billion out of the state’s annual budget.

He was less specific about how that money might be made up, but said — as he does in the ad — that some of it could come from eliminating tax preferences.

He also wants to look at eliminating local business taxes, and cutting out state tax credits and loopholes that studies show cost the state millions of dollars.

Cuccinelli made his first policy pitch of the gubernatorial campaign at Sweet Frog, a yogurt shop, in Richmond’s Carytown today.

He said his tax proposals were engineered to help attract and retain businesses.

He’s proposing to cut the individual income tax rate from 5.75 percent to 5 percent over four years, and cut the corporate income tax rate from 6 percent to 4 percent.  Those tax cut proposals would cut about $1.4 billion from the state budget, he said.

Cuccinelli would also limit state budget growth to the rate of inflation plus population growth, which he said would have cut the most recent budget by $530 million.

He also proposes to eliminate a lot of tax exemptions that state leaders have allowed over the years for a variety of businesses.

In late 2011, a study by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission indicated that Virginia has 187 tax preferences that reduced state revenue by about $3 billion in 2008.

Of that $3 billion, $489 million went to tax preferences to promote economic activity The largest chunk, $31 million, went to two coal tax credits. Another $30 million went to railroad and airline exemptions.

Cuccinelli said today that those exemptions can “promote crony capitalism” and favor some industries over others.

Both Cuccinelli and rival Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe are shifting their campaigns’ focus to policy this week; McAuliffe is making several stops around the state this week to talk about his policy agenda.

Interestingly, one item is on both men’s agenda: a repeal of three unpopular local business taxes.

Both men have proposed eliminating or changing the Business Professional Occupational License (BPOL) tax, the machine and tool tax, and the merchants capital tax.

And neither is the first to propose getting rid of those taxes — last session House Speaker Bill Howell proposed a study to look at eliminating them, which didn’t pass.

Cuccinelli said he wouldn’t outright eliminate those taxes, but instead would set up a commission to study how to eliminate them while not reducing local government revenue.

Not every locality uses those taxes, but some rely heavily upon them; Cuccinelli said his goal would be to eliminate them in a way that’s revenue neutral for localities.

McAuliffe, who proposed eliminating or reducing the same taxes in a press release last week, also wants to do it in a revenue-neutral way.

Cantor,whose 7th district covers part of Orrock’s House district, endorsed Orrock on Wednesday, in a press release sent out by Orrock’s campaign.

“I served with Bobby Orrock in the House of Delegates, and I am proud to support his re-election,” Cantor said in the release. “Bobby is a strong commonsense conservative who has fought to reduce wasteful spending and to protect our liberties.”

Orrock, a Caroline County Republican who was first elected to the 54th House of Delegates district in 1989, is being challenged by Dustin Curtis, a former chairman of the Fredericksburg Tea Party Patriots.

In a press release recently, Curtis said he’s challenging Orrock because of Orrock’s votes for the transportation funding reform bill and for budget language that conservatives believe allows the expansion of Medicaid eligibility.

Curtis opposes both

Orrock is one of five incumbent Republicans facing a primary challenger in June. At least three of those challengers have said their candidacy was spurred at least in part by the incumbent’s vote for the transportation bill. Anti-tax conservatives consider the bill a huge tax increase and have been furious at McDonnell, House Speaker Bill Howell and any lawmaker who supported the bill ever since.

Howell, R-Stafford, has vowed to help any incumbent Republican who faces a challenge due to supporting the bill, and has founded a new political action committee to help raise money for those delegates.

Orrock has run afoul of Tea Party groups on other issues. This session that conflict was most notable on a farming bill that would have put into the state code specific permission for farms to sell byproducts—anything from eggs to clothing made from sheep’s wool to chairs made from the farm timber—on the farm, without regulation by a local government.

Orrock in committee got that bill amended to delay its enactment (it eventually failed in a Senate committee) and earned the ire of the bill’s supporters.

Orrock this session had his own bill, to exempt from inspection certain home-processed foods—like canned vegetables, vinegars, baking mixes—as long as the resident labels the food items to clarify that they haven’t been inspected by the state.

He indirectly referred to the session’s fight over farming and property rights in today’s press release, saying that “as a strong supporter of Virginia’s largest industry, the agriculture industry, he wrote the law that will make it easier for farmers to sell their goods directly to the public.”

Unlike most of the recent press releases from the campaigns and their parties (Republicans dinging McAuliffe on his apparently less-than-successful GreenTech car manufacturing plant, Democrats going after Cuccinelli for his ties to political donor and gift-giver Jonnie Williams Sr. and his company Star Scientific), both ads are soft biographical ads meant to paint the candidates as family men.

Cuccinelli released his ad first, early this week. It features his wife, Teiro, talking into the camera. She says Ken “spent his life standing up for the vulnerable and those in need,” and cites time he has spent volunteering at homeless shelter, working against sexual assault in college, and has represented people with mental illness.

“Virginians deserve a governor who is experienced, principled and honest,” she says.

You can watch the ad here.

McAuliffe’s ad, released today, shows old pictures of him as a child and starting a paving business in his teens. It also shows photos of him cuddling his children as babies and toddlers.

“My wife Dorothy and I have lived in Virginia for over twenty years and here we’ve raised five children of our own,” McAuliffe says in the ad. “I know nothing is more important to Virginians than creating good jobs that can support a family. That will be my focus every day.”

You can see McAuliffe’s ad here.

Not surprisingly, in both cases the opposing side was quick to criticize the other’s ad, in similar ways.

Reaction to Cuccinelli’s ad came from the Democratic Party of Virginia, which released a statement saying that Cuccinelli is just trying to shift attention from his positions on social issues.

“Ken Cuccinelli’s attempts to paper over his extreme record won’t distract Virginians from his attacks on women’s health, his radical politicization of his taxpayer-funded office or his shady conflict of interest with Star Scientific,” said the DPV statement. “Just this week, Cucinelli’s real agenda as Attorney General was clear as his effort to shut down women’s health clinics in the Commonwealth began to take effect.”

Cuccinelli’s campaign hit back at McAuliffe this morning with a statement in which spokeswoman Anna Nix said McAuliffe is trying to distract from his record as a big national fundraiser for Democrats.

“Terry McAuliffe’s first campaign ad attempts to erase his record as a showman, salesman, and moneyman.  After more than thirty years of fundraising for liberal candidates and leveraging his political contacts for his own financial gain, Terry McAuliffe doesn’t want voters to know who he really is,” Nix wrote. “Following weeks of unrelenting coverage of his electric car company’s failure to produce the jobs McAuliffe promised and his personal failure to be open and honest with Virginia voters by releasing his tax returns, McAuliffe’s ad is nothing more than his latest attempt to change the subject.”