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Kilgore Won’t Challenge Boucher

House Republican officials won’t be landing their top candidate to oppose Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) in the state’s southwestern 9th district.State Del. Terry Kilgore (R) told the Washington Post Thursday that family considerations and his seniority in Richmond influenced his decision.“I’m doing more for southwest Virginia in Richmond than I ever could in Congress,— said Kilgore, who was first elected in 1993 to the Republican-controlled state House. Re-elected in November 2009, Kilgore would not have had to surrender his seat to challenger Boucher.No Republican has filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to organize a 2010 campaign against Boucher.Boucher is a formidable political figure in Virginia’s 9th, which includes Blacksburg, Bristol and other territory in the state’s southwestern corner. Though the district has a culturally conservative orientation, Boucher has won at least 60 percent of the vote in each of his last dozen re-election campaigns. He was unopposed in 2008.Republican strategists have said that Boucher is politically vulnerable because of his votes for the Democrats’ health care and cap-and-trade energy bills and because Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell (R) dominated the 9th district vote in the November 2009 election.

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